Nerves

 

Dress: Jane Bon Bon

Cardigan: Dorothy Perkins

Shoes: Milu

We’re now just over a month from D-Day, and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to being just a smidge nervous.

Originally, when The Sophisticate and I started planning our wedding, it started with the idea of a low-key, casual event. Trestle-tables-in-a-park, everyone-brings-a-plate style. I was handballing ideas around like “helium balloons!”, “Fairyfloss machine!” and “Photobooth costume dress-ups!”, and anyone looking at my notes would be hard-pressed to tell if I was hosting a Hipster Wedding or an eight-year-old’s birthday party.

When the opportunity to stage the event at my Uncle’s property Terrara our ideas evolved into something a little more elegant, though we were still keen to hold on to the no-fuss feel for the day.

Neither The Sophisticate nor I earn a large amount of money, and both of us are of the opinion that a wedding is nothing more than a good opportunity to tell each other “I love you” in front of all the people we care about. The fact that the average cost of a wedding in Australia was over $36,ooo was mind-boggling, and even if we had access to that kind of money we had no intention of putting that kind of capital into one party when – in the very sage words of one of my readers – “It’s only frosting. It’s the cake that matters”

I’ve kept repeating that mantra to myself over the last few months, but whether it’s the onslaught of Wedding Conversations (seriously, it’s all I talk about, I’ve officially become the most boring person ever) or an overdose of Big Fat Gypsy Weddings, I’m starting to feel nervous that my low-key, casual, no-fuss wedding might be…. well… not Weddingy enough.

We’ve made a few decisions that have raised some eyebrows (from the look of the thing, to how we’ve decided to document the day, to our compete disinterest in having a “first dance”) and a few things we’ve had to back down on (we won’t be doing our own music). A few of our ideas turned out to be WAY more expensive than we’d anticipated (*cough*Photobooth*cough*) so we’re trying to be a bit more inventive.

We’re very lucky in that we’ve been able to enlist some of our incredible friends and family to help us on the day, which is what we wanted in the first place; somehow it makes it feel more special to have our loved ones involved.

And I’m trying to remember Toni’s frosting analogy rather than succumbing to the “Most Important Day In Your Life” malarkey, because, let’s be honest, not everything’s going to go off perfectly without a hitch, and I’d hate to look back on the day and remember only the things that went wrong.

 

A New Vintage Obsession

Dress & Belt: Bettie Page Clothing

Cardigan: Crossroads

Shoes: Chie Mihara

I’ve had sweater clips and shoe clips, and now I have a new obsession… dress clips.

A few weeks ago The Sophisticate and I were trawling the antique shops in Melbourne for wedding bands and I spotted these little beauties in a shop in Armadale. At first glance it appeared to be a pretty marcasite brooch, but on closer inspection they revealed themselves to be like the dress clips I’d admired on one of my booksellers earlier in the month.

They’re actually a bit of both.

Cunningly, the little clips can be attached to a frame that turns them into a brooch, or you can wear them separately like I did today.

I was wearing them when dropped in to one of my favourite antique jewelers and he was telling me that most dress clips were designed to multi-task this way, although over time the clips themselves tend to become orphaned.

There are so many different ways I’ve found to wear dress clips: You can use them to accent a dress, to adjust a neckline, to secure your cardigan or decorate your collar. You can use them as hair clips, as shoe clips or even as a pendant by clipping one over a necklace or a bit of ribbon.

These came from one of the swankier (i.e. expensive) antique shops in Melbourne, and they still cost me less than $50 – A quick look on Etsy reveals hundreds… and unlike sweater guards they don’t seem to have hit a resurgence in popularity (yet) meaning that they’re all pretty affordable and easy to find.

I don’t know about you, but I’m buying up now!