Adoring Husband proposed to me on a karaoke stage, in the same pub, believe it or not, where he had met his first two wives! We had gone out for dinner with friends, so they were there to witness this proposal and they were pretty excited to be part of it.
He passed a note to the karaoke guy that read "Mick, call me up next. I want to propose to my girlfriend". So Mick calls him up. He hands Adoring Husband the microphone, who promptly gets down on one knee and asks me to marry him. I cannot, for the life of me, remember the words he used, but I do remember pausing, looking around at the crowd and then replying "absolutely", to which they all clapped and cheered.
I also recall telling Adoring Husband (or Adoring Fiance as he was back then) that I was disappointed that it wasn't a sober proposal.
We planned our wedding to go ahead a year later in Griffith, where I had lived for 22 years prior to moving to Sydney. Due to circumstances that I won't go into here, we had to cancel those plans and our wedding was postponed indefinitely.
So, last year, for my 50th birthday, my best friend, who you met in my most recent post and who once again will be known as Beautiful Girl with the Long Blonde Hair (aka BGWLBH), decided that she wanted to do something special for my birthday and shouted me a week in Surfer's Paradise.
Because of this, Vegan Chickie had to reveal that she had already planned a surprise visit with The Bare-chested Chef for my birthday.
Adoring Husband then decided that this might be a great opportunity to plan our wedding! We had six weeks to plan it. The first thing we did was contact the first Celebrant that we found on the internet. She was booked solid for a year, but had JUST had a cancellation for the exact weekend that we wanted. From there, every plan fell beautifully in place, as if it was always meant to be.
I wanted a wedding in the park by the river, followed by lunch at the pub. My friends and Adoring Husband decided that we should have something better than that. I raised my hands in the air and said "If that's the case, you can plan it without me. I don't want to know ANYTHING about it because I don't want any stress. Just do it!"
Two weeks before the wedding BGWLBH and I met in Surfer's Paradise. On the first day, we went shopping for the wedding dress and put together the perfect outfit in one day for half the price that we expected. That meant we could shop and play for the rest of the week! Wahoo for us!
It was an amazing week and we had a blast together. The weather was great. We had a nice win at the casino, so we got to do even more shopping and we ate at a different restaurant every night. We hadn't had any girlie fun like that in years, so it was good for us.
We drove home at the end of the week to find Vegan Chickie and The Bare-chested Chef waiting for us. What a happy re-union that was!
There was a Hen's night. Friends and family filtered in over the following days. A neighbour offered their house for guests to use while they were away, which was a wonderful gesture.
The day before the wedding was my 50th birthday. We had 50 guests come to the local pub for a birthday dinner. It was a great night and Adoring Husband had provided the most beautiful cake that I had ever seen. My local girlfriends had made up a basket with silly gifts that I had to open one by one and we had a few short speeches and some laughs.
The perfect cake!Finally, the big day arrived. As a surprise, Adoring Husband had arranged for our neighbour with a white convertible Mercedes, to be our driver. He picked us both up at the house and drove us to the park. It was a glorious day. The birds were singing, the sun was shining, the water was glistening in the sunlight and all our friends were gathered there waiting for us to arrive.
The Celebrant had sprinkled rose petals along the pathway and we walked (and danced a little) to the sound of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough". We reached the Celebrant and made our vows, which included some fun stuff about football and golf, but also the serious and romantic stuff. We signed the registry to the music "I Wanna Grow Old With You" from the movie 'The Wedding Singer' and then finished with "You Make Me So Very Happy" amid the cheers, applause and congratulatory hugs from our friends and family.
Off we went to a friend's house, where the secret wedding reception had been planned and as we walked up the driveway, there were all the portable gazebos and tables decorated in my favourite colour, purple. It was so beautifully done. They had gone to so much trouble to make it the way they thought I would like it. Not too much and not too little. It was just right!
We drank, we ate, we danced, we made speeches. My sister, Squirt, made a speech that brought everyone to tears. Another perfectly beautiful cake was provided. We danced some more and a few even sang ... badly I might add.
The happiest day of my life :o)After about 10 hours, our wedding and reception was over.
It was so much more than I could ever have imagined. The work that so many of my friends put into making it the perfect day, was above and beyond anything that I could hope for. Everybody was happy and smiling and laughing and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.
My heart overflows with joy whenever I think of that day. It was, indeed, our perfect wedding day!
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