What are you doing AFTER the wedding? I don’t mean your honeymoon, or any of that … ahem … other stuff. I mean, what are you and you beloved DOING? Have you worked out the who / what / where / how / why yet?

I’m a person who MUST have goals, has to plan, has to work towards something. At uni it was finishing my degree and getting into grad school, at grad school is was getting out of grad school and getting a job, in 2008 it was planning the wedding, this year it was planning our OE … and when we’re finished the OE … phew boy!

CDH and I want to move to Scandinavia. We know roughly what we expect to pay for land. We know which areas we want to live in. We know the design of the house we’re gonna build.

The next few years we intend to stay in NZ, however, and prepare ourselves for the move. We need to both be in a position where we can support ourselves on home-based business when we get over there, so we’re not relient on finding jobs in a foriegn land where we don’t speak the language. We also intend to be self-suffient (off-the-grid wind and solar power, not connected to mains water, producing a large portion of our own food, you get the idea …)

So the next three years I have to work on – the house design, buying our first home in NZ so we have the capital behind us to make the move and budgeting to put CDH through audio engineering school.

I’m also taking a series of night courses on all the crafts I want to learn, my part in helping us become self sufficient and to help bring in more money through products in my shop, etc.

I’m doing sewing, soapmaking, organic gardening (which I already do, but badly), painting (to brush up my skills and motivate me to continue painting), and possibly graphic design, if I have the time.

I need to expand my writing business to cover our asses as a full-time income when we move, and help CDH get his drum-making business up and running.

As for how Wedding Skulls fits into all these plans, I don’t yet know. I love the shop and blog and hope to keep doing them for as long as I can, but there will come a time when I can no longer talk about weddings.

I have a wicked cool idea for another blog / shop which has the potential to reach a much wider audience than this here lil’ dark wedding blog, I’m NOT saying goodbye, though! I’m just saying, “I’m thinking about changes. Ch-ch-changes!”

Skully brides (and grooms) what are your post-wedding plans? Are you doing anything exciting? Are you buying or building a house, spitting out some babies, or trekking the world? Lets share!

This article is a few years old now, but I just stumbled across it:

Heavy Metal Headbangers ‘risk injury’

Researchers from the School for Risk and Safety Sciences at the University of New South Wales in Sydney attended several heavy metal concerts to apply biochemical analysis to headbanging techniques.

Their research culminated in the creation of a “theoretical headbanging model” taking into account the bpm (beats per minute) of certian metal songs, and the angle of the head “bang” to predict levels of head and neck injury, similiar to Whiplash.

It seems that if you headbang with an angle of less than 45 degrees, you minimize your risk of injury. Angles of 75 degrees or more are extrememly dangerous to your precious neck.

The article (which is somewhat tongue-in-cheek) recommends wearing a neck brace whilst headbanging, or listening to Celine Dion instead. There’s no hard core shred solo in ‘My Heart Will Go On’ after all.

Reading this article makes me think about headbanging. As a metalhead, headbanging is part of my dancing repatoire – indeed, my ONLY dancing “move”. I can’t waltz, I can’t macarena, I sure as shit can’t skank dance to hip hop. But give me a brutal beat and I can thrash around with the best of ‘em.

I remember my earliest headbanging experiences – thrashing around on my room to Metallica’s ‘Ride the Lightning’ and Iron Maiden’s ‘Seventh Son of a Seventh Son’. When I was fifteen I brought my first metal shirt – the Metallica ‘Metal Up Your Ass’ one – and met another dude wearing an identical shirt – a friend of a friend. We bonded over our love of all things Metallica, and he took me to my first ever live show; a terrible, mediocre christian rock band that played in our local hall.

We didn’t care about the music – we stood up the front and spun our heads around, swung ourselves this way and that, threw goats and every other form of livestock imaginable and screamed at them to play ‘Creeping Death’. Those poor christian boys! They must have thought we were on drugs.

From then on, I was hooked. At every live show, I HAD to be at the front, I HAD to be the tiny girl in there among the men, thrashing and smashing my own circle of death.

When I moved to Auckland from the small town I grew up in, I spent the first couple of years dating a guy from the Christian rock scene. I know, I know, don’t know what I was doing there. When I got out, I went straight down to the metal bar I’d neglected, and found my new home. When I took my now husband to see a local thrash band (before we were even going out) and he slammed his way to the front with me, put his arms around my shoulders and the shoulders of the dude next to him, and beat his head to their epic song, I knew it was meant to be.

As the years moved on, I’ve moved back in the crowd a bit. I tend to nod a lot more, thrash a lot less, but I still give it hell if I feel the band deserves it. The scene has changed a bit – more young boys now, who prefer to beat each other to a pulp than stand around and thrash their heads. Fine, whatever. Move with the times, I guess. Headbanging is still my love, my move, my childhood.

What about you, gentle readers? What does headbanging mean to you?

From this great site Fun Latin comes useful latin phrases for everyday life:

My dog ate it.
Canis meus id comedit.

I’m not interested in your dopey religious cult.
Nihil curo de ista tua stulta superstitione.

I am not lost.
Neutiquam erro.

Accidentally on purpose
Casu consulto

IF YOU CAN READ THIS BUMPER STICKER, YOU ARE BOTH VERY WELL EDUCATED AND MUCH TOO CLOSE
SIC HOC ADFIXUM IN OBICE LEGERE POTES, ET LIBERALITER EDUCATUS ET NIMIS PROPINQUUS ADES

Your fly is open.
Braccae tuae aperiuntur.

Go ahead. Make my day.
Age. Fac ut gaudeam.

… and last but not least, for all your romantic Wedding Skulls readers:

Have you lost weight?
Nonne macescis?

Your place or mine?
Apudne te vel me?

It looks great on you!
Id tibi praebet speciem lepidissimam!

Your slip is showing.
Subucula tua apparet.

Scour Skull, $33, from Knights Edge

I thought you Skully brides might appreciate this mighty fine character sitting behind your loo. The Scour Skull is made of cold-cast resin and realistically hand-aged and finished for that authentic autopsy bathroom decor!

Knights Edge also sell replica medieval weapons and armour, figurines, books and strange and wonderful knickknacks. I love their London Clink Prison Ball and Chain leg shackles. I’d put a pair of these in the corner of the entrance hall.

I’d just like to take a moment here to step away from my role as shopping blog owner and step into my HEMA greaves. Please remember to check the usage for weapons before using them for reenactment or sport fighting – don’t play around with sharpened swords unless you KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING. Don’t fight other people using sharp weapons even IF THEY INSIST ON IT. If you’re firing crossbows or swinging war axes, watch out for other people standing nearby. I guess ‘don’t play silly-buggers’ sums this up quite nicely. I probably don’t need to say this – but I do anyway, because a friend chopped half his fingers off playing silly-buggers with a sword.

Also, do your own research before buying anything proclaiming to be an ‘authentic replica’). I’m not a sword expert – I fight with them, but I don’t know enough to know a decent replica from a fake – so I can’t tell you if Knight’s Edge make good replicas or not.

If you’re buying a sword for either test-cutting, reenactment, fighting or to hang on the wall, you’d want something that’s as authentic as you can get, right? I’m not saying DON’T use Knights Edge – I’m just saying do your research. And watch out for customs officials – they bite

I realise my posts on Wedding Skulls have become more erratic of late. I’m sorry. I’ve been busy with preperations for our European trip, copywriting projects, and my brand new blog – Steff Metal.

While Wedding Skulls focuses on my wedding-related business, Steff Metal is MY blog. It’s about the things I love most – metal, writing, fun, travel, fashion, friends, books, life.

If you’re interested, pop over and take a look. Let me know what you think!

Steff

I’m just dropping by to let you all know about this hilarious new blog Goths in Hot Weather.

It’s a blog about … exactly what the title suggests. Goths on the beach, with drooping mohawks, running makeup, fishnet sunburn, and all the other wonderful misadventures that come with the summer months. I do love the pic of the goth girl with her ice cream, though.

I’ve always said Goth is NOT a summer fashion.