Wiggles Wedding!
Who ever knew the Wiggles had a girl member??? I’m so out of touch, haha.
Not only did I find that out, but I also found out that last month Emma Watkins and Lachy Gillespie, aka Yellow Wiggle and Purple Wiggle, have celebrated their big red love at a ‘bowtiful’ wedding in the NSW Southern Highlands.
The couple, who allegedly hid their love from fans for two years, exchanged vows in front of 200 people, including past and present Wiggles members, in Bowral, News Corp Australia reported.
“Lachy, love, laughter. The best day of my life,” Watkins told the Sunday Telegraph, while Gillespie said he was overwhelmed by the sight of his bride.
“Seeing Emma was the most magical moment of my life. Everything else just seemed to melt away.”
Watkins, 26, had traded her yellow bow for a crown by Australian milliner Viktoria Novak and her skivvies for a stunning lace embroidered gown by Melbourne designer Suzanne Harward. And she looked stunning!
Her 30-year-old groom and his groomsmen, which included Red Wiggle Simon Pryce, wore suits by Melbourne designer Arthur Galan, while Gillespie honoured his Scottish heritage with the addition of a tartan sash.
Blue Wiggle Anthony Field was also involved in the ceremony, playing bagpipes during the reception.
Maid of Honour Speech Ideas
Sometimes the hardest part of writing a maid of honor speech for a wedding is figuring out just how to start your speech. You know what not to say in a wedding toast (like mentioning exes, embarrassing stories, or drunken debacles), but knowing what to say about a great friend and her new spouse can leave even the best of public speakers a bit overwhelmed. There is so much to say in just two to three minutes! Thankfully, there are a few tried and true ways to start a speech that will help get your creative juices flowing in no time.
The list below lays out a few ideas for your maid of honor speech. Simply pick one idea to start your speech, or follow numbers one to eight to write your entire speech. Either way, once you start brainstorming a few different intros, you’re likely to stumble on a gem of an idea and find your maid-of-honor-speech-writing stride before you know it.
So take a deep breath, grab a glass of wine (preferably poured into one of those big goblet glasses), and let your maid of honor awesomeness flow!
♥ Tell guests who you are
It’s always a good idea to start your speech by letting the crowd know who you are, and how you know the bride. Otherwise, they may be asking the people around them, “Who is she?” right as you’re getting to the best part of your speech.
♥ Give thanks
Since everyone knows weddings are expensive and require a lot of time and energy to plan, it’s a good idea to recognize the parents who helped contribute to make the celebration possible. Particularly if the parents are hosting the wedding reception, or have hosted any of the wedding festivities, now is an appropriate time to thank them, and it gives everyone else the opportunity to clap and show their appreciation as well.
♥ Tell a story about the bride
You can start off by telling a story about the bride, or by telling the story of how you and the bride first met. Just remember to leave exes, drunken shenanigans, and unflattering stories of the bride out. This is definitely a situation where the “whole truth and nothing but the truth” is not applicable.
♥ Tell a story about the first time you met the groom
Beginning your speech with a funny story about how you met the groom for the first time can be a good way to get people laughing. Were you at a concert with your friend when this random guy (a.k.a. the groom) tripped and spilled a drink on her? Did she try on 15 different outfits before he came to your shared post-college apartment to pick her up for their first date? Any fun stories about your first impressions can make for a good laugh, and provide a window into the couple’s first days together for the rest of the guests.
♥ Share a story about the couple
♥ Use a prop
Using a prop for a wedding speech is something that can go fantastically well if it ties into the main idea of the speech. Some good props can be old photos, slideshows, or an unexpected item like a childhood toy. This is not something that you want to force into your speech by any means, but if you happen to think of a prop that would work well, it can make a good wedding speech all that more amazing and memorable.
Our MC was hilarious – he incorporated a mobile phone into his speech which he gave all tied in with my new duties as a wife and being ‘on call’! You get the idea!
♥ Share a love quote
A good way to start (or end) a speech is with a powerful quote about love that will resonate with the couple and the guests. Something meaningful that gives guests something to think about is always a safe bet.
♥ Ask the audience a question
A good way to pick up everyone’s energy is to bring an interactive component to your speech, like asking the audience a question. If done at the start of your speech, you may use a question like “Raise your hand if…” and “How many people here…” and then insert something funny about the couple. If you’re going this route, it’s a good idea to have a few shills in the audience who can get the audience going and encourage others to respond to the question. A question at the end of the speech can be something simple that will leave guests cheering like “Who is ready to celebrate this couple with an awesome party?” (and who doesn’t like a good cheer after a speech!?).
Just remember to keep it short, keep it sweet, and keep it about the couple. As long as you speak from your heart, the couple will love it no matter what — and that’s all that really counts.
And if you’re really brave you could do your speech as an outrageously funny rap…
Thanks bustle.com for the cool article!
Rock ‘n Roll Bride
My new favourite blog is Rock ‘n Roll Bride. Check it out for funky wedding ideas for the more daring Bride and Groom that will make your wedding day exceptionally memorable!
DIY Photobooth
You have to have some sort of candid photography to capture the fun at your wedding reception. And you know how much I love photobooths by the amount of pictures I’m always in!!!
If you have a budget photobooths are awesome – especially Kombi Photobooth!! However if you’re trying to save a bit of cash you can DIY your own photobooth.
For my wedding we got a polaroid camera and set up a privacy screen so people could pose for us. Guests had fun and we got some great pics. I’ve seen some weddings have photo walls where guests hang them up for everyone to view.
Some other ideas are to leave disposable cameras on every table at the reception, if you have kids at your wedding give them the task of of snapping guests, or download a wedding pic app where guests take photos on their phones then upload to your page so you can make sure you capture them all.
I also saw a cool fun photo prop package in Spotlight, you can make your own, I think and with a trip to the $2 you’ll be able to load up on funny glasses, tiaras, beards… the options are endless!!!
Cultural Weddings ♥ Serbian Weddings
Seeing as My Darling Husband is Serbian I was interested to see what a traditional Serbian Wedding involved. I found this post of a western Bride’s account of her marriage to a Serb which is hilariously fabulous…makes me wish we’d have done it Serb-style! Check out the highlights:
Rent-a-dress
There is no dress frenzy. Rather than spending thousands of dollars on a dress you only get to wear once, Serbian brides simply rent one for a fraction of the cost. Brilliant, huh?
The bachelorette
Pre-wedding festivities in Serbia are radically different from the North American blitz of engagement parties, bridal showers, bachelorettes, spa days, and hair and makeup trials. There is little doting over brides in the days preceding (or even the day of) the wedding.
After several days of hard drinking and dancing in Belgrade’s numerous bars, cafes, and splavs (floating nightclubs), I found myself on my last day of singledom sitting in a small café with my sister-in-law, Aleksandra. Chain-smoking and pounding back vodka
The crowning moment
I insisted that the wedding take place in Belgrade’s Saborna Crkva, the cathedral in which Serbian King Peter was crowned in 1904.
This sense of majesty is extended even further in the symbolic crowning common to all Orthodox wedding ceremonies. The typical Saborna Crkva wedding involves large golden crowns.
My princess-excitement hit full throttle as the chanting priest crowned me and we walked around the cathedral, my train floating happily behind. I had no idea what the hell the choir was singing or what the Orthodox priest was asking me, but I felt pretty spectacular with a big-ass crown on my head.
Ain’t no party like a Belgrade party
This brings me to yet another difference between North American and Serbian wedding traditions: absent is the obscene “once in a lifetime” money-spending on tabletop decor, vintage-inspired Etsy finds, gourmet hors d’oeurves, photobooths, and commemorative take-home junk for guests.
There aren’t even any speeches, embarrassing garter belt removals, or “win the centerpiece” games. Rather, the hallmarks of solid Serbian wedding receptions are meat laden platters, hard drinking immediately following the ceremony, the kolo (joyous dancing in circular formation), and rambunctious Gypsy brass bands. I was on-the-floor drunk by the time the cake arrived, two giant firecrackers blazing out of its sides.
Read the full account here.
Celebrity Weddings ♥ Nicky Watson & MKR Pete Evans
You’re going to have to buy New Idea to get all the goss.
All I can say is that this woman who was a skanky D-list celeb (only in NZ) has come out on top and unlike what I imagine her first wedding to weird multi-millionaire Eric Watson, this wedding looks lovely and she looks the most normal I’ve ever seen in the tabloids.
Superhero Wedding
How cool is this wedding theme??!!
A Marvel Comic book is the inspiration for this real-life wedding. Back in 1992 Marvel made headlines by revealing that Northstar, an X-Men superhero, was gay. Twenty years later, the character was set to wed his longtime partner Kyle in Astonishing X-Men #51, in stores on June 20 2012.
As an X-Man, Northstar routinely fights against bigotry, as he is a mutant, and mutants are the most feared minority group in the Marvel Universe. Astonishing X-Men writer Marjorie Liu looked to Northstar’s relationship with Kyle as a way to write an inspiring story about characters who feel like outsiders even among outsiders. “Here are two people, trying to live their lives – mutant and gay, black and gay – empowered in their own ways, but also fringe-dwellers,” says Liu. “And they’re making it happen. They’re living life on their own terms. It doesn’t matter that it’s a superhero comic, the message is: You can do the same thing.”
And that is exactly what a real-life New York couple did – tying the knot in a famous comic book store. X-Men fans Scott Everhart and Jason Welker were selected from more than 50 applicants to get married in New York City’s Midtown Comics in honor of Astonishing X-Men #51 which features the wedding of Northstar to his boyfriend Kyle.
Quirky Wedding Themes
Ok, so we all heard about the Pastafarian wedding… here are some more unique themes – and they don’t involve monsters, pirates or pasta!
TV Couples ♥ True Blood
And that’s the believable part. But through every season’s twists and turns, just when we find ourselves scratching our heads at Sookie’s loyalty and attraction to Bill, he’ll find a way to redeem himself, at least temporarily. We can’t pretend to know where their story is headed, but this supernatural super couple (played by real-life married couple Stephen Moyer and Anna Paquin) will be fun to watch along the way.
But I think Sookie and Bill’s tv love story highlights opposites attract and you can’t help who you fall in love with!
And I found this fantastic blog: 6 Things You Learn from Watching True Blood
1. Nobody is normal.
Sookie is half human, half fairy. Bill is a vampire. Crystal is a were-panther. Sam is a shifter. The point is, each of them felt like a freak, until they started meeting more of their kind or of other types of supernatural creatures. Everybody has something that makes them unique and that they worry others will scrutinize.
2. Telling the truth hurts a lot less than comforting someone with a lie.
Learn from Bill’s blunder, which lost him Sookie. He lost her because he couldn’t be honest with her. Sookie wasn’t mad that the reason he originally sought her out was because Sophie-Ann the vampire queen of Louisiana told him to. She was mad because in all their time together, he never told her the truth about how they met. (Okay how they met was also problematic, but she was more upset about the lie.) So, next time you think about lying, even as an omission, think of how Bill lost Sookie.
3. You can’t change who you are, so you might as well embrace it.
Sookie spent a lot of her life wishing that she could change who she was. Sure, she’s a half human, half fairy who can read minds, and on the scale of normal, she’s not even on it. She thrives on danger, and by the time season four rolls around, she just decides to go with it and no longer allows it to throw her off or take her by surprise.
4. Don’t go it alone when you have friends that care about you.
If I’ve learned anything from watching four seasons of “True Blood” (and several seasons of “Supernatural” and other shows about supernatural beings), it’s that bad things happen when you isolate yourself. The season four example of this is when Eric goes to confront the witch on his own and loses his memory. Moral of the story: If you have people who want to go through this crazy life by your side, you should let them.
5. Everyone is special.
This one kind of goes along with the “Nobody is normal” lesson, but it gets its own bullet point based on Episode six when Jason has a conversation with Jessica. He says that he wishes he was special like Sookie. Jessica looks at him and says, “Now look at you. How can you not think that you’re special?” The truth of the matter is everyone has someone that makes them special, but sometimes, you struggle to see it yourself.
6. When in doubt, the vampires can help deal with the other supernatural creatures and keep your life interesting.
Let’s face it, Bill and Eric fix all of Sookie’s problems, unless her problems are of the vampire type. When they end up creating the problems, Sookie has a run for her money. Good or bad, she never has a dull moment.
Awesome!