{Wedding} Uber Bride

As you may know - we have lost all our professional wedding pictures. And by "lost" I mean, our wedding photographer had a dog vs hard drive catastrophe and let's just say the hard drives came off second best. You can read the whole long sob story here.

I have been trying to go through the few random pictures that we did get from the photographer - they are either mainly party shots or random crazy shots - most of them are screen-grabs of a a big computer screen which are obviously too low res to print.

Straight after the wedding I blogged about "how to be the most awesome bride evarrrr" in which (ironically) I mentioned that you should just be a real bride and not to worry about getting all the 'bridesy-shots' - your photographer will have that covered - lol turns out, all the photos I now have of me on my wedding day, I am either pulling a crazy face, laughing so hard it looks like I've been frozen in a pig snort or fishing something out my teeth. I'm not sorry. I have tried to scrape together bits and pieces from the few professional pics we have and the friends and family pics that I have asked them to send to me.

Let me be honest - our wedding album is turning out to be far from elegant. But - as wonderful husband says:

"Our love story is far from conventional. So, I guess we may as well have an unconventional wedding album to match."

Yeah, we love that guy.

I'd swop no-pictures to have found my soulmate, any day.

So - back to me hacking through the mess that is our wedding photos - I found these three photos which go together so I thought I would share them with you. Warren told me one of his mates was busy chatting to him when this whole debacle went down - 

like seriously? is there anything she can't do?!...

Warren: "Um... Sorry... If you'll excuse me, I have to go cheer on my lovely new wife..."

so yeah,

That happened.

Above: The unmistakeable leap of Victory.
{Picture left: "Did she just...?... wait. no. Did she just really... and that guy? And they were having a push-up contest... and she just beat..?...No.. she couldn't have...no.."}

Yeah buddy,

Yeah, I did.

 

So as I pull together random pics to (finally) show you some snippets from our day - be warned: you will not see elegant bridesy-portrait-composed moments - 

because we simply do not have them. 

You will only see the few random, crazy-beautiful in-between-snapshots bursting full of life - 

which, in all honesty - 

is exactly us.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

PS:  

Dearest Stuart Prior

I will be re-challenging you to a push-up contest on your own wedding day -

and you had better not lose again.

Your beautiful new wife would be very disappointed - 

and I would hate to have to feed her alcohol to drown her sorrows.

Until then -

Sincerely,

Mrs Dyer (League Wife).

xo

{Cartoon} PET PEEVES

When I was much younger I often slept over at my granny's house - Granny's house was the BEST time and I thought my parents kept dumping me there because they wanted me to have ALL THE FUN IN THE WORLD - although it was probably (mainly) because they wanted some time out. Whatevs.

At granny's house - there was bright pink and yellow typewriter paper - like boxes and boxes of it and all tied together with string. I used to get my gran to write down as many questions as she could on the pink and yellow paper because, for some reason, my six year old-self just loved answering questionnaires and making booklets of self-interviews.

(I know).

One of her questions - I remember very clearly - asked: 

"What is your pet peeve?"

Being the young fry that I was - I had no idea what this meant, so I asked my lovely granny and she told me:

"Well, it's like a pet thing you don't like very much or something that annoys you."

to which I remember replying - 

oh bless my little cotton socks.

* * * *

Anyway - today I thought I would share one of my PET PEEVES with you:

It is appropriate today because I have recently come across a really awesome lifestyle/yoga/meditative/good-life/beautiful inspiring-words blog which I would really love to share with you. But - this particular author has not yet grasped this concept and it irks me to my core.

So much so that I cannot actually even share it.

But, like - 

When your entire mantra is based off a grammatical error:

eg:

"YOUR A FIGHTER!"

No. I just cannot.

In fact, if husband ever messaged me to say:

"your my favourite thing"
I'd text him right back with 

"your sleeping on the couch"

Please do take the next few moments to really LEARN what I'm about to teach you - 

and let's make this world a grammatically happier place

those are your french fries. 

You bought them.

You own them

They belong to you.

They are yours.

Now when you say to your friend

"your awesome!"

what you are really saying is:

But

if they have already grasped this simple concept then - 

OK - 

The sneaky one eyed apostrophe bandit has successfully hijacked the letter A.

Sneaky one-eyed bandit is holding the letter A hostage.

still holding the letter A hostage.

Sneaky- one-eyed-apostrophe-bandit has hidden in that empty alleyway - 

 holding the letter A hostage. 

The Letter-Police are flummoxed.

..... and don't you forget it.

Your welcome.

:P

Grammar: the difference between knowing your shit, and knowing you're shit.

{Wedding} Saddest Bride

Dear indieBerries readers,

Please

bear with me - this post is slightly more "wordy" than you are used to seeing on indieBerries - but shortly, you will learn that, actually, words are all I have. I will try and whack in a few cartoons here and there to spice it up - but to be honest am not really in the "cartoony" mood. I am writing this blog post because there are a few things that I need to get off my chest:


It is of no real significance me telling you what I'm about to - it is what is it - other than that I need to get this heavy-world off my chest and husband will be very happy to come home to his much perkier wife. I have cried many (read: MANY) tears about it all and I'm ready to let it go.

(that is some freakin' HARD-CORE crying)

If you have been following the blog for a while now - you will know that I got married in April this year - (woohoo!! LOVE ETC!) - I have been posting random snippets from our wedding preparations (DIYs, stationery crafting, flowergirl shoe painting, paper flower making etc etc) and a few blog posts from Our Big Day - (as per request, I have even added a page to indieBerries - where you can easily see all the wedding related things I have already posted). We did a lot of really fun things at our wedding - which I think the guests really loved. I have been holding off posting about it all because I have been waiting for our professional pictures.

Then I got the email that is every bride's worst nightmare.

although, in my mind - it's a bit more:

You can go ahead and assume the worst.

The two hard drives with our wedding pictures on them were sent to a data retrieval company in Cape Town. The one hard drive was deemed "unsalvageable" due to the nature of the table-to-tile-floor-crash. Off the other hard drive they managed to retrieve a few pictures - some "party-shots" and some "out-take" shots - ie: those that would never have been selected to be edited for a wedding album - the kind where it looks like you're frozen in a pig-snort. Some of these pictures have been ok - and most have become corrupted files that our photographer has managed to screen shot to send to us. Which obviously, are too low res to print.

After the people in Cape Town were unsuccessful, the hard drives were then sent to Retrieval Specialists in California. At this point, no one knew we were having problems with our photos - because I was convinced that the specialists in the USA must be able to retrieve our photos. They too were unsuccessful with retrieving anything more off the hard drives.

Yesterday I received the few random and sporadic pictures/screenshots that have been retrieved. It was the most bittersweet tease, if ever there was. I cried at seeing the few, beautiful, random and pig-snorting pictures that I've been so desperate to see and I cried at how spectacular our wedding album would have been. There have been surprisingly more pictures than I was expecting - but at the possibility of absolutely none - even one photo is good.

I like to think of myself as a positive person and I have tried to "stay happy" and "positive" throughout this saga. I am a visual person: I love photographs and photography and we agonised for months over choosing our wedding photographer. A few days before the wedding - I wrote this blog post about how difficult it would be for me to not photograph my own wedding - And about secretly wishing to carry my iPhone and SLR around with me on the day so that I can safely record everything for myself. My mother said she would take my phone away from me at the wedding if I attempted to carry it around with me and snap pictures -

Oh, sweet sweet irony.

Remaining "positive" has not been the easiest. Warren (the saint) has been the most amazing husband he could be. (When we first found out there may be a problem - he literally took half a day off work to console his snot-faced wife). The good news is, in spite of the "no pictures" - we're still married. lol.

In an effort to console myself - I am starting a new Support Group:

For those un-snapped brides - who worked so hard to freaking TONE THEIR ARMS and have ended up with no pictures to show for the biggest and happiest day of their lives - Those brides who had their bridal mug-shots mugged from them. It will be a HUGE bridal movement. All devastated photo-less brides from ALL corners of the globe, will unite. If you know anyone who meets this description - please do send them this link.

We will meet bi-annually, drink ALL the wine and then not share our wedding photos.

I am going to be making pin-badges for all Mugged-Shot Bridal-members. Bridal members will wear aforementioned badges to every wedding they attend in the future. When the brides of these future weddings start telling these member-guests that they are being OBNOXIOUS with all their incessant picture taking - members will point to their shiny badges and say

You shut your mouth! You may thank me for this one day when your photographers hard drive gets zapped by their evil canine.

Mugged-shot brides! We will build a support-community the world over!

SEE LOOK! LOOK AT THIS POSITIVITY RAINING FORTH.

You see! how happy am i?!

exactly.

On the other, SUPER BRIGHT side, this will be the first time in history that a bride has an "ENTIRELY INSTAGRAMMED" wedding album! Hey! hey?!

How very hipster of us.

In the next coming weeks, I want to share with you some of the fun things we did at our wedding. In the posts there may be one or two professional pictures - but the majority of pics will be scraped together from the friends and family and iPhones at our wedding. (Any friend's who are reading this blogpost and did not see my Facebook plea - we would really love it if you could email us your pics from our wedding day - if we try to take your pictures off Facebook - they are not high quality enough for us to print).

Yes, Warren and I could have another couple shoot - or an "anniversary shoot" - we could get dressed back into our wedding gear (if it still fits) and snap ourselves again. To be fair, it's not really the same - we won't ever have all our family and friends gathered together under one roof - from all over the world ever again. We won't have that incredible, indescribable wedding-high that just makes wedding photos so alive with emotion. We won't have the feeling of that moment of complete commitment and devotion and the breath-taking sense of putting yourself and the rest of your life in another person. And - I can guarantee you, I will never sit down and literally stitch 200 wedding invitations ever again.



For those brides who have beautiful wedding albums (I loathe you) just kidding - am totes happy for you. But tonight - sit down with your husband, take out your wedding album, a bottle of red wine and reminisce about the best day of your life. You don't realise how precious those beautiful wedding photos are until you don't have them.

I have heard of lots of brides who aren't "that happy" with their wedding photos. Maybe there absolutely isn't any way to actually really capture the huge magnitude of what you are feeling on the day of your wedding? Maybe brides look forward to their photos because they are waiting to be reminded of how completely radiant and overwhelmed with love and emotion they were feeling - and maybe the pictures they get back - although absolutely stunning to everyone, are just never going to measure up to how incredible it was in your mind. So maybe this is a blessing.

Maybe never having photos to bring down the feelings in your soul, is a blessing.

Over the years, technology will improve and photos will fade. Ironically - all the brides who request the beautiful vintage and old-school photos in a few years will have those beautiful vintage and old school photos - not because their modern photographer has worked so hard to achieve it, but because they just are. I will always remember this day as bright, as colourful, as wonderful and as completely radiant as it always was. Over all the years of time, our day will never be dulled by newer, brighter, more modern technology.

Our 'photos' will never fade.

Over time, we start forgetting things - and we rely on the pictures we have to help jog our memories. I will never have those pictures to peg our day onto. For me, as time goes on -  there is no way that my memory will start shifting and my mind will inadvertently 'start-remembering-the-day-as-the-photos-tell-me-it-was' I will only always remember it as vibrantly beautiful and amazing as I know and felt it was.

We had the most glorious, spectacular and amazing day and for that I am eternally blessed and filled with gratitude. It was more than I could ever have dreamed our day to be.
and -

I will take no photos in exchange for the most gorgeous sunshine weather and the most indescribable sunset.
I will take no photos to have both sets of our parents - alive, happy, well and celebrating with us.
I will take no photos to have my dad walk me down the aisle, I will take no photos to have that special time to get ready with my mom, I will take no photos to have a crazy-show-down-dance-off with my little big brother.
I will take no photos to have family and friends flown in from London, Melbourne, Sydney, Dubai and across the country to share the day with us.
I will take no photos to have been surrounded by our closest and most amazing friends who made our day so special.
I will take no photos to have a day that was filled with a love so palpable, tangible and real that strangers took the time to email me.
I will take no photos to have found the one person who truly completes me. One person who makes it ok, not to have wedding photos because I don't need photos to remind me how amazing my life is, because I wake up to it every day.

Granted, I have had to make peace with a lot of things -

I will never have the exquisite couple shot that I had envisioned (in huge black and white canvas above our bed), I will never have the huge, happy, family wedding portrait to put on our mantle-piece. I will never have the beautiful snaps of all the wedding details that I worked so hard for over a year to craft and create. I will never have the perfect pictures of me in a gorgeous white dress getting ready with my mom and my bridesmaids. I will never have the heartfelt shot walking down the aisle with my dad and him giving me away to my new husband. I will never have a beautiful wedding album to one day show our children.

All I have is the vibrant, happy memory of a day that was alive with emotion and my little heart overflowing with love

and

{heavy sigh}

I'm ok with that.

  

Test Post

Photobucket is giving me hassles - test post

CRAZy TiMeS!

Today I'm feeling a bit like a crazy person with a bajillion thousand things to do. I know I don't really have a bajillion thousand things to do - but my brain is feeling like there is. I have so many different "projects" on the go - projects for other people, projects for me, projects for other-people-for-me. (I know, that last one's a bit tricky).

I have so many "things" going haywire in my mind (hence insomnia) that I have expressed my concern to the husband -

Me: I have so many things on the go! I like... I need like some kind of system! Like a... like a...

Husband: ...Like an excel spreadsheet?!

Me: No. Like a Pinboard.

Above: Left and Right brain thinkers - I can't remember where I saw this originally but you can see the image bigger if you click here. Tis so beautiful.

Because of all the madness currently on the go and in lieu of a "proper" blogpost - here are a few funny/lovely things -

(I don't have the original source for this - sorry y'all)

Otherwise, you can have a look at some artist sketchbooks
Or at this website - which is both cool and disturbing.. and... "are those facebook pictures?!"

and some super realistic artworks on boredPanda.

If you're in the WINNING mood - 

Glossary is running a very cool competition 

and so is Raising Men - I'm not in South Africa - 

so you will have to go WIN ALL THE THINGS for me.

oh yes.

and i'm cooking for Warr's mom tonight - 

so that will be fabulous.

DIY: Drunken Crafts.

So, the other Friday I attempted to make some dinner. Now - let me assure you, that every time I "attempt" to make some dinner - it is always the most massive celebration (wow! a meal!) and we drink ALL the wine.

So a few Fridays ago - after "A MEAL! I MADE A MEAL!" and one two bottles (+) of wine shared with the husband at home, I decided to get my craft on.

Introducing DIY Photo Coasters



What you need:

• old drinks coasters
• print outs of your favourite pics
• scissors
• modge podge and brush
• wine (optional)
• curious "wanting-to-help" husband (not recommended)

I printed out some snaps to use to up-cycle our coasters. I opted for a black and white colour scheme - but you could choose any colour scheme that works for you.



I used the coasters to trace around the printed pages so that each picture would fit exactly onto the coaster.



At which point, husband re-entered the lounge (third bottle of delicious red wine in hand)

Husband: Whatcha.... dooooin?
Me: Well, i thought I would just ya know... do a bit of craftin'
Husband: what is it?
Me: Well... I'm re-cycling these coasters with new black and white pics...
Husband: ...but like... what are you using that paintbrush for?
Me: It's for the modge podge - to stick the printed pictures onto the coasters.
*looks as husband, looks at paintbrush. Looks back at husband* It's FUN! You wanna try?

{ROOKIE MISTAKE}

Husband: Yeah awesome! Give me them-paintbrushes! Yeah! Imma craftin' !
Me: Ok, cool - I'm just gonna go get a tissue to wipe my fingers quick... Just make sure you put enough modge podge on the paper oh... and do a layer over the top once you've stuck them down... but i'll be back in two seconds so just wait until...

indieBerries returns to scene of crafting

Me: What are you doing?!
Husband: am MODGE-PODGING!
Me: ... but it has to be smooth! it's all lumpy now! you have to cut the pictures out first! That's why I was tracing them! Didn't you see me trace them?!
Husband: I'm doing it my way.
Me: Can we rather do it my way?



Once you have rescued your coasters from your wild-modge-podging husband, leave them to dry.


If you left this project in the clutches of your husband, the pictures on the coasters may not end up fitting exactly as you planned them to. Never fear - washi tape is on hand!



Cover up any exposed edges using a colour co-ordinating washi tape -

et voila!

drunken-crafting-wild-modge-podging-husband-lumpy-coasters.

If you do this properly - ie: trace out your pictures, apply your modge podge smoothly, put an extra layer on top and leave them to fully dry before man-handling them - you will have some awesome up-cycled coasters. If however, you'd prefer to involve your husband and a few bottles of red wine - you may not get the most beautiful looking coasters, BUT -

you will have fun and lots of laughter.

xo