I have a confession. I have no idea what the next stage of my life will be like and I’m a little scared. I was never really thoughtful enough about what kind of life I wanted, I just went with the flow and things often fell at my feet. Whether or not this is a good thing in life is debatable, and perhaps I lived up to my nickname of Lucky, but I definitely didn’t learn any lessons about planning.

I never settled into Brisbane properly, I didn’t make many friends and it was missing something, a certain je ne sais quoi… It just never felt like home as much as I tried to make it over the 3 years I’ve been here. Meeting Kristen however was the shining beacon of my time in Brisbane and it was only pure chance that put us in the same place at the same time, so far from home and from our ideal environment.

I love cold weather. I love music and bands. I love markets and vibrant culture. I love being able to be impulsive and go to do something without planning. Brisbane has some of these things, but not enough for what I wanted. There was only one place where I felt I could get all of this (and what else we needed) and that place is Melbourne.

Kristen works in a sector that has most of its work based out of Melbourne so it made sense that we would be favourable to it and having visited there over the weekend to help her settle into our new apartment, it already feels like home. We’ll be living in the inner city suburb of Brunswick which is home to coffee shops, restaurants, cafes, pubs and live music venues, something we missed so much living where we did in Brisbane. I’m so excited about being there and I’ve never felt this way.

But the fear still sits there. This is the first time in my life I will be somewhere with no idea of where I’m headed and I hope that Melbourne accepts me with its warm arms and gives me happiness. It’ll be an interesting ride so I guess I have no choice but to dive on in and give it a go. Come mid-March, I’ll riding off into the sunset to become Lakshal Perera, Melbourne Wedding Photographer, the newest, hippest and most awesome dude to come to your southern shores.

See you there, we’ll sip some lattes on Lygon St.

The final wedding celebration is done and over with and I think we looked pretty alright!

It’s slow and patient work uploading this at 10kB/sec from the middle of the forest near Sigiriya in Sri Lanka while we travel around with our friends, but I figured Kristen was too lovely to not show off to everyone.

For two people that said they never wanted a wedding, it seems strange that we have 3 separate events spanned across 2 continents. Two down but one big one to go.

This was Kristen the other day, I’m a very fortunate man.