I can show you the world shining, shimmering, splendid! - Aladdin, from "Aladdin"

Hello again, it's Jennie here...

For those of you who were paying really close attention, you should have guessed by now from all the small hints Tan and I have been dropping on our Facebook pages and this blog.  For those of you who weren't...

Tan and I will be married at Walt Disney World, in Orlando, Florida!

Fun times!  We love this place!!

(Tan: Well done to Tuyet Anh for kinda correctly guessing where we'll be having our wedding)

The date we are looking at will be mid to late September and it will more than likely be a weekday, as most people will be travelling to get to this destination anyway (and everyone in Australia will have to travel a really long way!)  We decided that having a wedding that was going to be on a weekday and not during peak holiday season was really the ideal way to cut back on the overall wedding costs and ensure we will get the venues we request.

I can now explain why we came to the decision on the destination.  Our decision was mostly based on the people that would be attending our wedding, not just because we liked the location ourselves.  Many years ago we were considering New Zealand as our destination, but based on the people that we were inviting New Zealand was still going to be too far for the majority of people to travel.

We always have so much fun in Disney World. We want to share it with our family!

The next choice on the list was Germany, being half German I have a number of older relatives that live in Germany and would have difficulty travelling long distances, it also cut back the travel time for a big number of people from Tan's side of the family that we wanted to invite.  And really, what girl doesn't want to get married near a real castle??!

We would have loved to get married here, but it was too hard :(

Unfortunately there are a number of problems associated with that choice.  Some of the major reasons we decided against going through with it, was that Tan has never been to Germany and even I have only been there a handful of times, so organizing it was going to be a monumental challenge.  

We also simply did not have the money to travel anywhere that wasn't local to us, so wherever we were going to have the wedding it was going to be sight unseen.  Although my dad speaks German and I have relatives that do, neither Tan or I speak fluently enough to plan a wedding.

It was just turning out to be nearly impossible to do and we decided that if it was going to be this difficult to organize, then there is a pretty big chance that there would be massive issues on the day of the wedding, this is something we did not want.  I am a huge perfectionist and that just wasn't going to fly with me.

What could have been...  But I think we have a pretty good wedding organised!

We were back to the drawing board and discussing possibilities again.  In the end it came down to why we decided against having the wedding in Germany.  It was simply too hard to organize somewhere halfway across the world when we weren't familiar enough with the place, we hadn't seen the locations and didn't speak the language.   Basically we went for a place that had the complete opposite.

I have spent almost a month of combined days in 3 Disney Park locations (Disneyland Anaheim, Disney World Orlando and Disneyland Paris) with the majority of my time spent at Walt Disney World (about 14 days total).  Tan has spent around 20 days at 2 parks (Disneyland Anaheim and Disney World Orlando about 14 days as well at Disney World).  So we know a thing or 2 about Disney Parks!

To Infinity and Beyond

Tan loves this place almost as much as I do

It seemed the logical choice that we get married in a place we love so much, it has a special place in our hearts and it should solve all the travel issues the 2 families were facing.  Not only did Tan have a lot of family that lived in the US and Canada, but my family from Europe weren't too far away either!  It was a great central location for everyone.

Cinderella Castle with fireworks! How can you beat this??

We did some research and spoke to our location planner "Joe", and hopefully with the number of people we have for the time of year we're looking at we should be able to lock in the Disney Wedding Pavilion at the Grand Floridian for the ceremony.

The Wedding Pavilion is a stunning location that overlooks Cinderella's castle in the Magic Kingdom.  It also has enough seating for everyone, is the most intimate and private location available and it is under cover so if the worst happens we're prepared!

The view from where we hope to have our ceremony

At this stage we're hoping to hold the reception at the Living Seas Salon within the Epcot park.  It is a lovely dining area with a dance floor and plenty of room to socialize.  That will however depend on numbers, and we're unsure if we can cut down the number of people enough to be able to have the reception here.

Living Seas Salon.  Our wedding will have much better décor (we hope!)

We are also having a dessert party, but that will be a special surprise for everyone so I wont say where or what it will be!

I hope this clears up some of the details that were up in the air and I hope at least some of you are as excited as we are.  This is truly going to be our fairytale wedding!

Even miracles take a little time - Cinderella's Fairy Godmother, from "Cinderella"

Welcome back!  This is Jennie again.

Today I'm posting about our engagement.  As I said in my last post, there was talk for quite some time about our wedding so the engagement itself wasn't really a big surprise.  I knew it was coming, I just didn't know exactly how and when.

Tan had been organizing the ring himself, I really had nothing to do with it.  The only involvement I had was getting my size for him and trying on a few different designs and shapes to give him an idea what styles looked like on my hand.  The rest was up to him.

On the day Tan proposed (it was Satuday the 10th of August), I had work until 4pm.  We had planned to go see a movie after I finished work and I asked him to book the tickets.  Tan came to pick me up, and after we drove out of the parking lot he told me that we weren't going to the movies at all, that he didn't book tickets and that we had a two hour drive ahead of us.  This would have been fine if I hadn't had a big bottle of water to drink about 30 minutes prior to getting in the car!

So we were on our way and I was crossing my legs for the next two hours.  We drove past the city and were headed north at this stage.  I was pretty confused and he had mentioned so many places he wanted to visit with me I really had no idea where we were off to.

It was about two hours later that we were driving through dark bushland with lots of kangaroo and wombat crossing signs, Tan reassured me that we were almost there.  If he had intended to abandon me, I told him that if he left me by the side of the road now I wouldn't be able to find my way back so he didn't have to drive me any further anyway.

We drive into Daylesford, which is a small country community and tourist area.  It has beautiful rolling hills, farmland and bushland and is extremely beautiful.  It's quite dark by the time we get there so we couldn't see too much at that time, unfortunately.

Lake Daylesford

He stops at from what I can see is a tourist centre and tells me to not look!  I do my best to not peek, he returns to the car and drives off again.  About 15 minutes later we arrive at a small homestead with beautiful gardens and a lovely old shack in the middle of the garden, and he announces that it's a bed and breakfast!

Where Tan Proposed

We make our way to the shack and enter.  Inside it has ultra modern conveniences with a rustic feel.  The bedroom and lounge are combined living spaces, in the lounge is a cosy sitting area with a gas fire.  Beyond the bedroom is a small kitchen and bathroom with a waterfall shower and huge spa bath!

It is absolutely gorgeous!  It's small enough to be cosy but large enough so you're not tripping over each other.  He mentioned to me that he had breakfast organized and dinner was already booked, I'm wondering what I did to deserve all this, its not like it's my birthday or anything!

Inside the Bed and Breakfast

The Fireplace

For the next couple of hours we unpack, relax and play clash of clans together (an iPhone game, in case you were wondering) and then get ready to go out to dinner.  Immediately before we're about to leave, Tan stands by the fire to warm himself, and I follow just to get that last bit of warmth before we head outside into the icy cold.

Just when I thought that there were no more surprises, he showed me that there was one more that he had in store!  He got down on one knee with the ring box and proposed to me right in-front of the fire.  It really couldn't be any more romantic.  He had everything planned perfectly!  After some really beautiful things were said (which I choose to keep to myself at this point in time), and a really beautiful moment was shared, we left for dinner.

Tan had dinner booked at a place called Kazuki's, which has an amazing modern Japanese/French style fusion menu.  It was like nothing I've ever tasted before, it was truly amazing!  Even the shellfish, which I'm not normally a fan of at all was amazing, fresh and tasted superb!  My favourite of the night was the beef tataki with anchovy, radish, potato and yuzu.

The glorious Beef Tataki!

The next day I showered up and Tan cooked me an amazing breakfast with egg, bacon, tomato, toast and salmon.  It was delicious and he did an awesome job!  In case you didn't know, Tan is an amazing cook.  I am very lucky! :)

After breakfast we drove to a day spa and he had a couples full body massage and facial booked for us.  Ninety minutes later, I was feeling like melted butter and we left and drove for about fifteen or so minutes to our next destination.  Nestled in amongst the dense bushland was a chocolate mill!  

I am a huge chocoholic so this was a fantastic end to an amazing weekend.  We stopped and I had an amazing hot chilli chocolate, we watched a chocolate demonstration and purchased a box of their chocolates.  Which were so good.. so very, very good.  I actually wish I had some now.

OMG CHOCOLATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On the way home we called our parents and told them the good news.  Naturally everyone was ecstatic!  It has been a long road, but as they say "Anything worth doing is worth taking a really long time to do it!".

We have been discussing the details of where we should get married for a little over a year now and about 4 months ago we actually decided where would be the perfect place to have our wedding.  This Saturday night we are going out to dinner with our families and we will be announcing exactly where and when our wedding will be.

Be sure to check back about this time tomorrow as we will be posting an announcement on our blog immediately after the dinner.  You can see who was the closest at guessing where we had decided to hold the wedding!

Ahhh! Salam and good evening to you worthy friend! - Merchant, from "Aladdin"

Welcome to our wedding blog!

This site will be updated over the next 13 or so months in the lead up to our wedding, during this time as we organize and make our plans you have the opportunity to observe this process and get *some* detailed information on what will happen on the big day!

We do want some things to be a surprise so occasionally we will write posts that won't be uploaded until after the wedding has taken place, so it might be worth while to check back here even after the wedding.

Let me start with introductions first:

Jennie

I've been working as a Jeweller and certified Gemmologist for the past 14 years, my passions include travel, gaming, pop culture and my spending time with my small family which includes my fiancé Tan, my older black and white male cat Deuce who has been with us for 12 years, our younger tabby kitten Bellatrix who has been with us for 7 months (she is around 19 months old) and our Boxer dog Merlin who has been with us for 21 months.

Tan

Hello, Tan here.  There's not much to know about me other than I like food, sport, travel, and doing things that make me (and other people) laugh.  My other passions are pretty much what Jennie has listed in her profile, as we spend most of our time with each other and our pets.  I guess it's a good thing we're getting married to each other!

When I'm not being awesome, I like to sleep and write blog entries.

Back to Jennie... We have been best friends for nearly 15 years now, we've been together around 11 of those years so this marriage has been on the cards for quite a while.  Given that sometimes life gets in the way, we just didn't want to rush into something that wasn't going to be really, really special.

So for about the past 12 months or so we have been discussing what we were going to do and how we were going to do it, there has been rumours flying back and forth between the families about where and when but even we weren't sure what was the best way!  

Both Tan and I don't have a whole lot of family living in Australia and much of our family that we really wanted to attend all live internationally.  We came to the conclusion that having a wedding in Australia made it more difficult for those that we really wanted there, so very early on we decided we were going to get married overseas.

The question is...  Where in the world will we have our wedding?

The candidates...  Each of these destinations have beautiful places and landmarks for us to be married at.  They all have a special place in not only our hearts, but that of our loved ones.  It will be so hard to choose!

Germany

I love Germany, and have always wanted to take Tan here with me.

Vietnam

Tan always tells me that he doesn't particularly love Vietnam, but in the same sentence will tell me how he would love to take me here.

Paris

No comment necessary.  It's Paris!!

USA

Tan and I have a special place in our hearts and have been here so many times!

New Zealand

We always talked about getting married in New Zealand because it's so beautiful.  And Tan has this unhealthy fascination with throwing things into volcanoes...

So...  Which place is it going to be?  We would love for you to post comments below with your thoughts and feelings about the possible destinations.

Thank you for reading.

- Jennie