Wow, I can’t believe how quickly our wedding day went. So much preparation work was achieved in the months before, and yet we were so busy in the week before. Ironically, on the actual day of the wedding, I found that I really had nothing to do until the groomsdudes rocked up. I occupied my time by tidying and cleaning up the house a bit, out of respect to our house-sitting friends. Before too long I was then playing Starcraft with Mike, although due to nerves my game was off so I had to stop playing. Gardening was then the next thing to occupy my time, until the photographer, and then groomsdudes arrived and I had someone to keep me company.

The Ceremony

The entire day went almost completely perfectly. It was about as perfect as we could have got it without having ever planned a wedding before, and without having rehearsed the entire day in advance. Despite attempts by various weather forecasting sources to convince us that we required a marquee for the garden ceremony, we were able to forego it with confidence. The weather was perfect, 19 deg C and sunny.
There were a few things that could have gone better. We provided our celebrant with what we thought was a fairly detailed running sheet, and the ceremony booklet. We were upset when he told people to ignore the booklets, which having put so much thought and detail into we really did want people to read them! We think he did this so that people didn’t notice when he made mistakes. He wasn’t anywhere near as prepared as we had hoped for, as someone of his experience and reputation. Referring to Morven as Morgan during the ceremony, and to myself as Jeff, really didn’t give us any confidence that he was doing any more than reading the running sheet for the first time, that we gave him a week before. Then to imply to guests that a non-religious garden ceremony is a less formal occasion than a religious church ceremony was unappreciated, as we expected a formal ceremony from the celebrant unless we had specifically asked for the ceremony to be made informal (which we didn’t). To top it off, drawing everyone’s attention to a guest that arrived late was unnecessary. I felt that the celebrant did this because it was an easy way for him to decrease the formality of the occasion, purely for the purpose of putting himself at ease as he knew that he was not adequately prepared.
All minor issues and critiques aside, the ceremony did go very well. The rose garden was in beautiful full bloom, and the grass was all perfectly green. The chairs and their sashes with the rose petal aisle were stunning, and having the string quartet playing over the ceremony from the balcony added the perfect ambience.
We are glad to have achieved a full set of family photos, and many photos with the bridal party inside Urrbrae House and even more of just Morven and I around the garden. We then enjoyed a beautiful horse and carriage ride up to Carrick Hill. We were thrilled with the amount of effort our photographer (James Field) put in, even lying down next to the driveway of Carrick Hill to snap even more photos of us as we arrived.

The Reception

We had many photos taken around the garden of Carrick Hill, whilst all the guests arrived, and had a cocktail entree. We then had the opportunity to mingle with our guests for a short while before we all walked into the marquee.
The bombonniere candy bar looked amazing. Morven had put so much time into finding lollies and macaroons from around Adelaide and the internet that all shared the same white, pastel blue and pastel green colour theme. It was great to see it all setup before it was demolished. In retrospect we maybe should have had our MC tell guests to take a small amount first until everyone has had a chance to take some. We just underestimated how many people would like to sample the candy bar so unfortunately lot of people missed out, and all they ever saw was empty plates and jars. This is by no means not the fault of anyone that filled up their candy bags, but the fault of Morven for sourcing such yummy candy. (Already blaming things on my wife!)
The speeches went well. Our fathers spoke very kindly about us, and we really appreciated Eilidh’s speech. Ben did a traditional embarrassing groomsman speech, including exaggerated and falsified details for extra effect. However it did still end up being a very considered and kind speech to us. Thankyou Tony, Jeff, Eilidh, and Ben.
After the delicious mains, the much anticipated wedding cake was also enjoyed. Did anyone notice the icing bride and groom on top of the cake? What is with Morven and I both having red hair – we paid good money to have those icing people made, including supplying them with photos of us, so not sure why my icing guy had red hair. Morven has some comment about it being more important to get the bride’s hair colour correct. We kind of regret not rehearsing our first dance at all. We felt a little silly not knowing any dance moves. It was also a very long ballad (Metallica, Nothing Else Matters, 7 minutes). In retrospect we should have picked a song that only went for 60 seconds!
Congratulations to Nicole and Winston as Nicole caught Morven’s bouquet, and congratulations to Nick and Fiona as Nick caught the garter!

Thankyou to many friends and family

Here we would like to thank everyone who has helped us out with our wedding, in no particular order.

• Thanks to the groomsmen and bridesmaids, Ben, Jordan, Eilidh, and Emily, for doing a great job of letting us dress them up and doing what we required them to do.
• James did an outstanding job of taking so many photos throughout the day, and setting up the photo booth for the reception, and we really can’t wait to see all the photos.
• Thanks to Nai for sourcing a lovely guestbook and super cute pens for us, and collecting cool things for the photo booth prop-box. It was great to see so many guests make the effort to participate in the photo booth!
• Thanks to Lisa who hung up the paper cranes in the trees, which Amanda, Lisa, Lizzie, Nai and Louise carefully folded one afternoon.
• Sari and Hayley both did a great job of both choosing and reading the ceremony readings.
• Jordan did a sensational job of choosing and performing a song, using an instrument that I hadn’t even seen before (and forget the name of). Also thanks to Jordan for organising the bucks day/night.
• Thanks to ‘Team Delta’, Matt (the leader), Arienne, David, Anna, Tim, and Adam who set up all the trestle tables, chairs, chair covers, chair sashes, and signing table arrangement for the ceremony. They did a fantastic job on the morning and we are really grateful for them to have been able to follow our pedantic instructions.
• Thanks to David and Anna who distributed the ceremony booklets to people for us.
• Jeff, Daniel, and a couple other Crane family members, along with ‘Team Delta’ did well to pack up all the chairs and tables afterwards, thanks guys!
• Mum and Dad did well to organise the water and sunscreen. It was well utilised and appreciated by many, and later that night it became apparent who didn’t utilise the sunscreen!
• Mike did a great job of capturing the ceremony on video, and we eagerly look forward to seeing that too. Mike also did a great job of being the MC for the reception. He was very witty, kept everything running perfectly to schedule, and did great to help us organise the bouquet and garter throwing which we forgot to put in his schedule.
• Thanks to our fathers who gave very kind speeches. A special thanks to Eilidh for her bridesmaid speech, we were very lucky to have her speak considering we only gave her a couple weeks notice around a particularly busy time of life for her.
• Also thanks to Eilidh and Emily for organising the hens night, and to Brenda for hosting the afternoon tea party.
• Thanks to both of our mothers for helping us collect so many precious little vases and bottles for the floral arrangements at the reception.
• Thanks to all our parents for being so flexible, running around and doing things for us.
• Thanks to everyone who travelled such a long distance to share our special occasion with us: the Donaldson’s from Scotland, Sarah from the USA, and many from interstate.
• We were extremely pleased with the suppliers and service providers not already mentioned: Urrbrae House, Aurora Strings, Adelaide Jazz Trio, Poppies Flowers, Renniks, Covered Events, Meander Coaches, Carrick Hill, Pastille Desserts, Joseph Uzumcu, Rapsimo, Quinzi’s Confectionary, and Cocolat (except for me having red hair!?)