West Aussie Wedding

couches

We wanted some comfortable seating options for our cocktail reception.

I had looked into hiring some couches or ottomans and they were going to cost about $150 each!

Daylight robbery! You can BUY couches for that price. So that's what we did. (Well we were already living in the sticks by this stage so that's what my parents did- thanks Mum and Dad)..

In the months before the wedding they started trawling garage sales, perused roadside rubbish collections and went to charity shops..

For a grand total of $60 came up with these five, (pictured with the famous cushions)

For a few weeks there Mum and Dads house was over run with couches. There was a lounge on every veranda.

But they worked a treat at the wedding. The mix matched-ness lent a slightly artistic feel (I think) and gave people a comfortable place to rest. The brown couches are real leather and actually pretty stylish (I think) and Mum and Dad obviously quite liked have couches on the back veranda so are going to keep those two.

But the cool thing is after the wedding a friend of Mother in Law phoned her to ask if they could borrow the couches for her sons upcoming nuptials.. of course they can! Reusing the recycled! How rad is that!

honeymooning is fun.

Being on a holiday with your new husband is ace!

We flew out of California last week and went straight to Las Vegas, which was a bit of a hoot.

We went to the Grand Canyon in Arizona, which I have always wanted to see.

Then we got off the beaten track made our way down through Texas and I bought some cool cowgirl boots. Went to the NASA museum in Houston which was really interesting (Appollo 13 one of my favourite movies) we spent most of the day there, even though we are not usually ones to linger in museums. 

Now we are in Louisianna, we camped by some beautiful lakes where we saw alligators and I have been bitten by mosquitos but it was worth it, such beautiful countryside.

Now we are living it up in New Orleans. Last night we had a bit too much fun feeling slightly wretched today.

It's been good being on the road. Our campervan is well decked out. Its a lot smaller than a lot of the ones people drive over here, but big enough for us. The Mister has been doing most of the driving. I have been doing most of the navigating, and it's been fun. We forgot our i-pod so have been listening to local radio and buying CDs from musicians we have heard along the way.

tiara

I'm not usually one for tiaras. They are a bit too prissy and princess for a day.

But these ones are cool

image via Lolita  

image via obsessionMIA

image via Pursuit Aesthetic 

image via ObsessionMia

image via Le Blog de Betty 

They are similar to the wedding headdresses, but just taken down a notch
 

Perth Hills Discovery Centre

This is our wedding venue.

It's on Allen Road in Mundaring, behind the Visitors Centre, nestled on the edge of the National Park.

There is the bush ampitheater where we have our ceremony, and less than 500m away is the open sided pavillion where we have our reception.

These photos were taken by me a year before we had the wedding

 
 
The Perth Hills National Parks Centre is open to the public from 9am-4pm each day, and we hired out the whole site including the camp ground for about $450.

You are renting just the space so you can BYO alcohol and use any caterers you chose. You can decorate how you want. You can make as much moise as you like and stay as late as want. It has power and lights and there are toilets on site. There is lots of parking and there are some rooms also available for hire.

We timed our ceremony for 4.30pm so that the Visitors Centre would be closed and we would have the place to totally ourselves. It is a good time of day up there as the ampitheatre is in complete shade and the kangaroos start jumping around in the bush.

You probably remember the hiccup we had with our booking, but I wouldn't want that to put anyone off having their wedding here. It was a double booking caused when they changed computer system, so would be unlikely to be repeated.

I feel so lucky to have found this beautiful bushland venue!