Just Married!!

Christmas Bleatings

Ah the joys of trying to combine wedding planning and the Christmas countdown - it's causing my head to hurt!

I've spent the last couple of weeks trying to sort out the music for my wedding and select the readings - every time I feel like I've got close to making some key decisions, I get distracted by the pull to also get some festive planning underway.

Christmas is so in your face now it's impossible to ignore the fact that time is racing by and we'll be at December 25th before you know it. Singing Sleeps to Santa every morning means the festive countdown is underlined before the sun even comes up, and I now have 'present buyers block' which means I am completely clueless as to what to get anyone.

On the wedding front - my shoes have finally arrived. I had them made for me, simply because I couldn't find the style or heel height I wanted. The website I used just asks you to select a style, a heel height and the colour and 8 weeks later you have the shoes you want. Mine are the simplest shoes in the world and are actually a copy of a pair that I got from New Look for £12! Perfect.

I've also managed to locate some head-dresses for my bridesmaids. One has long hair, the other mega short hair, so it was proving tricky. Finally found some in Dorothy Perkins of all places, so delighted, as they were cost effective too!

Must dash, I've just realised I have to order some food for Christmas...

November Rain

Mmm I've not been very good at keeping this blog updated, have I? Apologies, it's been a busy few months with work and squeezing in the odd bit of wedding planning here and there.

I've now finalised a lot of the details with my venue, who have been lovely. There were a couple of issues surrounding numbers and food tasting, but they seem to have been sorted now, so I'm feeling a bit more confident than I was.

My Bridesmaid dresses have arrived and I spent a fun day with one of the maids yesterday sorting a fitting and then celebrating with tea and coffee and walnut cake. Yum. My own dress has now turned up, and is being held safe by the owner of the shop until it's time to have some fittings of my own.

I can't believe how much I've done, but also how many little details there are still to finalise. When I first got engaged one of my friends told me that planning a wedding was like having a second job - I'm beginning to see her point...

Leaves and Lists

Seriously now, where has the time gone? Last time I glanced up from my keyboard it was Summer and now, judging by the leaves falling from the trees, we are now officially in Autumn.

Since I got engaged almost nine months ago (Nine!?) it feels as though each week has flown by at double speed. The more I need to do, the less time I seem to have. However, there has been progress since I last updated this blog.

I've now ordered my bridesmaid's dress, and may have thrown a spanner in the works by asking one of my best friends to also be a maid. This may mean a secondary order and my mum is already stressing that the dresses may come from a different batch of material and won't be a precise match. The reason I left it so late to ask my friend is because there is a second friend that I would have also liked to ask, but she is having a difficult time at the moment, and it's not practical to ask her to take on the role on top of everything else. I didn't want to ask Friend 1 without asking Friend 2 and vice versa. Then I felt bad that Friend 1 might miss out simply because of Friend 2's circumstances, so there was much sighing and contemplation before I asked F1 to do the deed. She still has to see if she can get childcare on our wedding day, so we could still be down to one bridesmaid and 2 flower girls. Are we keeping up at the back?!

I'm now also able to cross Organist and Choir off my 'to do' list as I've booked both. Thing is, I now need to decide on the music and hymns, which is proving very tricky. I used to be a chorister when I was a kid, so there are plenty of things that mean something to me. Too many. I actually feel a little paralysed by the choice.

There's still plenty of time to sort out everything else, but the way that time is galloping by 2010 will be here in no time at all!

Oh happy day!

It's a miracle - I have finally found some bridemaid dresses in the colour I want! This may seem a trivial matter, but it's taken about 6 months of searching to get to this point. Even better, there are some in the style I want too, so it's a massive relief.

In other news I ordered my wedding shoes today. I'm having them made for me as I struggled to get the style and heel height I wanted. If I found one, then the other was wrong. Can you see a theme developing?!

I've booked the fiance in for an appointment with a tailor this coming weekend, so it feels like we're really making headway with the outfits for the big day.

Just my mum to help out now...

Maid in Heaven?

If there's one thing giving me a headache in this whole planning malarkey, it's the issue of Bridemaids.

I have asked my sister-in-law to be my Matron of Honour and my two nieces will be my flower girls. However, I have been Bridesmaid for two of my best friends, and would love to ask them to return the favour, but it's something of a logistical nightmare. One of them lives in Essex and the other one is in London and they both have two kids, which means they have commitments on the weekends.

The next thing is the fact that I can't find adult bridesmaid dresses that I like. Many of them are in hideous fabrics, most of them are not available in the colour I want, and some of them are both. So even if my mates could find the time to be my bridesmaid, I'm not entirely certain I could find them something to wear!

Morn on the 4th of July

Hallelujah! After a good 6 months of internet searching, glossy magazine purchases, and some trying on sessions at various bridal shops, I finally bought my wedding dress!

The weekend before last, I woke up ridiculously early on the Saturday morning, and my mum and dad took me into town, where I met my sister-in-law Marie, who is also my chief Bridesmaid. My dad went off to Tesco (he's not one for clothes shopping, despite being asked to come along lots of times) and my mum and Marie stood outside a bridal shop waiting for it to open up.

The shop-owner had actually shut the shop for the day as she was planning a visit to London to purchase more wedding dresses, but when I rang her she offered to open the shop at 8am so she could see me and still fit in her buying trip.

We were going back to the shop to look at only one dress, it was one that I tried on back in February and after various other trips and more searching online, I still hadn't found anything I liked as much. My mum felt exactly the same way, and that was a sign that it was 'the one.'

Two weeks ago we'd had a second trip to Cheltenham (we were shopping there as it was midway between Herefordshire where mum and dad are, and me in Swindon) and had spent a lovely afternoon with a fabulous bridal store owner who showed me lots of lovely dresses, and also explained how they could be adapted for me. It was a fabulous shop and the gowns were gorgeous, but I still couldn't shake off the dress that I finally chose - just nothing else came close in fit or design.

So last weekend I tried it on again with some headwear. Both my mum and Marie assured me it looked lovely, and I still felt great in it, and so we bought it! It's such a relief to have got such a major purchase out of the way, and I think taking my time was the right thing to do. You need to allow up to 9 months ordering time for a lot of dresses, so in some ways it still feels early to be making this purchase, as I normally leave everything to the last minute. For once though, I think it might be better to be organised!

Jez, my co-host and radio husband has speculated that I will be getting married wearing white dungarees and trainers - is he right? Like my fiance, you'll have to wait and see...