So we re-visited our wedding venue on Sunday...

We re-visited our venue at the weekend to ask the co-ordinator some questions, and it was great to go back!

It was really nice to see the place again, and we took a lot of photos that I’ll be using when designing the decorations and styling the rooms over the next 618 days! The place even looked nicer than I remembered!! There were quite a few other couples visiting at the same time which was a bit annoying as we didn’t really get the place to ourselves to walk around and just chat privately, but it was good to nose into their conversations to hear what they’re planning for the place!

It was also being set up for a wedding later that afternoon, so it was good to see the venue dressed, and the table decorations that were being used by other couples! It was also good to see where things were placed around the venue such as the wedding postbox, and the cake table, which was something we hadn’t see ‘in action’ before.

We also got a list of prices for all the food and drink aspect of the day which means I can now do a proper budget plan, plus we were given a copy of the menu for the hot & cold buffet which we’ll be having as our main meal, which looks FAB!

What was a bit of a bummer, was that we found out that the venue would be un-staffed overnight prior to our wedding. I was planning to stay the night before,  and although the wedding co-ordinator said this would still be fine, I’m not sure I’d feel comfortable being ‘responsible’ for the building on my own! So I think I will have to find an alternative place to sleep the night before! Luckily there is another hotel about 50 metres down the road, so this could be a good option!

I’ll add in some photos of our visit very soon…

Wedding ring design confusion

What with the price of gold steadily going up, it has been suggested that I start to think about what kind of wedding ring I’d like.

My engagement ring was beautifully hand-crafted by my soon to be Father-in-law; a very talented jeweller who makes lots of lovely sparklers for some very famous people! When Mr M and I were ‘pre-engaged’, one of the conversations we had was about engagement ring styles. I knew that I didn’t want a ‘run of the mill’ engagement ring, I wanted something a bit different. So after searching online for HOURS, I came across the Marquise cut diamond. They are quite rare (a good quality to me! haha) and simple, but different at the same time. I showed Mr M lots of photos, and pointed out what I did and didn’t like about each ring, and left him to relay this to his Dad who would work his magic.

The inspiration photo for my little beauty..

And my very own beauty..

However, what I didn’t really think about was how a wedding ring would fit with my oddly shaped ring.

Because the diamond has a deep ‘v’ either side, a normal band wouldn’t fit snugly alongside it – it’d leave a 5mm gap between the two rings. This was no good for two reasons; firstly, I think it looks silly, and secondly, the space between my knuckles isn’t very big, and so that 5mm gap would mean it’d make my fingers hard to bend because of the space the rings would take up.

So I know I need something shaped to fit my ring. This in itself is a really easy project for Mr M’s Dad; its as easy as making any other ring. BUT, for me, the decision is harder because there are NONE in the shops to try on!

There are no marquise diamonds (because of their rarity), and only a tiny selection of shaped rings, none of which have deep enough ‘v’s to compensate the shape of my ring.

I am also determined to have diamonds in my wedding band. No, I know its not ‘traditional’, but diamonds complement the look of my engagement ring better, and in my opinion, you can never have too many diamonds!

So once again I’ve been searching the internet and I’ve come up with two options:

Option 1 – v-shaped diamond wedding band. My engagement ring will slot neatly into the V. 

Option 2 – straight wedding band (which will sit flat against the engagement ring by cutting out some of the metal under the marquise diamond)

Both are lovely. Both will be sparkly. But both are VERY different. And I honestly don’t know which I prefer!!! Its really hard to make a decision without being able to try any on, so I think I’ll give Mr M’s Dad some old silver and ask him to mould me one of each so I can try them both on! Hopefully that’ll help me decide!

How many guests?!

When we first spoke about getting married, and who we’d invite to our wedding, I NEVER imagined that I’d have 80 odd guests watching me walk down the aisle. 

I thought we’d have our family and a handful of our close friends, and invite the whole world to the evening reception. But no. We have EIGHTY people coming to our ceremony, and a further 60 people coming to the evening do.

Where on earth did all these people come from?!

The answer? Plus ones.

When we started writing the guest list, we almost forgot that people have boyfriends and girlfriends who’d need to be invited too. We most definitely forgot that all those singletons might actually get a boyfriend or girlfriend in the two years leading up to our wedding and extra spaces would be required for them.

Okay, so we don’t HAVE to invite plus ones; we could just say partners are invited to the evening, but if it were me, and I was invited to a wedding without Mr M, I highly doubt he’d bother making the trip just for the evening, and also I’d feel a bit uneasy about being all alone at the table. I’d hate to sit there, perhaps not knowing anyone, and without Mr M to check for spinach in my teeth or dust off the crumbs that I am guaranteed to drop down my front (messy eater haha!).

So like my Mum always says, I am going to ‘do as I would be done by’. In all honesty, I’d feel happier knowing that my guests will be happy having someone there to share our day; after all, thats what weddings are all about!

It does make me ‘eek’ a bit inside when I think about the rows and rows of chairs I’ll have to pass before reaching Mr M at the end of the aisle!!

Vistaprint goodies... again!

Yesterday, I finally relented and gave into Vistaprint bargainous goodies again!

I designed and bought my Save the Date magnets from there (they went down a treat with friends and family) and have had regular emails from them offering different products for affordable prices.

So this time, I designed and bought my RSVP cards, and wedding website cards from there.. one hundred of each, plus envelopes for the RSVPs.. all for less than £15 including p&p!!

The only reason I didn’t buy my ‘proper invitations’ from there is that there haven’t been any nice designs in the colours I wanted.

Okay, so NONE of my stationery actually matches (literally none of it!), but thats not something that really bothers me. My ‘proper invitations’ are gold, and I found RSVP cards in a similar purple to my Bridesmaid dresses, so thought it’d be a nice contrast to have slightly different RSVPs.

I also ordered some little business cards, to direct our guests to our wedding website using the design below. I didn’t want to put this on the actual invite, and it wouldn’t be any good put on the RSVP as that’d be sent back to us! So I thought some little cards would be cute! Once again, it doesn’t really match the rest of the stationery (though it is a complementary colour), but I chose these as I liked that I could edit the inscribing on the tree to add in our initials. It also reminds me a little bit of a particular scene in Disney Robin hood (my favourite ever film).

And just to prove that my stationery really doesn’t match, here are my day and evening invitations….

Day invitations..

Evening invitations..

So no, nothing matches, but who cares!?! 

Spring wedding - photo inspiration!

So Spring is finally here (although the weather is sometimes a bit dubious), but its inspired me to upload some photos for you all to coo over!

Think daffodils, bright colours mixed with pastel shades, sunshine (sometimes!)… And of course, its important to remember that the ideas and products in these photos can all be DIY’d to fit your own wedding, whether that is a Spring, Summer, Autumn or Winter wedding!!!

Oh go on, take a look at these beauties!!

Spill or surprise?

Friends and I have recently been talking about whether we are sharing our wedding plans, or keeping them as surprises.

I personally am doing a bit of both! I like to share the excitement of things I’m making, but at the same time I do find myself being quite secretive with our plans! I think the reasoning behind this is that Mr M and I still have another 627 days, or to put it in an easier format, 1 year, 8 months and 17 days till we tie the knot. Within our friendship group, 5 of us ladies are engaged, and although I was the first out of the group to get engaged, I am the last to be married (only one couple hasn’t yet set a date, but they only got engaged 2 days ago so I’ll let them off!)! I suppose I don’t want ‘my’ ideas to be used 4 or 5 times over before I get to become a Mrs!

Before getting engaged, I would have scoffed at anyone who had have said that and thought “they’re not YOUR ideas, they’re just ideas”, but planning a wedding (and having so long to plan it) turns you a little crazy! I can see myself morphing into the Bridezilla I said I’d never be. But lo and behold, those infamous words “it’s MY wedding” have fallen out of my mouth on numerous occasions.

I am recording each and every step of planning our wedding via my ‘wedding report’, which is starting to become a bit of a novel! Once married, I’ll reveal all the personal touches I’ve put into our wedding in more detail, rather than just mentioning them, or adding the odd photo here and there.

Another reason for keeping my ideas to myself, is that I really want it to be a fun surprise for everyone who is invited – including Mr M!! I want our friends and family to turn up and say “wow, I never expected this!” or “how did you keep that quiet?!”. I’m not saying our wedding is going to be anything particularly special entertainment wise; our budget doesn’t support that, but I still want the things we’ve saved so hard for to come as a surprise for our guests, rather than have them knowing beforehand what to expect!

I think our wedding will be a little different to the ‘normal’ wedding, not in the sense that its particularly wacky (its about 2% wacky), but we’ve really personalised it to fit US and what WE are into, some  of which may not fit into the normal wedding sterotype.

Sometimes though, its just so hard to keep things a secret as everything is just SO exciting!!!

My growing list of DIY projects...

So, our Save the Dates are out and winging their way across the south of England, ready to stick to all our lovely guests’s fridges. So now I need anther project!

So far ticked off my DIY project list are: reserved seating signs, goodie-bag labels, groom’s gift box tags and insert (explaining that he deserves to be treated etc) and bridesmaid bouquets (top secret project! But still in progress..).

Projects left to complete/start? I’ve got to make my bridal bouquet and all the buttonholes, design and make a ring box, design and make our card box, cut out and paint the stand for the top-table ‘Mr & Mrs’ letters, start designing the table plan labels, collect photos and start creating the ‘wordy part’ of the photo display, design and make favour tags and seating tags, create a confetti box label, edit and print out the order of services, invitation insert and ‘guide’ and toiletry basket poems (male and female). Design the children’s activity books and bags, type up and print out copies of the speech game’ rule cards, paint an outdoor welcome sign… And that’s all I can think of, for now!!

So yes, there are quite a few incomplete (or completely unstarted) projects! And knowing me, I’ll probably find more projects in the next 20 months! But it’s something I’m really looking forward to as I love crafts, and I get real satisfaction from seeing the end result!

Out of that list, my next project will be creating the ‘wordy part’ of the photo display. As part of the display, I want to add love quotes and lyrics out of songs in between the photos to give it an extra romantic feel, and break the photos up a bit! I’ll be using the same card and paper that is being used throughout my paper based DIY projects to make it consistent and tie it all in.

This weekend I’ll be surfing the net, looking for some quotes to feature in my display…

Bridesmaid goody bags

As a ‘thank you’ present to our Bridesmaids, I’m making them a goodie bag each, with lots of little (cheap) presents in them, to say thanks for all their hard work in helping to organise Mr M and I’s wedding day. 

I’ll be giving them the goodie bags on the morning of the wedding when we are all getting ready, as some of the items they will need for the day itself.

In the thank you bags, there will be a necklace and earring set for them to wear on the day, a glass jewellery box, a pen, a thank you card, a wine glass to drink from whilst we’re getting ready, and maybe a candle or some kind of ‘smelly-set’, amongst other small things like sweets, mints/chewing gum and a lip balm.

I bought the gift bags themselves over Christmas as they fitted in perfectly with our colour scheme – lots of different shades of golds in different patterns.

The reason I decided to make these goodie bags was because I haven’t found any ‘conventional’ Bridesmaid presents I actually like. All of them are a bit useless – knowing MY Bridesmaids well, I know that they wouldn’t have a use for an engraved ‘Bridesmaid’ paperweight, or teddy-bear with a t-shirt with their name on. Its just not very ‘them’. So I’d rather get them things they can actually use. For example, the jewellery will be worn on the day, the jewellery box will be something useful to keep for years to come, and the wine glass will most definitely be used whilst we’re getting ready!!!

I also don’t want to spend a huge amount; having 3 Bridesmaids certainly adds up after a while!! So in total, I want to spend £20 or less on each of them. I am already buying their outfits, paying for their meals on the day, and organising (and paying) for them to have their hair and make-up done on the morning, so they are being treated to quite a lot I think!

I’ve started collecting the contents of the bag already; I bought their jewellery sets at Christmas (using the M&S 3 for 2 deal) as well as their wine glasses (50p for 3 glasses on the sale shelves in Wilkinsons!!), and the jewellery boxes this weekend (50% off at Sainsburys), when I found some absolutely gorgeous ones in the sale! I also bought the pens from my local pharmacist! They have a lovely range of small gifts, all at FAB prices! The rest of the items I’ll carry on collecting over the next year or so, but I’ll leave the candles or smelly sets till nearer the time so that they are as fresh as possible!

I’ve also made a large ‘label’ for the front of the bag, reading ‘thank you for being our Bridesmaid’ followed by our names and the wedding date. I thought not only would it personalise the gift bags a little more, but it also gave me another DIY project to contend with!

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue

At the weekend, Mr M’s Mum asked me what I was having as my ‘something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue’, and it really got me thinking as it wasn’t something I’d thought about before!

For my ‘something old’ item, I was thinking of wearing something of my late Nan’s. She passed away a decade ago now, and I still miss her a lot. I would like to wear a piece of her jewellery, possibly a ring or a bracelet, so I think I’ll speak to my Mum and see what ideas she comes up with.

My ‘something new’ will be pretty much every item of clothing I’ll be wearing on the day! My dress will be brand new, along with my beautiful shoes, and my underwear!

The ‘something borrowed’ item will be lent to me by Mr M’s Mum. She wants to lend me a piece of her jewellery. I hate borrowing things off other people though as I’m forgetful AND clumsy, and I’ll be constantly worrying that I’ll lose it or damage it in some way! And what makes it worse, is that the legend says that if you fail to return the borrowed item, you’ll get back luck!!! Eeek!

And lastly, there’s the ‘something blue’. I’d quite like to have a little bow or something sown into my wedding dress – blue isn’t in our colour scheme at all, so although I’d like to keep with tradition and not miss this ‘something’ out, I would prefer it to be subtle, or hidden if possible! A lot of dress shops do this free of charge, so I may buy the little bow from a craft shop and ask my dress maker to sow it in for me!