Bali, Beach, Family, Friends = Wedding: July 2011

Sunday 26th June 2011
As mother of the bride, it was decided that I would organise a day out for all 'the girls'.
We were all to meet in the Novotel lobby at 10am for a day at secret locations.

16 of the 23 'girls' all ready to go!

Then it was into the cars, picking up a few of the stragglers along the way.

First stop, a spa in Kerobokan (if I tell you the name you'll have to shoot me, I'm sworn to secrecy!) Suffice to say, the infamous Kerobokan prison is a short stroll away. Many hours later (remember, there were 23 of us) we all emerged hair, nails, body scrubbed and pampered. We were all feeling pretty good :-).

Bride and bridesmaid awaiting pampering

Hungry?

View from the spa

Now that we are all looking and feeling beautiful, it's time for part 2 of the day. Back into our cars for the drive down to Seminyak beach. I had given everyone a clue as to where we were headed. I told them that a bucket and spade wouldn't be out of place. We arrived at The Sandpit with a table already set up for us. As soon as we sat down, out came platters of nibbles - chicken satays, fish bites, mini pizzas, wedges and bruschetta -yum. Then out came the mojitos!!

Just when the girls thought it couldn't get any better, the bongo players arrived. Booked just for us. Seminyak beach, sunset, nibbles and drinks and bongos - what more could we ask for!!! What a great start to the wedding this couple of days has been. Many of the guests are visiting Bali for the first time. They have been blown away so far.

Bridesmaid to be

Bride to be

Bride to be with her maids

Bongo fun

The bride to be having fun

Fun on the beach

These guys are good!

Michele and mother of the bride to be

After such fun at the beach, quite a few of the girls piked out and went home. But we weren't finished! The wedding villa was empty and waiting for some fun!! Our patient drivers were there to drive us home. Time to check out the villa and wish the bride well with a few cocktails - as if some hadn't had enough already!

A few pics of the gorgeous 2 bedroom
beachfront villa at the Novotel

What happened in the villa on the girls night, stays in the villa!!! Needless to say I wasn't feeling all that well when I finally returned to my room!

SATURDAY JUNE 25 2011
Up bright and early (well, maybe not so bright ;-) ). Flight's not till 10.15 but we want to be there in plenty of time. With the flight debacles over this last week, we don't want any dramas. With 5 of us in the car, we are fortunately able to offload some of our luggage into the neighbours car (they are coming too of course!). We head off to the Brisbane airport in convoy.
By the time we arrive, 3 hours before departure, there are already people queued up waiting to check in. Just want to get it done and sort Pauline and Peter's lack of ticket! Ok, so we get to the check-in counter and the girl says "sorry, I can't process your boarding pass without a ticket". Damn, this isn't going to be as easy as we thought. "Go and speak to the guy at the service desk". All sorted! We're all checked in and ready to head through to immigration. Oops, get to the scanning area, we forgot our water bottles were full. Rod has to head all the way out to empty them! Still plenty of time to arrange our tax redemption, shop for duty free for the girls day and sit down to have breakfast.
Flight delayed. Delayed again and again. Ok, I'm starting to stress now. This is what happened last week when 'the kids' flight was delayed for so long that they had to change to another flight on another airline just to be sure that they would make it in time to get all their legals done! Eventually, we see the flight attendants boarding and I breath a sigh of relief. We board only 2 hours late. If we miss anything, it should only be the happy hour drinks. I can deal with that.
Of course there has to be one more thing to happen to keep my stress levels at an all time high. The flight is somewhere southeast of Darwin when some guy starts running through the plane calling out "medical help! Medical help!" I feel we are in the middle of a movie! As much as I'm hoping that the poor guy is alright, I'm praying that we are not going to have to divert to Darwin! Thankfully for both the ill passenger and my stress levels, he is well enough for the flight to continue on to Bali. Finally we land. I go to the visa on arrival counter and purchase our voa tickets for ourselves and the Whitneys who were up the back of the plane. Get through immigration in fairly quick time. Our bags are already off the carousel, so off we go. I see our driver, Ary's face amongst the throng. Belinda is standing next to him. All good we have finally arrived in Bali and we are on our way to the Novotel to celebrate our beautiful daughter's wedding!!

Our Beautiful Tropical Terrace Room

at the Novotel Benoa

Looking out to our own private

courtyard garden

The amazing bathroom

The traffic's heavy but not too bad. We drive past familiar landmarks. Then I know we are almost there, Bumbu Bali, Villa Bintang........ we turn into the Novotel and there's Hayley waiting for us!!!!! Time to get together with family and friends to party!!!

No time to sit around. Welcome dinner at Villa Bintang has been organised, complete with entertainment....