The day was beautiful, everything went smoothly, there were no problems and even our guests behaved themselves.
I spent the Sunday night with my bridesmaid, Kirsten at our hotel - The Bridgewater Quest Apartments.
We went out to dinner with my step-mother, Cheryl, and my step-sister, Mandy. I introduced them to the Sushi Station, neither of them had had it before. We were intending on going to the Treasury Casino (this was my hen's night), however, my step-sister was too young to get in.
Looking for something to do, and having some time to kill, we decided to go on a CityCat ride, initially we were only going to go up to UQ and back, however, we decided to complete the whole trip: North Quay - UQ - North Quay - Brett's Wharf - North Quay.
We had a good time, and shocked the hell out of the nice deckhand we met, when he realised that I was getting married the following day. He seemed to think that I should be at home panicking instead of on a ferry at midnight - I thought that it was a rather unique way to spend the night before my wedding.
After months of careful planning and hard work, I knew that there was little that could go wrong with the wedding. However, the weather forecast for the day was "Late afternoon/early evening thunderstorms or rain." This meant I spent most of my day watching the sky - we did have a wet weather (basically to have everything happen on the lower deck of the boat where it was covered), but I was hoping that we wouldn't have to use it. The morning was cloudy and a bit dreary looking - not very hopeful - luckily after lunch the weather cleared up and the sky was perfect.
Judy, my hair and makeup artist, turned up at about 12 noon to start my transformation. My mother, Robyn, my grandmother, Katy and my great-aunt, Gwen turned up to join Kirsten and I for lunch, and to watch me get ready. I am not sure what they found fascinating but they watched me for two hours - getting both my hair and makeup done. Judy did a fantasic job and best of all, I never noticed that I was wearing it - which is pretty good considering I very rarely wear make up.
When Dallas, the co-ordinator of River Weddings & Bouquets, arrived with my flowers, everything stopped. They were beautiful, my bridal bouquet was the size of a large dinner plate and was about 60 heads of glorious yellow roses, my most favorite of flowers. Kirsten's bridesmaid bouquet was the size of a small dinner plate, and was about 40 heads of beautiful yellow roses. Dallas had lightly sprayed the bouquets with some glitter, it made them shine and look that much more special.
At about 2:30 pm my dad, Donnie, my step-mum, Cheryl, my brother, Bradley and my step-sister, Mandy arrived - luckily I was mostly dressed and my hair and make up were finished. In the wedding traditions, there is a saying, "Something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue." For me these were:
Something old - my emerald bracelet that my mother gave me for my 18th birthday
Something new - nearly everything I was wearing was the something new
Something borrowed - I don't recall having anything borrowed
Something blue - My dad and step-mum gave me two garters (one black to go with the trims on my dress and the other white with multi-coloured bits on it)
Angela, my photographer arrived at about 3 pm to take the photos of me with my family.
From my room, I had a 180 degree view of the Brisbane River, on one side I was looking directly at the Story Bridge, and in direct view was the river, and the dock where the "M.V. James Cavill" was due to dock. I spent all afternoon looking for it - was I relieved and excited to see it pull up. It was one of the highlights of the day.
©
Fiona Marshall (a.k.a. Kawani) 2000 |
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