Honeymoon discovery

One of the enlightening discoveries made on our honeymoon

I LOVE MOJITO'S!!

(photo source)

Our barmen at Erakor in Vanuatu, Peter & Nixon were expert Mojito men, and after struggling to have a ready to go drink of choice for quite some years (sambucca incident in the early 2000's!), I'm pleased to say I officially endorse Mojito's, as my fave :)

(photo source)

Our Wedding Day

Hi Everyone!

Our wedding day was amazing, went off better than expected. A very special day, if the rest of our married life goes 1/10th as well as yesterday did, I will be one happy girl :)

We went back to the hall at 9am Sunday to clean up, 'unsetup' everything, and make bacon and egg rolls for everyone. It was a lovely morning with our family, everyone was abuzz with happy talk about the day/night before.

My husband (that sounds weird!) spent most of Sunday in bed trying to sleep off a shocking hangover before we met with the last of our family Sunday night for dinner before they fly back to Vic yesterday!

Thank you everyone for all of your support, advice, good vibes & wishes, I have felt the love through the screen :)

I will post a 'proper' entry with photos soon, we were blessed with a lovely day after a week of pouring rain, we had some rain while getting photos done, but when the sun broke thru again the light was amazing, according to the photographer! Hope to have some photos before we head to Vanuatu on Thursday, if not we'll definitely have them when we return in 2 weeks, and I will post them here.

PS - the bunting looked amazing!!!!!!! :) :)

Honeymoon upgrade - woohoo!

Once again my stalking skills have paid off!

My first stalking success was our house, I stalked the 2 streets we wanted to buy in and we ended up buying one before it came on the market, yay us!

Now another win (not in a wanker Charlie Sheen way!).

I was stalking the website of our honeymoon location - Erakor Island Resort, Vanuatu - and while daydreamily flicking through the online photos noticed that the accommodation page had a new addition.

We are booked on a Romance Package in a Waterfront Spa Villa, the new listing is for a Superior Waterfront Spa Villa!  Immediately I began comparing the details and was getting a bit green eyed monsterish.

So I emailed the lovely Rina at Erakor who has been my contact through the quoting/booking process.  She said we could upgrade to the Superior Waterfront Spa Villa for a tiny extra daily charge (saving us a fair chunk off the usual rate for the Superior Villa).

WOOHOO!!!!!!!!!!!

From the Erakor website:

The Waterfront Superior Spa Villas are privately positioned further along the island and are perfect for a romantic retreat. The villa has separate bedroom and sitting area, breezy front deck with daybed for an afternoon siesta, corner spa, mini bar, plasma screen for a quiet night in with a good movie, bicycles for your morning ride to explore the island and more!

Features:

- Master bedroom with Kingsize bed

- Seperate sitting room

- Bar fridge with mini bar

- Tea & coffee making facilities

- Ceiling fans & ocean breezes

- Private deck with daybed

- Tropical gardens & hammock

- Bicycles & board games

- and mesmerising water views

The Waterfront Spa Villas are spacious and stand-alone and feature a spa bath big enough for 2 to relax and soak up some Island Time whilst sipping a glass of bubbly and looking out across the mesmerizing blue lagoon waters. Decorated with a Melanesian theme, the timber louvres invite the natural light and ocean breezes.

Features:

- Kingsize bed

- Corner spa with lagoon outlook

- Bar fridge

- Tea & coffee making facilities

- Ceiling fans

- Private deck with outdoor setting

- Tropical gardens

- and mesmerising water views

The extra's are the Superior has a mini bar, plasma tv, ocean view rather than lagoon, daybed and hammock. But the big extra is it is further down the beach and more secluded. Woohoo.

Hopefully our villa will be something like this!

Our Romance Package, just for interest sake includes:

• Tropical Breakfast Daily

• VIP Return Airport Transfers

• Tropical Coconut Shell Welkam Drink

• Champagne & Flowers on Arrival

• 30min Island Massage for 2

• Private Beach Champagne Picnic

• Sunset Cocktails and Chef’s Dinner

• Free use of all Watersports

• Free 24hr Ferry

• Tropical Indulgence Giftpack incl Waffle Robes & Slippers, Saron & Lava Lava Spa Bath Pamper Set, Handmade Chocolates

As you can probably tell we're a tad excited about our honeymoon!

Passport - done!

Woohoo, Mr Mel will not be going on our Vanuatu Honeymoon solo, I just received an email from DFAT:

We are pleased to advise that your passport application has been processed and your passport has been produced, it is now being despatched by registered mail.

Yay, happy dance, and on a Hump Day Wednesday no less, excellent!  I should receive my passport in the mail shortly, oh and in your face Cessnock Post Office, who wouldn't accept my application because I didn't have my expired passport with me (expired in 2008), the Newcastle Post Office rocks, you suck!  :)  (apologies to regulars for my immature outburst!)

Soooo exciting, it's 53 days today till our wedding, and 58 days till our Honeymoon!

OMG 2 Months Today!!!!!!!!!

That's right, 2 months from today I will be getting ready to marry my darling Mr Mel!

How on earth has it come around so quickly, we only got engaged yesterday (ok so Feb 14 but feels like yesterday!).

Things are happening, we're getting through the list, the weekend just gone ticked a few big items off:

• Passport for Me! - I had a passport, however it expired 2 years ago, seeings as our honeymoon is in Vanuatu, would've sucked for Mr Mel to have headed off solo!

(photo source)

• Suit for Mr Mel - we were going to hire a suit, but nowhere hired the colour we I wanted.

Originally we were going with a Taupe colour, something like this photo

However after going to 5 separate formal hire places in Newcastle it wasn't looking good, none of them had suits to hire in the colour, and what they did have to buy in the colour had a cream pinstripe, which we didn't like.

The next colour to have caught our eye was grey, so Mr Mel tried on a few different options and we ended up buying a 3 piece darkish grey suit, with an ivory shirt & tie.  The ivory will match my dress, and he can wear the tie if he wants, but probably won't.  I love the waistcoat look above, and when Mr Mel tried his suit on without the jacket & tie, I knew it was the one, he looked so handsome and swish!

This is similar to the suit we've purchased, however with the same colour waistcoat, ivory shirt & tie.

I was sick with cold/flu and spent most of Sat arvo (after shopping) to Sun night either in bed or on the couch dozing, but it was good to get some of the 'To Do's' done!

Last night we finalised our selections for vows and ceremony and emailed them to our celebrant.

Next weekend I'm going shopping for my shoes, Brideslave shoes, Bra & Suckitallin Underwear for me.  And hopefully getting onto the elusive DIY Bunting project!

Honeymoon booked - Yay!

After much back & forth with travel agents, flicking through way too many magazines and scrolling through hundreds of websites, we've booked our Honeymoon, yay!

We're flying Air Vanuatu

Our Honeymoon Airline :)

Staying 10 nights at Erakor Island Resort

Erakor Island Resort

We have booked direct with both, we picked out the package we wanted, and went to Flight Centre with the flight & accomm we wanted, and were quoted one price, I went home and checked prices myself, and booking direct would save us $800, so no brainer, I've booked direct!

And the bonus, with the flights, our reservations are held, but we don't have to pay until this Friday, which isn't a huge saving, but our VISA gets paid in full on Thursday, so we'll have room to put it on the VISA, leaving that $1,100 in our offset another month.

The bigger bonus is booking direct with Erakor we only have to pay a $250 deposit, then the balance a month before we arrive, with Flight Centre they wanted everything paid for by 28 April!  So that's 2 months of the honeymoon $ in our offset, not in Flight Centre's kitty.

And the girl at Erikor I've been emailing, Abi, has been so helpful, I think it's so much more personal to have the 1 on 1 contact, rather than via a travel agent.

Yay on all fronts, very excited!

The Honeymoon

At this stage we're leaning to Vanuatu for our honeymoon, for a few reasons:

1 - it's good value, 10 days, including flights, beach bungalow, breakfast, scuba lesson, for around $140 a day each
2 - my sister had "my best holiday EVER" there, and she's been around, in a good way!
3 - my future SIL went there for her honeymoon, and loved it

Vanuatu

We could have gone a much cheaper option and stayed in Aus, however we've decided to splash out a bit because:

1 - my last holiday that was more than a long weekend was in 2001
2 - we want to start a family asap, so it might be a while till we can have a nice relaxing beach holiday!
3 - we deserve it :)

Vanuatu

We want to have a week of just chilling out, relaxing by the pool/beach, snorkelling, and exploring the island, meeting the locals.  We're still working through quotes, so hopefully we can find and lock in a great deal soon!