I am sitting in the living room of my dad’s house in the Southern Highlands south of Sydney, looking out over rolling green valleys and distant blue hills. A thunderstorm has just broken a cloudless blue day, and now there is an enormous rainbow arching across the horizon. All the colours are correct and present – from glowing red to vivid indigo and violet.
I arrived in Australia last Thursday night and Dad picked me up from the airport and brought me home. I’ve been recovering from worse-than-usual jetlag these past few days and tomorrow I’m going up to Sydney to start running errands for my wedding, which is just over a week away. I’ve been writing a to-do list and making appointments today and I’m feeling a wee bit stressed, but I’m trying to keep calm and centred.
The flight out here with Singapore Airlines was fine. The first leg from London to Singapore was especially good in the big A380. The plane was clean and comfortable and the service was fantastic. It started when I checked in – I got as far as saying “I have a question to ask you”, when the guy pointed to the fabric bag I was carrying and smiled, asking “is that a wedding dress?”. You’re normally restricted to one item of carry-on luggage but he said it was no problem to take the wedding dress on board and to give it to one of the flight attendants to look after. When I got on board, they clapped and said “oh, wow a wedding dress” and took it to hang it up in first class. (Unfortunately I had to stay in economy but I did get an aisle seat with an empty seat next to me).
I really felt like the flight attendants considered it a pleasure to serve the passengers – they were unfailingly cheerful and polite and happy to help with extras like a eye mask, fresh milk for my tea and frequent refills of my water bottle. The food was great – for most meals we had a choice between Western and Asian meals and both styles were excellent, though the best decision I made was to skip one of the meals. I don’t normally eat four times in 24 hours after all! It’s easy to fall into that trap on a long-haul flight.
For the first leg, I mostly watched movies and I caught up on Slumdog Millionaire, Doubt, Australia and Dubya. On the second leg, I managed to catch snatches of sleep.
Blogging will be intermittent over the next few weeks. If I get organised, I’ll schedule some posts to go live while I’m on my honeymoon in the Great Barrier Reef, but no promises! But I do promise to share photos and stories after I get back in late April.
As I’ve written this, the rainbow and thunderstorm have passed and the sun is setting. The birds are singing and the sky is a blaze of purple and gold.
Looks gorgeous. Glad your flight was stress-free – got my own flight back from Cameroon in three weeks. Just spent the last three days without water and can’t remember the last time I found anything served that I wanted to heat.
So I’m actually really looking forward to the flight – and the meals and the movies.
Hope your wedding day is wonderful – and I am sure it will be – your honeymoon sounds like it will be idyllic.
Congratulations to you both.
Congratulations !!!!!!!! That’s all I can say now !! Try to relax a bit before the wedding.
I’m flying from London back to Australia (Perth) on Singapore Airlines this year and asked whether I could carry my wedding dress on board. I got an email back to say they have no such facilities on board and I would have to fold my dress and put it in an overhead compartment. They also said if I did that I could only bring that on board and nothing else. So not sure how I’m going to get my laptop / camera etc to Australia as my partner is not flying with me. Unless of course I check that in, which they suggested for my dress.
I didn’t make any special arrangements – I just took the dress on board, trusting it would be fine. The moment I got on the crew were like “wow, is that a wedding dress” and rushed to take care of it for me. The airline might not have official policies for brides but I seriously can’t imagine the lovely Singapore Airlines flight attendants not helping you out.
My advice? By-pass the check-in counter and take your hand luggage and dress through security. Then see if the flight attendants can help. If the flight is not full I’m sure they will be able to hang your dress somewhere AND take the hand luggage with your camera on board. If worst comes to worst and they are serious about limiting you to one piece of hand luggage, then you can check in the hand luggage at the gate and keep the dress with you. I would talk to the flight attendants who are actually managing your plane rather than the airport-based airline staff.
Good luck! And congratulations. – Caitlin.