Mar
27
2008
Jan
14
2008
Life is not measured by the breaths you take…
… but by the moments that take your breath away. I can’t find a source for this quote but it is one of the most inspirational texts for me.
Another is one that I found on a piece of beautiful swirly red scrapbook paper in the US, a quote from Goethe: We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.
The last few weeks have whirled by, what with new job and travel to Sydney and visits from friends, but most constant through it is the gooey usness of sitting together with Jezebel (she made it out of mandatory detention safely, unlike that poor man this week), or kissing in the checkout line, or snuggling in the morning.
I realise I haven’t written up the wedding itself yet (I’ve been waiting for the ‘official photos’ to come through but they haven’t; also I have had no time).
In the morning, Jack and Doug were at the amphitheatre. Jack did a cleansing and asked permission from the ancestors to hold a ceremony there. I meant to explicitly declare we were on Wurundjeri land as part of the ceremony, but I forgot. Doug ritually swept the circle. I wanted to go up there and do stuff too, but I had my hair done and there was general consensus that I should stay out of the rain, so Daniel and I stayed home and fretted. Pointless, really, because in the end, I didn’t like my hair very much at all and the rain messed it up anyway! None of which mattered on the day in the slightest.
I remember grinning like a loon most of the day. I remember our goblet pouring ceremony again. This time Doug pledged to bring ‘whimsy’ to the relationship after he had been barely audible and then yelled “I’m here!” when asked to declare his intentions. Our vows were terrific — from Seline’s book, not written by us, but great —
I, Douglas,
promise you Rosanne, to be your love, companion and friend,
Your ally in conflict, your comrade in adventure,
Your consolation in adversity, your confederate in revelry,
Your accomplice in mischief and your partner in parenthood.
I pledge my love to you
And joyfully accept the commitments of this, our marriage.
The looks in each others’ eyes on ‘your accomplice in mischief’ were great. I love our rings: mine white gold with champagne amber, cognac amber and garnet, Doug’s red gold with the same stones. Again, photos later I guess. Dancing to ‘our song’ (”Chasing Cars” by Snow Patrol) was delightful and romantic until the partner of Dad’s friend Rusty came over and tapped us mid-kiss and gruffly said, “We have to go. We have better things to do.” He has a very strange sense of humour. The cake was delicious and looked fantastic. The food was amazing — I’m still so incredibly chuffed that Jess found gluten-free, vegie catering with the Asylum Seeker’s Resource Centre so that our wedding helped people! The organic wine was delicious but we ordered for a hot day and misjudged completely. Many wonderful people followed our requests and donated to charities on our behalf instead of giving us presents. We have yet to send out thank you cards, but we will. We forgot to get people to sign the guest book. We remembered to ask for speeches and we got some lovely ones and also Dad going off on some tangent about whether Sydney or Melbourne has better food.
It was a wonderful day. If I am shaped and fashioned by what I love, then I look forward to discovering what I become, my love.
Dec
23
2007
Wedding rain
Finally emerged from our marital bed this afternoon and made duck-egg omelette with smoked trout and avocado and parmesan. Mmmm.
The wedding was wonderful, rain included, although I’m disappointed with the way the technology failed to function. Especial apologies to poor
![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
who presumably dragged herself out of bed at 4am to find no one on the other end. I tried to connect about four times but we never had a high enough signal strength to make it work. What’s worse, it looks like the video didn’t work either. If any one else got video, could they please digitise it and send me a DVD? I will then upload it and tell everyone where to get hold of it.
I will gush at a later point about how wonderful it all was when I’m less brain-mushed and go back to snuggling my man.
Dec
18
2007
Webcasting plans
I have just placed an order for an Unwired Ethernet modem and if nothing else, we should have Skype-casting of the ceremony and an ability for people to do a certain amount of video chat… Unfortunately, Skype can only do one person video at a time, so we might have to do bookings… And
definitely has precedence, followed by Matt…
I’ve tracked down a person with a video camera but I need to find a Darwin streaming server that will host live webcasting. Dreamhost only does streaming after the fact. Of course, that would make it more convenient for most of my overseas friends, because you’ll be able to watch it at your leisure. Any technical folk able to help me out on this one?
For the record, the ceremony will be occurring Dec 22, at 4am Enschede time; Dec 21, at 7pm, Pacific (California) time; and Dec 21, at 10pm, New York time. Solstice moment itself is at 4.08pm Australian Eastern Summer Time so we’ll still be partying over the moment itself and I for one will be lifting a glass to the sun at that time.
Oct
2
2007
The one with the cake
Yep, it’s the post you’ve been waiting for.
I’ve written up the ceremony and stuck a whole lot of photos of the reception and stuff over at Mordwen’s Lounge. I really need to update the style that’s using because I’m not at all impressed with how it has laid this out. In the preview, all the images were next to each other prettily, two by two. Ah well. Just read the captions as if they were, okay? There are more photos hiding in the folders those photos came from and it’s not locked so go hunting if you want more.
The Australian ceremony will be similar to this with some bits exactly the same but we’ll be adding and subtracting too.
Oh, and you can comment here or there, either is fine. *grin*