The A Team's Wedding!

After being together for more than 7 years, and after a few trying months of earthquakes and house purchases, the day (or weekend) was finally upon us to get married. We chose a lodge at Castle Hill as the venue, in the foothills of the Southern Alps, about 100kms inland from Christchurch. Its a pretty cool spot.





The day and evening was wonderful despite the rain which meant Alex had to make the difficult decision to move the ceremony indoors.

Here are some pics of the ceremony.

Alex and his dad looking nervous beforehand


Guests assemble


The paparazzi


Bridesmaid Kerry striding up the aisle


Walking up the aisle!




Our celebrant, Ray Goldring (yes, that is really his surname!)




Paddy with his bounty after the surprise lolly scramble at the end of the ceremony!


The intrepid chair carriers who traipsed up the hill with 20 chairs for the ceremony only to carry them back down again when the rain set in. Thanks guys!


Amms' closest family


Alex's family


The rain made for good photos beneath a colourful umbrella, a hand-me-down from the Sydney mardi gras parade!






Alex, have you forgotten something?





We each had a go in the make shift chariot that Ann-Marie's family had made for her grandmother to be transported up the hill to the ceremony. Luckily the ceremony was moved indoors as I'm not sure the chariot, or more importantly, the people carrying the chariot would have survived that sort of effort!



The party










The 'shoe' game where we answered questions about us using Ann-Marie's sandal and Alex's jandal (flip flop or thong). Lets just say it was hilarious but our answers matched on most counts!


The first dance that we had been practicing - the earthquake stopped our practices but we still had a good dance to 'I'm a believer' by the Monkees.




And the next morning, we did it all again! The sun came out so we got dressed up for some more pics in a clearing above the lodge (where we had planned to have the ceremony). Views of Castle Hill rocks and fresh snow - beaut!







Thanks to everyone for making the day so special!
Thanks also to the photographers.

Wedding Still ON.

Our wedding is on as planned! Just spoke to celebrant up at Castle Hill. Castle Hill is unaffected and over the last 6 months has only felt three shocks with no damage so you are very unlikely to feel an aftershock if you are up there. So...all plans remain the same from our end.

For all of you flying in, the airport is open, its prob best to avoid staying in Chch, although there is accom around the airport which wasn't badly affected. Our minibus is still running, although the only pick up will likely be at the airport. Please let us know if you still need the minibus as I realise your plans are likely to change. Please let us know what your plans are so that we can keep track of everyone coming.

Also, we totally understand if you really can't face coming in the circumstances. If this is the case, try to get your flights refunded or a credit and you are very welcome to visit and stay with us another time.

Lovely Veronica

We've been living in Veronica for only two weeks but it feels a lot longer. She already feels homely and most importantly ours! We finally moved into our first home on 6th January - all done under our own steam. Alex loved driving the big truck packed full with our stuff but failed the first challenge of backing up the steep driveway. So we unloaded from the street meaning pretty full on lifting up to the house for most of the day. The next day was spent playing tetris in each room to get furniture and stuff in the right place.

I am still amazed how DIY and gardening can become so enjoyable when its on your own place. We have become Mitre 10 regulars already, heading there every couple of days to feed our need for power tools, gardening supplies and an assortment of nails, screws and other fix-it things for the house. Alex's first DIY job was taking a file to the bathroom door so that it now closes properly. As the house is so old (built in 1920's) everything is a little on the piss and holey plus its mostly wooden so its pretty easy for us to fix!

We spent our first weekend here mostly in the garden, weeding, cleaning gutters in the roof, sorting out the worm farm and generally getting to know what is actually in the garden! We've already harvested a year's supply of plums (made into plum jam by Mum) and are now onto the grapefruit and lemons. Next on the fruit list will be pears and at some point feijoas and apples!

We had our first BBQ here last weekend on the BBQ assembled by Amms entirely on her own and very proudly. Next up housewarming time!

Albert is dead, long live Vernon!

We have a new house, 9 Vernon Terrace! Its an even better spot than Albert but without the bubbling brook. Stunning views of the southern alps from the living area and a plum, orange, grapefruit, feijoa, apple and lemon tree in the garden! So we will have a venue to have a BBQ after our wedding after all! Move in on 5th Jan.

We're free

Latest news is Harcourts have confirmed they will be returning all of the remainder of our deposit. Their policy following the earthquake has been to return all commission money if the property is deemed untenantable which is very generous of them. So sweet. Now we can go house hunting all over again! and quickly before we get kicked out of our rental.

Never thought we'd be so happy to be out of the sale agreement.

So the lesson here is use Harcourts there very amenable after all!

Love
The A Team.

MARK where are you?

Well. It looks like we will avoid court. We've just received news from the Vendors Solicitor saying they accept the Letting Agent statements that the property is untenantable and therefore that the contract between us is cancelled as per our original notice.

Thats the good bit. The bad bit is they will only be returning half of our deposit because Harcourts have already taken out their commission which is unfair but, amazingly, LEGAL!

Ergo through no fault of our own we are a lot of money out of pocket. Bring on Fair Go and Mark Sainsbury!

I need to write. Stress stress stress Wow. Nothing like a good legal drama to get the blood pumping. We were thinking all we need now is to uncover a government conspiracy and a few murders and we have all the ingredients for a true life high court Grisham drama.

We spent three hours this afternoon on the phone to various commercial litigators from the best law firms in Christchurch and got a good dose of reality. For a start it would go to the High Court, could take 2 years and 60-80k worth of fees to resolve and at $370 per hour billable rates its easy to see why! But despite this they all say our case is good, but that nothing is certain in court.

To the credit of most of the lawyers we spoke to they have all been extremely helpful giving us free advice and trying to help us get enough 'untenantability' testimonials together to avoid court. However Harcouts the Real Estate agents have also entered the arena with their own big hitting lawyer and have taken their 17k commission out of our deposit and will not be refunding this, which is well within their legal right. But in lawyer speak its not worth going to court over something as small as this! F$#*!

The settlement notice expires on 10th November so we should know whether the vendors will take court proceedings, extend the notice or walk away with a big loss.
Alex