Introducing.... Mrs & Mrs Masson-Oakden!

WE ARE MARRIED!

... and do I ever want to get married again?????  NO.
... am I madly madly crazily in love with my WIFE????  HELL YES!

the cops that turned up at our hens night... that WEREN'T strippers...
.... what are the odds???

I have always heard that weddings are stressful, but I never understood just how true that was until the last month or so.  Planning our wedding wasn't stressful when it was deciding a date, deciding on a venue, purchasing dresses and shoes.  But then the big 'one month to go!' mark rolled around, and suddenly there were 1,000,000 decisions to be made, decisions about seemingly pointless things (to me, remember - very un-girly), that I couldn't really have cared about whatever we'd decided...

BUT seeing it all come together as beautifully as it did (hugely in part to the amazing Kath and Sophia), I see now that those 'pointless' things we needed to decide on were all equally important, and without them the wedding would have been just another day.

with my Mum & sister before the wedding

I don't want to talk about the stress any longer though, because it's all in the past now - and it all seems so unimportant, because that stress led to the best day of my life (tied with the birth of both of my babies, my niece and my nephew).

The weather forecast was for showers, but we woke up to BLUE SKY, and throughout the morning the sky turned grey, but it didn't really look like rain... until about an hour before the ceremony was due to start.  We got to the venue and it looked like it'd rain, but it also looked like it would hold off.

The gorgeous Mrs L. Masson-Oakden

We began our march down the aisle.  And it began to rain.  Heavier and heavier and heavier.  By the
time we got to the 'altar' (read:  goalposts) it was starting to rain heavily - and it proceeded to get heavier right throughout the ceremony.  You know what though?  I hardly noticed it.  I KNEW it was raining (my hair was saturated, my shawl was saturated, my face was saturated), but it all kind of took a backseat because the only thing I was focused on was Lauriel, and the fact we were finally getting married!

Our walk down the aisle... in the rain... and wind...

After the ceremony we were supposed to do a sand ceremony, but it was too wet, so the table carrying the marriage register was taken into the changing rooms under one of the grandstands.... the food table was carried through, all our guests came through - and the next two? hours were spent socialising in a rugby changing room.

Lauriel saying her vows

It was strangely perfect for us.

We always joked about getting our photos done in a changing room - and well, ALL our photos (sans a few) were done in one!  I am sure people will look at our photos and go "WHAT THE HELL WERE THEY THINKING?", but what we were thinking is "this is the low key wedding that suits us, just like we always wanted".  We got to spend time with family and friends, we had refreshments, lots of laughs were had.  What more could we want?

After we left the stadium we went to the

After signing the register

Brickhouse for our reception, the girls did an amazing job setting up the room, and walking in I felt truly happy.... wet, but very happy!!!!!  The meal was lovely, the speeches made us cry, and again lots of laughs were had.  It was brilliant, it was exactly what we had hoped for.  Again I am sure a lot of people will raise an eyebrow at how low key it was, and the fact our guests had to purchase their own meals... but from the start nothing about our relationship has been traditional, so it makes sense we had a very untraditional wedding and reception!

After the reception it was back home with our

Our beautiful wedding party

four gorgeous kids and two of my best friends in the world.  The kids went to bed - and were asleep within minutes, then we did what we do best.

Got out of our dresses.  Put on our jammies.  Got the appropriate snacks from the cupboard.  Flopped down on the couch.  Turned SkyTV on to channel 30.  And watched  1 1/2 games of rugby.  And we couldn't have been happier.  (minus the loss) it was the perfect end to a perfect day for us.

I would now like to thank all of you who played a part in our big day, particularly our bridesmaids and Marion, our cake making

the four most wonderful, beautiful, amazing bridesmaids
who ever existed...

queen, my Aunty for doing our professional photos for us, Sharyn for all her help over the past few months, Amy for making the GORGEOUS flowergirls dresses, my sister for planning the hens night, my parents for being as wonderful as ever.... and EVERYONE who sent us good wishes for the day, and who was thinking of us, whether they were in Wanganui, another part of New Zealand, another part of the Southern Hemisphere, or in the Northern Hemisphere.  We love you all!

We both have unofficial photos up on Facebook, and I will post a link to an online album for the photographs my Dad took... then when we have our professional photos, we will put them on Facebook and on here.

Happy Saturday Morning!

Look!  It's us!!! TOGETHER!!!!!!!!!!!!
do the amount of exclamation marks, suggest how excited I am?

On Wednesday at 4.50pm, Lauriel and the kids arrived!  We are no longer in a long distance relationship, we no longer have to say "I love you" over the phone or via text (though we still text it to each other - old habits die hard), we no longer have a count down to when we can be together again, we are no longer saying 'when we live together'....  We ARE living together. 

The four kiddos waving Poppa off, on Friday morning.

The children are all getting along well - and most surprisingly, Eloise and Gaby appear to be getting on extremely well.  I'm not sure why they are getting along well, but we sure as hell aren't questioning it!  Gaby seems to understand that Eloise doesn't like being crowded by her, and enjoys having time to herself - while Eloise seems to have more of an understanding of what this time is like for Gaby, moving houses, leaving her Grandparents (& her father, though that's not as devastating for her).  This morning they enjoyed drawing Big Fat Gypsy-esque dresses & girls, and awhile later they were colouring in together.  Perhaps creativity is their little niche, as far as having things in common goes.

Eloise & Gaby sitting in a tree...

 Yesterday we had our first family photo taken - which also counted as our first Christmas photo, and first Santa photo.  Yes, we ALL got our photo taken with Santa.  They had a hard time fitting us all in the frame.  It's rather weird when your family suddenly doubles in size - who would have thought the impact would reach as far as the bloody frame on a camera????  We pick up our photo today, and yes - of course we will post the photo!  Last night we took the 3 oldest kids to have a look at various Christmas lights around the eastern suburbs, and I think they all had a good time - perhaps if they are good we will go hunting for lights, another night...  Especially if they go straight to sleep afterward, like they did last night.  Sleep has probably been the one area where we've had some little issues - that said, they aren't rowdy or whiny while trying to go to sleep... I think the three older ones are just enjoying the novelty of having someone else in the bedroom with them, to talk to and laugh with...  I do hate to think how many rolls of toilet paper have been gone through though, because all of the older kids seem to need to go to the toilet about 50 times before they do finally go to sleep!!!

The kids have had a lot of time with Nan and Poppa - and I think it's quite the novelty for them, to have a little boy in the house!!!  Eloise and Gaby enjoyed a supermarket trip with Nan, and I think Aidan is chomping at the bit to have a little ride on Poppa's motorbike!  Nan and Poppa seem to be enjoying having all the kids in the house, but we might see if they still feel that way in another few days!