It begins

The past few weeks have been dominated by the organisation of our trip back to Sydney and the long awaited engagement party. We are very close to sealing the deal and preparations are well on the way.

There is a lot to think about when having an engagement party -

The type of engagement party. A cocktail event? a sit down dinner? a picnic? I have opted for a cocktail party. This is a fun and relaxed way to celebrate and the formality of a sit down dinner doesn't really intrigue us - will keep that for the wedding.

The venue, which I have to say is hard to pick when your not in the country and email is the main communication. Many places did not even bothered to write back even after we were emailing a few times...I just find that plain rude!

The food, how much do you actually need? What is suitable? How much do we think people we actually eat? The worse thing would be if food ran out!

Music. I love having live music. I think it creates a great ambiance and gets people in the mood for dancing. I think however mixing an ipod in with customised play lists for later in the evening works perfectly.

Decorations, invitations and cake. I feel that these three work together as they should all carry the theme. The theme I am thinking is polka dots! I love polka dots, very classic, symetrical and they have a vintage feel to them. I am going to add these to the invitation and the cake. For the decoration I want the place to be filled with flowers (which I will pick up from the flower market - with Miss Jenni!) and lit up with candles and glass lanterns.

I have to say that although it is hard work preparing for the party, it is lots of fun. Its fun to be able to think and create and imagine how everything will look on the special day. I also have to thank my wonderful friends back home looking at venues and giving me advice...so Thanks!

Definitely more engagement stories to come....

In the meantime I have been getting lots of inspirations from the following sites...they are my saviour in getting my creative juices flowing.

Polka dot bride - An Aussie site dedicated to inspirational weddings

http://www.polkadotbride.com/

Once wed - My go to site

http://www.oncewed.com/

Love my dress - A UK site I found recently that I can't stop looking at

http://www.lovemydress.net/blog/

I thought to also add some photos from the evening Mario proposed

Bluey's Beach

He looks pretty chilled for almost proposing...

Hugo - the Bluey's Beach dog was there to share the occasion

The love log