me? an unofficial wedding photographer?

My frequency with updating this Space is not as frequent as I would like it to be… hmm… oh well… here’s an update since 19/03/2006…

Last week at work was another short 4-day week, thanks to my previous planning ahead for another day of Annual Leave. What I really want to focus on here is the “long weekend” that I have just returned from – the title of this blog gives a hint at the main highlight from the weekend…

Friday

didn’t stir in bed ’til 8am. Quick comparison: what time is it now? 8:00am, and where am I? Already at work… ok… doing this, but still… u get the point…
A lazy start… brekky was an enjoyable egg + toast! Most satisfying. The point of my day off was two-fold; firstly to spend quality time with my Dad, and secondly to give myself more time for FOCUS, music practice & prep for the Careers Night. Both objectives for my day off were met and the day as a whole was very satisfying. Don’t you just love it when your plans work out?

The FOCUS Careers Night was a first. During the mid-arvo, I put together a single page handout on sections in a resume. Got to church at 4:45pm, spent time with HP and AT before music practice; 5:15-ish was music practice; 6:30pm dinner. A quick story about dinner – I decided to get the handout/material photocopied first, and by the time I was done, I had missed out on my bowl of noodles… =| But then, the local bakery dropped off their weekly Santa-sized bag of bread, so I had bread instead… I decided to think of it as a symbolic Bread of Life, so wasn’t too fazed about no dinner…

7pm prayer. Personally, I struggle a little with the new format/approach that we’re taking to this time of prayer. We get started, praying for a certain topic, but then each time someone says “Let’s start praying about such and such…” I find it breaks the momentum and flow of the Spirit…. I think it would help the flow of the Spirit much more if the person would instead lead the direction of the prayer topics by starting the prayer topic him/herself. For ex, Dear Lord, as we pray for …, we ask for Your… etc…

7:30pm worship. What can I say? I love connecting with God during times of praise & worship!
8:20pm Careers Night – Guest speakers. I found the diversity in speaker profiles quite interesting. I know 3 out of the 4 speakers, but it was inspirational and motivational to hear how God moves in their places of work.
9:10pm Careers Night – workshops. My contribution was to help out CH & AH with Writing Resumes & Interview Prep. We ran two workshops, and I found the first, where we had a small close-knit group, it worked slightly better. Now on reflection, with a BIG group for the second workshop, we could have split into two groups to get a better connection with the audience. The questions raised were good questions, but we were very much constrained by time. The time constraint also meant that I had to rush thru my bit, and there’s still plenty I wish I could share and talk about with the guys.

QUESTION: Who would be interested in having a Part II? If there’s sufficient interest, I might try to organise something…

Saturday

Brekky today – French toast! YUMMY!! Brekky was ~10am. Just after brekky, my brother rang to organise a 12pm lunch at Malaysia Garden… (he likes the Nonya style of cooking). After lunch, I went shopping to prepare for dinner that night BECOS I was COOKING! Yep, that’s right! I was in the mood to cook… and 80% of the time when I cook, that means spaghetti & meatballs!!! See, I’ve actually been taught HOW to make meatballs, and the whole family says I do a pretty good meatball spag, including a food-connoisseur brother.

As a whole, a peaceful, quiet Saturday.

Sunday

Church in the morning. My uncle came to the house before church to drop his car off at my neighbour/mechanic’s… After a bit of indecisiveness, I ended up at Church slightly on the late side… Oh, I had also woken up earlier (8am) to wash the car nice and clean.

I’m gonna skip right to the BIG event of the day – my distant cousin’s wedding banquet. When I say distant cousin, the relationship is thru my mum. Me > mum > grandpa > grandpa’s sister > son (mum’s cousin, yeah?) > my uncle’s wife > my uncle’s brother-in-law (brother of uncle’s wife) = the uncle who dropped by before church = father of the bride-to-be. How did u go? Confused? Let’s just say family. hehe…

Anyway – this was the wedding banquet at Shark Fin House. Yes, we could see the fireworks, and that was even a joke made at our table, which was also the Head table where the wedding couple were seated! oh yeah… (hmm… mental note, that must be a TP influence). Five tables in total, my table was hosted by the wedding couple (obs – very easy to miss-spell wedding with weeding…) Bride’s sister hosted a table of church friends; bride’s brother hosted a second table of church friends. Bride’s father hosted table of some church friends and finally Bride’s mother (also baker of the Black Forrest wedding cake) hosted table of future-in-laws. Note: not in-laws of the groom, but the brother’s wife-to-be! VH is the bride, GS is the groom. GS is an Italian! And I love his tiramisu – it’s gotta be the best I’ve ever had. YUM! Anyway, VH asked me to look after her camera, and that’s how I became the unofficial wedding photographer… Besides the bridal family, arguably I know the majority of the 50 ppl present. I counted: I don’t know 4 ppl in total. I loved catching up with old family/church friends (my table would be considered the close family friends table).

The actual wedding ceremony will be held in Italy in August, where GS is from. VH is a pharmacist currently working in the UK, GS is a doctor working UK/Italy. GS also doesn’t look Italian Italian… he’s fairer… but the nose is definitely Roman.

My dad just rang… the plan with the photos is to turn them into a wedding present… I’m currently thinking of a slide-show DVD + some sort of print-out onto a shirt/table-cloth/material type thingy…

Can’t wait for the brother’s wedding on APRIL 8! Only two weekend’s away!

(It’s now 8:50am… I’ve spent almost an hour on this… and still no one’s around… Ignore the timestamp – daylight saving is still on!!!)

‘until the next time, when I have photos to post.