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!

Save the dates.. An update!

We popped our Save the Date magnets in the nearest PostBox on Tuesday evening, and our prospective guests are already starting to get them!
Royal Mail is being super speedy delivering our little envelopes all across the South of England to our friends and family, and they are already being stuck on people’s fridges as a daily reminder to our upcoming nuptials!

Its really, really REALLY exciting!!!!!!!!!

Wedding stationery sale at M&S!

I popped into my local M&S today, only to find that there was quite a few wedding related stationery pieces in the sale!
I picked up some ‘congratulations on your wedding day’ cards for half price, some cute little wedding keepsakes to give as presents and some more of the evening invitations we’ve got for our own wedding!

But what was even better, was that I found a Mr & Mrs set of passport covers that we can slip over our passports on our honeymoon!

In total, I saved just over £15 from the original asking price (3/4 of what I actually paid)!!

Definitely a bargain!

Wedding party all accounted for!!!

In the last 4 days, we’ve asked and had big fat YES’s from a mere 7 wedding party members! It’s been a very busy and emotional 96 hours!
So, I thought I’d introduce the people you will be hearing a lot about over the next 652 days (and beyond!)….

The Girls

Chief Bridesmaid – Samantha. My best friend from school.

Bridesmaid no.1 – Gemma. My younger Sister.

Bridesmaid no.2 – Bec. Mr M’s younger Sister.

The Boys

Best Man – Adam. Mr M’s bestfriend from school.

Usher no.1 – Tom. My younger Brother.

Usher no.2 – James. Mr M’s younger Brother.

Usher no.3 – Sam. Mr M’s other younger Brother.

..

I’m so happy to have them all onboard, and excited to have them play a part in our special day! Now I’ve just got to introduce them to each other which in itself will be interesting!

But now things are official… Bring on the wedding planning!!