'Diary' entry- more wedding crap

This is the kente cloth Semefa brought with him to Australia... I've since been trying to think of dress designs that could suitably incorporate it. I've done a couple of sketches, but it's a bit embarrassing to post my amateur fashion designer scribblings here... perhaps I'll do it after I've consulted with a dress maker to find out if my designs are feasible. I imagine the type of fabrics used will at least partially dictate the construction of the dress.

The green and gold colours were a pleasant surprise- I almost feel like Australia Day would be a better date for the wedding, but in the name of pragmatics we're planning to hold it on an earlier weekend in January. Having it on Australia Day would fit well with my desire to wear thongs, although I'm not keen on having a floor-length dress in January, so I could never put it past Gam. Really, though, there's no more appropriate footwear for Brisbane in January than thongs, wedding or no wedding.

Gam and I had almost settled on Watt as a reception venue, partly because we went there once for our friend Victor's birthday and it was nice and partly because it's on the river and extremely close to a CityCat stop, meaning that there is a possibility that we could transport all our guests by chartering a City Ferry. Beats being stuck in Brisbane traffic, however fancy the bloody car. Besides, I hate cars. While there is a section on the website claiming you can charter a CityCat or City Ferry, but their damn email address doesn't work, meaning I'll have to phone them. I hate phones.

Anyway, after letting my parents know that I'd looked into booking Watt, found out costs, menu details etc., and got feedback from my parents that it all sounded fine, Mum rang me a couple of days later full of suggestions about having the reception during the day (i.e. lunchtime), having the reception on a weekday (meaning we'd have to ask half our friends and family to take a day off work) and having the reception on a boat, cruising the Brisbane river. Given that a lunchtime reception means an early morning and a rush to fit in lots of photos, I'm not keen and neither is Gam. A Monday or Friday wedding is just insensitive to half the people we know, and a boat cruise doesn't appeal because all the Brisbane boats we've ever seen or been on have been really grotty and trashy. Plus having a catered reception on a boat doesn't enable us to go and 'test' the menu items anonymously prior to the event in the same way having it at a restaurant does. I'm not sure why Mum is bubbling over with ideas, but I was thinking it's time to start getting things booked before uni starts, not poring over new possibilities!

I'm also having the occasional worry about my initial decision to not have a bridesmaid or bridesmaids. I may have mentioned before that I never grew up imagining what 'my' wedding would be like, and therefore never thought about whether I would have bridesmaids and who they might be; my decision not to have bridesmaids, I thought, would save people running around buying dresses they may or may not like (because I couldn't afford to do the right thing and purchase a dress for them). Lately I've been wondering whether this might offend anyone- my cousin Rach, for instance, is the closest thing I have to a sister, and I would hate to think that perhaps being my bridesmaid is something she might have looked forward to. That I might disappoint her. Of course, if I were to have bridesmaids there's no way I couldn't ask Gam's sister Delali, possibly my brother's girlfriend Priscilla... that means there could be so much more to think about. I just figure I ought to bring the question up with Rach.