I love...

Have you met Miss Jones ?


If you haven't, you need to. Pronto!! I am in love with these little white goodies... My collection is starting to grow!


Earrings.. I especially love these! Ben found them for me on a recent trip to Salamanca market.


This bouquet. Not my usual style, but it was truly stunning! I especially loved the pleated ribbon handle the Bride requested.


Autumn. Chilly mornings & sunny afternoons.


This tattoo. Love it! Hayley from Paramore - I dig your style.

Wedding Plans : Dreamy Bouquets

As our wedding date looms near (more on that soon) I'm starting to become slightly stressed about my bouquet. As a florist, it's so important to me to have THE perfect bouquet... But the problem is, I still can't decided exactly what I want.
Floristry is like fashion, it changes all the time with new trends emerging every season. In my five year career I know my style has changed a lot, as a first year apprentice my dream bouquet was a trailing bouquet of pink tulips. It then later changed to pink frangipani (which I now despise) with pepper berries. I want my bouquet to be timeless & to be the most stunning bouquet I've ever made. Sigh, if only I could make up my mind... Here is my current inspiration...

The life of a Miners Wife... (almost!)

My fiancé works in the mining industry. Ben currently works on a 5&5 roster, he works for five days and comes home for five, it's a three and half hour drive from home. I'm lucky enough to now only work 4 days at the florist so Ben and I have more time together when he is home & I appreciate and savour every minute we have together and we talk for around two hours on the phone each day while he's away at work. I know they say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but honestly sometimes it just leaves me lonely.

I've spent the last two evenings searching google for a miners wife forum, some kind of online community. I've found a couple of good websites with a lot of active members and while I could relate to a little of what these women were discussing I found myself skimming over a lot of conversations about having children while your husband works on a FIFO (fly in, fly out) roster.

We've made our plans for the future, discussed what we'd like to do in the next five years, ten years even and having children play no part in those plans what so ever. We'll be married this year & move to Brisbane later this year once Ben secures a mining job in Queensland. We've talked about all the places we'd like to travel & decided on where we'll go first. Since I was a teenager I've always said having children wasn't for me, I've had a few people tell me that I'll change my mind once I'm married (I have no idea why) - hence I found myself almost excluded from these discussions.

I had a fair idea that what made up "our family" (my 'almost' husband and I, two rabbits & most likely a dachshund or two in the future) wasn't the norm within the industry yet I never expected to find myself feeling slightly more alone after looking for women I could relate to.

Don't get me wrong, the positives of Ben's job sure outweigh the negatives. He only has to work half of the year & while he might not be home every night after working a 9-5 job, we have a lot more free days together when he is home rather than just the weekends. We can take longer holidays, enjoy life the way we want to live it and we appreciate the time we have together even more. To be honest, as much as I miss him while he's away, I can't imagine our lives together any other way.

Advice...

"Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth."
In the past few weeks I've had a little bit of what you might call "marriage advice"
After thinking about what these people had said, it occurred to me that it wasn't actually advice, but more of a recollection of what went wrong in their own marriage.
"everything changes once you get married, you get comfortable"
This is a statement I've heard more than once, meaning that after a while you loose interest in one another, get a little lazy even.
To me this is ridiculous and a clear sign as to why their marriage didn't work.
I've worked as a part of the wedding industry for 5 years, I've had the pleasure of working with some fantastic couples that just glow with love & affection for one another. But I've also worked with brides that are obsessed with the idea of a wedding, who are more concerned with having a perfect bouquet of peonies than considering what their future husband might like on the menu.
Regardless of the size of your wedding, it really should be a reflection of you both.
When Ben and I got engaged we both said we didn't want a big wedding, Ben doesn't enjoy being the centre of attention & to be completely honest, just the thought of walking down the isle in a big white dress with 200 people staring at me churns my stomach. Most people know we're planning to elope... "when" is the next big surprise!!
We believe Marriage is something that you both have to want more than anything, being in love with the other person so much that you know you couldn't live without them. Being considerate of each other, being open and honest and sharing everything. Put each other first & enjoy every moment you have together, making one another happy, encouraging & supporting each other.
Ben and I have this kind of relationship, we complement each other perfectly. There is never "you can't do that or go there" between us. We talk to each other and both know that we'd never do anything to make the other person unhappy. We share finances, we both work hard to contribute and never need to question one another's actions or purchases.
At the end of the day, we are nice to each other. We love each other exactly as we are & honestly - love is all you need.




Feel free to share with me what you believe has made your marriage successful

Vent #2 : pfft to politeness.

The purpose of my blog was never to write posts like this.
I usually share happy, pretty things. But I feel like I need to write this.
I like to think I'm a strong willed woman, I stand up for what I believe in & voice my opinion. But up until recently I had this terrible habit of keeping toxic friendships to simply be polite. I found myself with multiple connections that I knew said nasty things about me, that would write spiteful & malicious status updates on Facebook directed at my fiancé and I, people who gossip about everyone & generally have a bad attitude - people who make themselves feel better by belittling others & thrive on conflict.
It was my fiancé Ben who finally had enough and said "if you don't do something about this, I will" - and there it was, all the strength I needed to finally remove this negative energy from my life, and I feel so good for it. Needless to say I'm not the first.
The moral of this story, it's okay to be polite for the sake of being polite sometimes but don't jeopardise you're own happiness simply to avoid conflict.
Enough said.

I love : Teal & Seafoam

It seems everywhere you look in my nest, you'll find delightful shades of Teal & Seafoam...

Vent #1 - Keyboard Spite

It was always my understanding that Twitter & Facebook were created to help you connect with family, friends & like minded people and share important parts of each others lives. If only my newsfeed read that way - more often than not it's filled with ranty status updates, hating on others or having a spiteful dig indirectly.
Labelling people online is just not on. If you wouldn't say it to that persons face - don't use your keyboard to fill the world with you unnecessary spite.
I was once called "a child hater who will never be married" - Just because I have chosen to live my life with no desire to be a mother does not make me a bad person nor does it mean I can not be married (clearly)
Let me just add that the meaning of an engagement is not diamonds. It's about love & your commitment to that one person for the rest of your life.
I recently had this conversation with a friend on instagram, one comment she made rang very true "ring envy is the worse"
Green eyed monsters using social media to bully & belittle.
Enough said.
r

Day Five : 10am

Lucky for me, day five is Sunday. I spent the morning staking my tomatoes, picking the ripe ones, checking for pests & feeding my vegetable garden. I have beautiful little golden nugget pumpkins almost ready to be picked & I've had a lot more luck growing capsicum this year.

Weddings Plans : set the date

After getting engaged just over a month ago, everyone is now starting to ask "so when is the big day?" - fact of the mater is, we haven't decided!
This year we are planning to relocate to Brisbane, at this point in time we're saving to move & we'll be staying put until Ben finds a new job... Ideally we'd like to move in 6 months time but we'll wait and see what happens!!
We'd like to get married (in Tasmania) next March/April. An official date most likely won't be set until we have our relocation plans set in concrete. That doesn't mean we're not already planning though!
Even though I work as a part of the wedding industry, we're not planning on having a big wedding! Most people expect me to have a wedding with thousands of flowers - believe me, I love looking through magazines and trawling pinterest as much as the next Bride, but Ben and I have decided we want our day to be between us & our chosen bridal party - that's right! We're not having any guests!! It may not be to everyone's liking, it may even upset some people but at the end of the day it's what we want. I think many people loose sight of what a wedding is truly about - its a celebration of your love & the bride and groom should choose how ever they wish to do so.
We have our heart set on a private ceremony with our odd-numbered bridal party (5) in an apple orchard, we love the idea as we will be Mr & Mrs Applegate. If we were to have a big wedding, it would most certainly be apple themed!! I've put the word out on twitter & have asked a few local people, hopefully we'll find someone with a contact soon! If you know of anyone with an apple orchard, please send me an email or leave a comment, we'd really appreciate it.




I adore this photo... You'll find a link to my pinterest at the top of the page, I've also done a little bit of dress dreaming lately... How sweet is this, I adore the dress & she has a little bunny!

Day Three : Hands

  I really wanted a picture of our hands, fingers intertwined or simlar but Ben has gone back to work for the next five days... alas said picture could not be taken! I spent my lunch hour browsing a wedding magazine, staring at pictures of dreamy in full bloom roses, vintage crystal and chandeliers. I'm not sure exactly why as that's far from the ideas we have of our dream day.