Chloe and Sean

My first meeting with Chloe and Sean was over Skype. They live in Adelaide and as I am in Melbourne, obviously we couldn’t meet up face to face.  My sister is great friends with Chloe’s sister Amber and they suggested that I could do the wedding ceremony. I didn’t really think that they would want me to do it, in the beginning. I thought maybe we would have a chat and then the lovely idea would go into the too hard basket, as there are plenty of celebrants in Adelaide. The Skype session was quite hard for me, the connection wasn’t the best and I couldn’t see their faces that clearly, so I wasn’t really sure how all of what I was saying was being received. Even my newborn baby got upset towards the end of the meeting, but it must have gone well, as they decided that they wanted me to conduct their wedding.

I flew over to Adelaide to meet them and to sign their Notice of Intended Marriage. I had received completed questionnaires from them a few weeks prior, so I knew a little bit about them and we had been sending emails back and forth. It was lovely to finally be able to meet them in person and go and have a look at the amazing location that they had chosen for their ceremony. From their questionnaires I found out that they are huge Star Trek fans, one of my dearest friends is also a lover of all things Star Trek, so I enlisted her help to give me some insight about the best couples and love stories throughout the Star Trek series, with the hope of being able to use some Star Trek quotes and personalise their ceremony in a way that is truly them. I wanted to make sure that it would be obvious to them and fellow Star Trek fans that the quotes were in there, but not crazy out there parts that would be silly or abnormal to other people. I watched a Klingon wedding and took some lovely parts from it to include in their ceremony.

Chloe and Sean were married in Adelaide at the Capri Theatre in Goodwood, in April.  It was a stunning venue for a wedding. They had all wonderful theatre touches to complete the theme. They had fantastic ticket style invitations. They had popcorn and jaffas in the foyer of the theatre. All of the songs that they used throughout the ceremony were from movies. Sean, Chloe and all of their attendants entered the stage to the Imperial March, from Star Wars, and they used the music from the Cantina scene in Star Wars when signing the register. They even exited the stage to the Star Trek theme.

Sean loves that Chloe can quote Star Trek on command, that she has a no BS attitude, and a fantastic laid back nature. Although she insists on tickling him and hates cricket, she makes him laugh when she sneezes like a pixie.  Chloe loves that as a couple they basically function exactly the same when they are together as they do when they are apart. It makes her happy that they somehow managed to not need to change a single thing about their lives in order to share them so easily. Although Sean puts tomato sauce on pancakes, and snores, she loves how he takes everything that she dishes out to him, like a champ. He understands her, she can be weird, horrible or downright ridiculous and he loves her just the same.

All of Sean’s attendants had Star Trek tie pins and cufflinks.  Chloe and all of her attendants wore black floor length dresses. They looked fantastic, especially being in the theatre. Chloe’s dress was stunning. The ceremony went well, people laughing at all of the parts that were funny, and there were even some cheers when marriage equality was mentioned.

I am truly lucky to do what I do, and in cases like this travel around the country and marry lovely people with fantastic families and friends. I get to meet and get to know people like Chloe and Sean. I know that I am so lucky to get share some of the most amazing moments in people’s  lives with them. Hopefully, it’s just time to wait for Chloe’s sister Amber to be married, maybe I can make a return trip.

Thank-you to Amanda June Photography, for the photos from Sean and Chloe’s amazing day. Have a look at her other work, find her on facebook here.

Pants suits instead of a Wedding Dress

 

I love pintrest and looking at all things wedding. As I have said many times before I could spend all day talking about and looking at all things wedding. One recent trend that I have seen on Pintrest a little bit lately is Pants suits instead of Wedding dresses. Some of these suits are stunning and some are probably only catwalk material. (some have a little too much side boob for most brides I’m sure, but hey, whatever makes you happy.)

I’m not sure how I feel about a pants suit or  jumpsuit rather than a wedding dress. Again, Whatever suits you and makes your wedding your own, I just don’t know about how I personally feel about it. I think for me, I like a little bit of tradition, and I know I loved wearing my wedding dress. I wore it to Coles, I didn’t want to take it off (you can read about my wedding day here), I know a friend of mine has photos of herself with a backpack on in the nightclub line in her wedding dress!

For me I’d also be worried about how this would  date. Don’t get me wrong, styles change so much and I  wouldn’t necessarily  have the same dress that I chose 15 years ago. But I would wonder how I would feel about this at a later date if I went for something that was in style like the ‘Pants suit’.

Saying this some of them are simply stunning. And nothing different from bucking tradition and wearing say a red or a black wedding dress. What do you think of a pants suit instead of a wedding dress? Would you consider it?

These images are from Pintrest. Check out Pintrest for all sorts of wedding planning, or read my blog about using Pintrest to plan your special day here.

Deciding on changing your name

There are lots of things to consider when deciding if you will change your name once you are married. There are many pros and cons to doing so too.

Changing your name can be a little bit of hard work, and takes some time, you can’t just do it the day after the wedding. It is a long process and can’t usually be started until around 6 weeks after your wedding, as you have to wait for Births, Deaths and Marriages to process all of the forms. A copy of your marriage certificate also needs to be obtained (unfortunately the one that you get at the wedding can’t be used to change your name anywhere anymore.) Don’t book your honeymoon in your married name either as this can cause all sorts of problems. I’ve blogged previously about how you go about changing your name, you can read it here. Some institutions make it difficult if you want to change your name, it felt like it took me months to change my name on all sorts of official things.

Then there is the part of your name that is you. The you that you have identified with your whole life. There are all sorts of reasons that someone may want to keep their name, your profession or you may have built a reputation on the name that you currently have. Especially if you are an artist or journalist or something along those lines. It may be a reason that you want to keep your name. (Remember there is nothing to stop you changing your name and using your maiden name for just your career.) Some people may want to keep their maiden name because no one else is able to carry on the name. The reasons are endless.

One thing that is tricky is if you have children from a previous relationship, things can become interesting when they are at school or they have friends come over. I remember being called to the office by my mum’s new married name after she was remarried. I also remember people coming to my house and calling my mum by her previous married name. It caused problems when there were documents going home from school and confusion for friends who came over when I had to tell them that her name was different to mine.

I always wanted to have the same name as my kids and I don’t know if having a different surname to my mum for a lot of years has anything to do with that, but I have always thought that having the same surname as the rest of your family was nice. I never really liked the idea of a hyphenated name. I also know of couples where the bride and groom both decided that they would both change their name and start a new family name. Which is something to consider too.

There are so many options when deciding if you want to change your name, again it’s something that only you can decide.  What do you think about changing your name? Would you consider hyphenating your name or making up a new family name?

Thank-you to the Love Journal for the photos on this weeks blog. Check out their website here and their facebook page here.