Hen Night Madness

14 Oct 2011: Happy Friday everyone!!! So today is exactly 4 weeks until my nuptials... That's 27 days, 22 hours and 50 minutes. Who's excited?! I certainly am. Things are really kicking into gear now, starting to finish up all of the little odds and ends.

Todd and I have almost completed our bomboniere's, which we are doing by hand. More details to come after they've been received by our guests, but I promise you, they are great. I didn't want to give something that isn't useful, or that will just sit collecting dust, and I wanted something that is personal to us, and our gift to our family and friends definitely ticks all the boxes.

If you read last week's wedding blog, you would know that I had my hen's celebration last weekend, on Saturday, and I promised to fill you all in on how it went, so here goes.

Before it all began, I had my make-up professionally done. I had some difficulty finding a make-up artist that would come all the way to Wollongong just for me on my wedding day, (as me and one of my other bridesmaids are doing the bridesmaids make-up ourselves) so I decided to do my own make-up, as I've always enjoyed doing my own and have a knack for it. But with my big day coming closer, I was starting to get nervous about doing it myself, and booked in for a make-up trial with MAC (a make-up brand for those living under a rock), to see if I might prefer getting it done by a professional, and I organised it to be done on my hen's day, so I would be all made up for my party.

Firstly, as I often get my dates and times mixed up, I was positive that I had booked in to get my make-up done at 11am, my mum came with me and was sure that I had originally told her 10am, but I insisted that I was right (as I do). So anyway, when we were only 10 minutes into our 40 minute drive to the MAC store, I received a phone call from one of the MAC consultants asking if I was still planning on coming for my appointment. Confidently, and proud that I was going to arrive a few minutes early, I said ‘yes! We are on our way now' and the consultant calmly advised me that my appointment was in fact at 10am, and we were now already 20 minutes late. I had already paid, so she told me to just get there as soon as I could and they'll still do my make-up. Annoyed at myself, but still excited, we continued on our way, and arrived about 40 minutes late.

I sat down and showed the consultant who was doing my make-up, which styles I liked from a book that she'd handed me, and what I was hoping to have for myself. I picked out a picture of a pretty girl with gold eye shadow on her lids and said ‘I want that, but still as natural looking as possible'.

After an hour of make-up application, the consultant announced that she was finished and asked what I thought. I wasn't too sure, as I'm not used to wearing heavy eye make-up, and to be honest, I felt a bit like a drag queen. But despite my feelings of doubt, everyone in the store was commenting on how fabulous I looked, so I just went with it and hoped for the best.

So now that we were about 2 hours later than what we had originally planned, we didn't have much time left to get home, eat, do hair, get dressed, and get everything together for the big day ahead. I organised for a bus to collect us from my house at 2:45, and have everyone who was coming with us on the bus, to meet at my house at 2:30. The time approached way too fast, and I was madly rushing around with people asking where things were, and saying how much they loved my house or my outfit, all while trying to eat something and put my last hair in place before we had to get on the bus.

The bus arrived, and so did the rain.... It literally started POURING down, accompanied by thunder and lightning. So here were about 16 chooks with perfect hair and make-up, trying to get from my house to the bus, without getting too wet. Luckily, Todd had a buck's party the same night in the city, so was able to hitch a ride with us on our bus, so I got him to carry me onto the bus, so I didn't get drenched by water and mud from my wheels.

We were on our way to Manly, which is a nice beach-y town in Sydney, I never get to go there, so I wanted to have my girls night out there, which my maid of honour organised beautifully for me. I picked a venue called The Sugar Lounge, because not only did it have wheelchair access, but it also looked so relaxed and airy from the photographs.

When we got there, I headed to the elevator with one of my mum's friends, to go to where my party was, one of the staff members from the sugar lounge mumbled something to us and walked off, which we later found out was ‘wait in the elevator and I'll call it down to the level you need', but because neither of us could understand him, we didn't know what we were doing and were trying to hold the elevator door open while we waited for him to return. The door kept beeping to close, and then started automatically closing, but my mum's friend wanted to keep it open, so she banged her bum into the door and held it open. Little did we know that when she did that, it actually broke the door, and wouldn't let it close again, so now we were stuck upstairs.

We didn't let the staff know that we broke it, but had to find another way to get down the 20 or so stairs to join in on my celebrations. I decided to just climb down the stairs myself, and my friends carried my chair. I got into the room where my party was, which looked more like a dungeon than a beachside lounge. I began to mingle, and noticed the good looking topless waiter across the room, who came with the party package.

After some drinks, nibblies, lots of laughter and games, it was time for our sexy waiter to go home, and for us to move on to the next location for dinner, just up the road. The staff advised me that the elevator was still not working and they didn't know why. Once again, I had to climb the stairs, out of the dungeon, to some fresh air.

Because I'm not a huge party animal, we went to another bar for some dinner and more drinks (and lots of silly photos), then headed home at about 11:30. The almost 2 hour bus ride was a hoot, although I got a bit scared that someone would fall on me, considering the amount of alcohol everyone had consumed, I still had a great time! I definitely can't wait till our wedding celebration now.

Since reviewing all of the photo's, I have come to the conclusion, that I am only happy when I do my own make-up, the make-up artist who did my make-up must have put some powder on me that reflected the camera flash, because in some of the photo's, I look as white as a Geisha girl, so I will still be doing my own make-up on my wedding day, and will be much more confident now, so wish me luck!

Me with my bridesmaids