My Best Friend's Wedding

The only  thing that goes anywhere close to as exciting as your own wedding is the wedding of one of your best friends. I cannot honestly think of a couple cuter and more suited than my friend Sam and her now husband Ryan! They are chocolate-and-raspberry-meant-to be-together-type-perfection. On their own they are both wonderful, together they are something amazing!  The energy you get when you're around these two is addictive - they just work together and make the other happy. Enough mooshy stuff - you get my point and can see why I did real life happy jumping up and down dances when I found out they were getting married! 

Sam and I met when we were at the height of our crazy, hormone fueled teenage years. A quiet and reserved Sam moved in with my hippyfied-extroverted younger self and family when she relocated from a small community to complete her education. Despite initially being terrified of my crazy antics,
Sam and I bonded over homework avoidance tactics and together, got through break-ups, survived school yard rumors, lived through parental blow-ups and dealt with the cold hard reality that you can't make a boy love you (no matter how much you stalk them). Ok, so mostly it was Sam getting me through those things (she was a lot more sensible than myself). Either way we grew very close. After we finished school we spent a lot of time with a lot of distance between us. It didn't however, change the fact that Sam was always there as though we had never missed a day when I needed her. 

Sam was always the kind of person who wanted a loyal, life-long-see-life-together partner. There were boys before Ryan but none of them made Sam grow and shine the way Ryan did. The second I saw them together I could tell he adored her - there was no need for that special death threat chat best friends sometimes need to have with new partners, it was just meant to be. Even better, Cam and Ryan get along concerningly well - you wouldn't know they hadn't been friends since their Tonka Truck days. How great is that?!

Our perfect couple friends pretty much proved their perfect couple super powers going from engaged to married in 4 months. Whoa! Within days of getting engaged Sam had a game plan and within a couple of weeks, a gorgeous black and white invite was in my letter box! I also received the honor of being asked to be Sam's bridesmaid - something I had asked her to be for our wedding a couple of months before! Unlike me, Sam had dresses, decorations, shoes and accessories sorted (and arriving daily with the help of eBay!) in record time. She pretty much conquered wedding planning (the accelerated version) 101 and graduated with an HD before I read the unit outline! It made me realise how much I had to get done!

For Sam's wedding though there was only one thing she asked me to do - stay well enough to ensure I could come down to Tassie to be with her on her special day. Living with chronic illness makes planning to a time schedule pretty tough and sometimes things happen that are beyond your control. I have missed many special occasions due to illness. I was determined I would accessorise my bridesmaid dress with a drip pole before I missed sams wedding though. Five weeks before we were meant to head to Tassie  I decided to do a course of IV antibiotics that was meant to last 2 weeks. It would mean that I would then have time and be well to complete my uni assessment and move house before we left. Wow was I wrong. My lungs and the little fellas (bugs) that live in them did not want to play fair. IV antibiotics are a pretty stressful, time consuming, draining exercise for both Cam and myself. When you throw in five weeks of them and simultaneously include uni assessment, finishing renovations and packing and moving house it leads to an unexplored level of mental. I wouldn't recommend it. At all. Ever. On the Thursday before we were meant to leave for Tassie I finished IV's, on the Friday we actually did the final packing and moving in thing, on Saturday we packed for Tasmania and on Sunday we started our drive to Tasmania. Oh yeah. We drove. All 1800km (Sick lungs and flying is a bit of a non-event).

(Getting Off the Boat in Tasmania - Outside Temperature -1 degree) 

We arrived with a week to spare and hens night fun to be had. The only thing Sam specified was no strippers and no penis straws. We got both. Well not really, the knock on the door was a beauty therapist for some single lady pampering. I got penis straws though. Big ones.

(Sam Was Thrilled I Remembered What She Wanted at The Hen's Night!)

The rest of the week was a really special time to share with the bouncing-off-the-walls happy but seriously organized and relaxed couple. There was a bit more pampering for the girls, a rehearsal and loads of pizza (which proves how relaxed Sam was about everything! Bloating? Meh!) and lots of laughs with the bridal party and the worlds cutest entourage of flowers girls and one patient page boy. The revenge of the penis straws also came, when my fellow bridesmaid and I realised that lakeside ceremony means lakeside birdlife, not really ideal for two hugely bird phobics a sideshow of shrieking ladies aren’t really the done thing during a wedding ceremony. 

When Sam initially told me the wedding would be outdoors in the Tasmanian August I had visions of this Queensland loving lady freezing to a very public and poorly timed death. The morning of the wedding I was pleasantly surprised to open my blinds to sunshine and the excitement didn't even allow me to notice the sub-tropical temperature! Today was the day – the second biggest day of my life! Sam's house was quiet and not-so-surprisingly calm when I arrived with coffee and Banjo’s housecakes. As the morning went on people came and went, food arrived and was nervously nibbled, the youngest of the bridal party (Miss and Mr Three) went from best buds to arch enemies at least five times and gradually, we all became better looking.

We were on schedule to leave at 3pm when the phone rang at 2:50pm and the kind lady at the event hire company kindly informed us that the aisle carpet runner would not be laid, as she had decided it was too wet. Now, those who know me would know if this had been my wedding, a Toddlers and Tiaras style mega-melt down would have ensued. But, at nearly 3pm on the day of her wedding, when most businesses in sleepy Launceston town were closed, Sam calmly asked us to phone around and see if we could find gumboots. Surprisingly it is hard to find gumboots to fit seven people ranging from a Two-year old to a ladies size ten in under five minutes. Not a problem said Sam, call the garden centre near the venue and arrange some weed mat. 

At the end of an aisle of weed mat my gorgeous and still cool, calm and collected Samantha, met her Prince. It was impossible not to have a little tear and the ducks amongst the guests even went unnoticed. I could not have been any happier for my two amazing friends! The ceremony was followed by a lovingly planned reception in a lake-side chalet. Sam had chosen each and every decoration and table embellishment and the result was black and white perfection! The DJ played a hand-selected mix of meaningful tunes and the MC was pretty cute. It was obvious how much Sam and Ryan love each other and those around them. Their day was a gorgeous example of the most important thing on any wedding day - LOVE! Thank you Sam and Ryan for sharing your special day with us - we are so lucky to have you in our lives and look forward to being part of your future! 

Love Love Love 
J x 

 (A Wonderful Wedding!) 

(The MC and I)