Glen and I got married! and I promise to never take advantage of him again :)

Glen and I were married on Friday November 6th just after 10am at Zenith Beach near Nelson Bay... and Glen had no idea it was going to happen :)

It was too easy to be sneaky

When Glen's visa was granted a few weeks ago, I decided to start the wedding plans again which had been cancelled months before. I went to Port Stephens and my friend Kylie and I went looking at beaches, I knew it had to be Zenith Beach which was the first one we looked at, there's a track leading to the beach, the headland and water were beautiful, it was the perfect place for us, and the only time it wouldn't be protected from the wind was if there was a southerly, and I was assured they rarely come in the morning there.

While standing there looking at the ocean I decided that I was going to make it the day we were
supposed to get married and that I would keep it a secret from Glen and ask him to marry me at the end of the track when we got to the sand. That afternoon Kylie suggested a hot chocolate at Merret's at Peppers Anchorage while waiting for our table I flicked through their lunch menu, they had a set lunch for $29 for 2 courses, Perfect! This was where the 'reception' would be. We spoke to a wonderful lady there who helped me with the bookings and planning. A round table for 12 in the glass room.

Now for the rest of the planning...My beautiful girls got their dresses at Tree of Life, pink for A and blue for B, I thought the dresses needed something else, and while I slept that night I remembered I had two over dress wrap thingies with embroidery on them, in pink and blue, and they matched perfectly!I had a white dress that I bought from tree of life last year, I love it but I thought I should get something new, I found a long white dress at a surf shop which fit my belly. Shoes... pink, white and blue thongs :) mine and A's had diamontes on them.

I got an invitation pack from America when I was there last, which I absolutely loved, I did the printing and sent them with maps to the beach and to Peppers, and a cover note to let people know it was a secret and to not mention it to Glen.

To get Glen to go to Port Stephens for a few days I told him that because we were supposed to be
married on November 6th, I'd probably be a bit down so we should go away for a few days to relax and take our minds off it. And because Glen is so sweet, he agreed, he'd do almost anything to make me happy. I booked us into Peppers Anchorage for three nights.

When Glen arrived in Australia, we layed in bed and went through the celebrant's folder of readings, vows, ceremonies etc, even though I was doing all the planning, I wanted Glen's input so he would love the ceremony too, I told him that we should go through it to get an idea for when the time came for us to start planning.

As for Glen's clothes... I never knew buying clothes for a guy would be harder than buying clothes for
teenage girls! We went everywhere looking for something that I liked, yes I had to like it :)There are some truly ugly men's clothes!I finally decided that he should wear the shorts I had bought him from a surf outlet store because every other pair of shorts I saw were just not right, we got him a nice shirt to go with them and he got his good going out black thongs to match :)

The Tuesday that we had a 38 degree day, I sat up til 3am writing out our ceremony for the celebrant, and I am grateful that he didn't change anything.

I called Glen's mother to ask for her blessing for our wedding, I knew she would say yes, but because no one from Glen's family could be there, I wanted everything to be ok with her and with Glen's brothers. I also asked her to write something for B to read at the wedding from Glen's family. She was very happy for us, but very sad that she couldn't be there, which I completely understood, The following evening on the phone, she read out a letter for us, I wrote her words down and we both cried.

I'd started the paperwork in March before we found out we were pregnant, so all we needed was Glen's signature. The celebrant was a touch worried because I wasn't going to ask Glen to marry me before the actual day, apparently having an engagement ring, being pregnant, and spending a fortune on a prospective spouse visa isn't enough to prove that Glen actually want to marry me. I told Glen that while we were in Port Stephens we should go and see the celebrant to finalise the paper work and then we could get married anytime we wanted to. Glen was interrorgated for a while about when he wanted to get married (he said as soon as possible, that we'll just have to organise for my girls to be there :) etc etc etc so after 2 hours with the celebrant, we were finally able to have some time together, and Glen still didn't know he was going to get married the next day, even though the celebrant asked him if he'd want to get married at 10am the next day.

I had to be very careful when we got to the Anchorage, I had been told that the welcome board would be updated in the afternoon to have a congratulations message for Glen and I, so I had to make sure Glen didn't go to the reception desk. When I had to call home and my dad, I had to lie and say that our room didn't have very good phone coverage so I had to leave, then there were the million texts I had to lie about, I absolutely hate when you're with someone and all they do is text, I had to lie to Glen and say there was a small problem at home the girls needed help with, and I felt terrible, but there WAS a small problem. Everytime we were in Coles or near the florist, we'd look at their flowers and talk about what would be nice to get, I said pink and white roses would be beautiful and we bought ribbon to be wrapped around them, come the wedding eve, for the first time that we saw, the florist didn't have a single rose!! and coles only had deep red and some pink. After about 45 mins of texts and sly phone calls, the girls got white lisianthus and the pink roses for me, and some red roses for them. They did beautifully, I'm very proud of how they handled everything.

Glen and I couldn't choose rings, so Bianca made some, his is made from silver beads and Bianca
surprised me by making mine out of freshwater pearls, very beautiful.

About 5 o'clock that afternoon, it started raining, that was ok, I wasn't worried yet.I was planning on doing my hair that night, doing beautiful curls with my ghd, and then having it all perfect
for the morning, I am hopeless, nothing I did worked, it was ok though because I hoped a miracle would happen and my hair would be ok lol

When I woke up at 4.30am, and saw it was still raining, I was hopeful it would stop. The texts started again, my hair was a shocking mess, the rain got heavier and I decided I needed some heavy duty hair spray which I haven't used in years. I told Glen I was going to coles, but first I sat in the car and called the girls so they could check the radar online for me and I cried, even though they assured me it would be ok, they tried making me feel better by saying the cupcakes and flowers looked beautiful. I then called mum and dad and they were happily telling me it would be ok because rain never stopped our family doing anything, and they were right, we'd have bbqs, go for walks, rain wasn't a problem to us. I'd only had 5 hrs sleep so I was a bit tired and emotional.

I got my stuff from coles included some tim tams in the basket and cheered myself up, I was going to marry Glen, I'd loved him for 11 yrs, rain didn't matter.

The celebrant called, he said I should think about changing the place for the wedding, but I refused, he said there was a downpour coming, but I had faith.

Back at the hotel.. my hair was still a scary mess, but I tried to fix it, hair lacquer helps :) I put some little silver flower clips in my hair and we got ready, I told Glen we were going somewhere nice for breakfast, but he didn't question why we were getting so dressed up.

At about 9:45am the rain stopped :)

At 9.55am (the wedding was to be 10am) More texts.. "your parents aren't here!" wtf?

Then a text from B "we stopped for breakfast, now they've stopped for a toilet break, I'm going insane!"

I was feeling sick with nerves, I told Glen that the manager at Coles had suggested we should have a look at a beach that would be nice to get married on, so that was my excuse as to why we weren't going to breakfast just yet, I pretended to get a little lost, drove the long way, only to pull up to the car park to see my mum, dad, Uncle Doug and Aunty Sue walking down the track towards the beach!!! Glen thankfully didn't notice them.
So I had to fake some pregnancy issues so we could sit in the car longer, that part was easy, I was
shaking with nerves, so I said I was feeling light headed too, we waited about 10 minutes and then
started walking down to the beach..
It still wasn't raining, the wind was blowing southerly (which I was told wouldn't happen lol) my hair was an absolute shocking mess again, but what could I do, I didn't realise it would be that windy.

We walked down the path and I could see everyone, Kylie and my dad were to the left of us taking photos of me about to ask Glen to marry me, and everyone else were about a hundred metres away waiting, Glen still didn't notice lol

This is how the conversation at the end of the path went.

Me...."Glen what would you say about getting married today?"

Glen.."Do you like this beach?"

Me... "Yes, would you marry me today?"

Glen.."We'll have to get everyone up here"

Me pointing to everyone.... "they're already here, see?"

Glen... "oh ... OH"

it finaly dawned on him lol

he kissed me over and over and hugged me and I knew it could rain, and I could be a mess, I could be the size of an albino walrus, and this would still be one of the happiest days of my life :)

The girls came running over to hand me my flowers, they were beautiful, the girls and the flowers.The celebrant came over to speak to Glen alone to make sure I wasn't forcing him into marrying me
And then my girls, Glen and I walked over to everyone to and they were just as happy for us as we were.

The ceremony started with asking permission from A & B

Then an introduction that I wrote about how Glen and I met almost 11yrs to the day (it was actually the
7th November that we met)Allira did the first reading which was an Irish Blessing (Glen has Irish citizenship)

We then had a "sand ceremony" I didn't use coloured sand, we got sand from Merewether Beach and sand from Zenith beach to pour into a bowl.

Bianca then read the second reading which was from Glen's mother, it made Glen very emotional.

Next was our vows and rings, Glen and I both did our vows from the heart, neither of us had anything written down, we exchanged rings, which were beautiful.

We then had a hand blessing which was lovely...

The rain stayed away until we left the beach over an hour and half later, we had dolphins near the shore when were saying our vows and signing the register and there were crows, two animals which are important to me.
Our lunch at Merrets was beautiful, and having only 10 guests was lovely.

Our wedding was perfect for us We stayed at the Anchorage until Sunday, and I think we smiled the whole time

We are so happy, this is where we are meant to be