And a good day was had by all

The notices for this week

At church yesterday our pastor decided to dedicate a page of the notice sheet to our wedding ;-)

To quote Len Goodman...

* Len Goodman is a judge on Strictly Come Dancing who has an exuberant way of saying "seven"!

My kind of afternoon

I had a lovely hen do on Saturday organised by Jenny, with lots of my friends there.

It didn't involve excessive alcohol or silly clothes (with the exception of these beautifully stylish glasses...) - instead Jenny took me to Mitchells in Sutton Coldfield. It's essentially a posh shopping centre, with little shops throughout an old farm complex and a lovely café - sorry - bistro.

We started off with a meal in the Farmhouse Bistro, then we went to Cafe Ceramica to do some pottery painting. It was very relaxing and we spent a couple of hours in there choosing what to paint and playing with designs.

After we'd finished the painting we had to leave the pottery to be fired and glazed - Jenny will collect it and distribute it at the wedding - and then we had a mooch around the shops for a bit.

Some of my friends had travelled a way to be at the afternoon, so they had to get back. The rest of us (me, Jenny, sister-in-law and Jenny's sister) went back to Jenny's to eat Chinese takeaway and watch In the Night Garden (! while Jenny's niece and nephew got ready for bed) and then Coyote Ugly.

It was a lovely day and definitely my kind of afternoon.

Mitchells
Weeford Rd, Sutton Coldfield, B75 6NA
w: www.mitchellsshopping.com

Farmhouse Bistro
e: info@farmhousebistro.co.uk
t: 0121 323 3658
w: www.farmhousebistro.co.uk

Cafe Ceramica
e: julie@cafeceramica.com
t: 0121 308 3984
w: www.cafeceramica.com

Coming closer

Getting the fit right

I should have posted this a couple of weeks ago, but I have my dress! Trisha's called up in the middle of October to let me know it had arrived, so I went to collect it and brought it home.

I'm not having it altered at Trisha's though. There's a lady who I've known for years, and who knew my dad when he was a teenager, whose name is Pat. She is incredibly talented at dressmaking and she offered to do all the alterations we needed as a present to us.

When I got my dress home I took it to Pat and tried it on. It fits perfectly at the top, but is rather too long, so she's taking it up for me. I've got another fitting tomorrow evening, and then probably one more before the wedding.

Pat has been sorting out my big bridesmaids as well. They both needed turning up and having the straps sewn in properly, and Jenny's dress needed the back panel that goes underneath the lacing sorting out as well, because it wasn't covering the hole well enough and she was showing off her pants!

We have Homer Simpson playing at our wedding...

Dad got an email from the ceilidh band which will be playing at our reception over the weekend. They were asking him to confirm that they'll be fed and watered during the evening, so he wrote back, telling them they would be able to have the hog roast with the guests, and that soft drinks, tea and coffee will be provided. The church centre isn't licensed so he told them what we're telling all the guests - you're welcome to bring your own alcohol, but we're not providing any for the evening.

They wrote back to say "no, we want beer and you have to provide it because it's in the contract".

Dad looked at the contract and it does say that the band should be provided with fruit juice or beer as requested. However he was a bit miffed because this means that the band is effectively asking for better treatment than the guests if they get alcohol supplied and everyone else has to bring their own.

He asked them why they wanted beer and was told "it's the same with all musicians". Dad restrained himself from writing back to tell them that there are three musicians in his imediate family (me, Mom and little brother), and we all manage to play fine without alcohol.

Actually I'm doing the band a disservice - apparently the drummer doesn't drink alcohol and will be happy with tap water. The rest will get beer as requested, but it will be beer that's been left over from various visits, not especially bought beer. Can't have the band having special treatment, and it's not like we're not paying them enough to cover a couple of cans of beer each...

Remember you're a Womble...

We were looking at cake toppers for the wedding cake and darling beardy man complained that they were all too soppy and not at all suitable. I was feeling a bit creative, so I decided to make our own, and to make them as Wombles*.

 

When I told Mom that I'd made Wombles she didn't understand why and said we'd have to explain. So explanation coming up:

Darling beardy man likes to make things, particularly cars, and likes to find as many bits as possible for free or very cheap. His habit of reusing other people's rubbish led to him getting the nickname 'Womble', and so when I met the group of friends who use that nickname, some of them were calling me Mrs Womble.

The cake toppers meant I could also let darling beardy man wear the orange overalls he'd been threatening without him actually wearing the orange overalls!

* Womble: (1) fictional pointy-nosed, furry creatures that live in burrows, where they aim to help the environment by collecting and recycling rubbish in creative ways; (2) darling beardy man.

Legally speaking

Our final set of banns was completed on Sunday, meaning that from a legal point of view we can get married!

We didn't manage to get to hear any of them being read aside from the very first ones two months ago - it's been a pretty drawn out process - but we have the pieces of paper to say they've been done and no one objected.

All that's left to do now is to give those to Andy, the vicar at Aston, before he can marry us.

This time next month...

The finishing touch

Charlotte, who made my engagement ring, has also made our wedding rings for us. They're silver, with a hammered finish, and the dent in the top of my ring is so my engagement ring will fit next to it without riding up or leaving a funny gap between the two.

We wanted to get the rings engraved  inside with our names and our wedding date, but Charlotte doesn't do engraving and the people she asked near her couldn't do it on anything as narrow as my ring. I asked a few jewellers and found one that could do it, but it would take six weeks and they'd have to send it away. At that point the wedding was about eight weeks away, so that was pushing it a bit.

I asked my parents if they could ask around shops near them. H Samuel said they could do it, but then changed their mind when they saw the rings weren't hallmarked. Mom went to Beaverbrooks after that and they said they could do the engraving, it was take 10 days, and there was no problem with them not being hallmarked.

We got the rings back last week and they look absolutely lovely.

Beaverbrooks
58 The Parade, Gracechurch Shopping Centre, Sutton Coldfield, B72 1PH
t: 0121 354 6796
w: www.beaverbrooks.co.uk

Advice for caterers...

A word of advice to any caterers thinking of catering a wedding:

If the bride's father is vegetarian, make sure you have a good veggie menu.

Our caterer seems to be okay now, but we had a bit of a struggle trying to persuade him that we needed more than a jacket spud as a veggie option for the evening while the non-veggies are tucking into a hog roast.

I was on the verge of asking my parents for his phone number and going a bit bridezilla on him, along the lines of "This is my wedding and you have to feed my dad or we're taking our business elsewhere!"

His eventual proffered veggie option - pizza - is acceptable, but something like a bean burger or butternut squash burger would have been much better.

Something borrowed...

For my something borrowed I turned to my sister-in-law, because I knew she had a pile of really pretty tiaras and hair pins hiding away in her bathroom from her wedding. When I went round to see her a few days after the engagement I had fund looking through her box and trying on different bits and pieces.

To start with a found a very pretty tiara, but when I was looking at it again a few weeks ago I noticed that half of it was silver and half gold - it looked as if the gold plating had rubbed off. It was still very pretty, but I wasn't sure about wearing it, especially as I'd found another tiara when I was looking around for various wedding bits.

I asked sister-in-law to bring her box of bits with her this weekend when I had my hair trial, and I found some very pretty hair pins that reminded me of snowflakes - just right for a winter wedding! I haven't shared anything else about the wedding outfit, but since this is something borrowed I feel as if I can, because it's already been seen before.

So without revealing any details about my hair, these are the hair pins - my 'something borrowed'.

Finally a decision!

I had a hair trial this weekend and finally decided what I'm going to do with my hair! I'm not giving away any secrets here, because darling beardy man saw my poodle look when I'd taken the style out afterwards, but I'm having curls.

Here are a few pictures for your entertainment, taken by Jenny, who managed to capture a particularly fetching picture (see the third pic).

 

The hairdresser, whose name I think is Jane, was lovely and got exactly what I was trying to explain with the first attempt. We just had to make a few little tweaks to the first style she tried to make it perfect.

We booked in an appointment for the wedding day, and she even offered to come in earlier if I wanted to get it done before the 9am opening time. She was so lovely and made me feel so relaxed, I'm looking forward to going back again on the big day.

Woodberry Hair & Beauty Ltd
196 Reddicap Heath Road, Sutton Coldfield, B75 7ET
t: 0121 311 2891

Finding a reception venue - part 2

The church centre at Aston was suggested as a reception venue pretty early on, and is an ideal space for a ceilidh, but because we had thought we wanted a sit down three course meal for the wedding breakfast, we weren't sure if it would work. The church centre is not the prettiest venue either, being a fairly typical 1980s hall with painted walls, a textured ceiling and strip fluorescent lights.

However, after deciding against Penns Hall we came back to the idea of the church centre, especially when Mom and Dad mentioned that there was a lady at the church who could decorate it beautifully so that it looked like we were in a marquee.

The idea had so many plus points - why go somewhere else when there's a venue right next to the church?; people who aren't local won't have to find another venue; we can have more people there so people who have travelled won't have to worry about finding somewhere to kick their heels for three hours before the evening do; even though the centre isn't licensed, people are welcome to bring in their own drinks; the cost was much less even if it meant hiring in a separate caterer and having to do a bit more work; and there's lots of outdoor space at the centre for kids to run around.

We still haven't been able to find very good pictures of the marquee-like setup, but we're quite happy with the idea of the church centre now, and even with having to find a caterer, it's still worked out cheaper (and catered for more people) than going to a hotel or restaurant for a wedding breakfast.

Finding a reception venue - part 1

When we were looking around for a reception venue we knew we wanted somewhere where ideally we could have a ceilidh in the evening, and it had to be somewhere that would cater for vegetarians, because my dad is a veggie.

While we were deliberating, darling beardy man's parents booked their hotel rooms for the wedding weekend at Penns Hall Hotel. (It's technically Ramada Sutton Coldfield now, but it's also been known as Crossroads Motel for those of you who remember the 1970s...) His mum made enquiries about the hotel's wedding reception facilities.

My dad then went to investigate and was shown the suggested room for 70 people, with tables laid out, chair covers, subtle lighting and catering available for a three course lunch. Dad said it looked nice, it sounded pretty good and the menus looked tasty, with veggie options available.

We did have slight reservations because we really wanted a hog roast and ceilidh in the evening, and we weren't sure if the hotel would be able to cater a hog roast, or if the room would be okay for a ceilidh with more than 70 people there - our guest list was quite long! There was also the added problem that quite a lot of our guests would be travelling some distance to get to the wedding. We wouldn't neccessarily want them at the breakfast but would want them at the evening, but they might want to travel back home earlier because they'd have the distance to travel.

The problem was resolved when we went to see the room that Penns Hall was offering. It had its own entrance straight off the car park, which immediately caused a few worries. We're going to have quite a lot of children at the reception and so ideally we wanted somewhere where they could go and run around and burn off some energy. The car park isn't an ideal place for them to do that, and there wasn't any other outdoor space for them to go.

Another issue was that while the room was well-lit and did just about have the space we wanted, there was no natural light at all, aside from a fire exit which led out into a tiny courtyard.

Given the cost of the package (over £2,000), the space restriction and the worries about children, we decided that Penns Hall probably wasn't going to be a suitable venue.

As an aside, although the function room wasn't particularly suitable, we have booked a bridal suite at the hotel overlooking the lake, and that looks absoluttely lovely.

Ramada Birmingham, Sutton Coldfield
Penns Lane, Walmley, Sutton Coldfield, B76 1LH
e: enquiries@ramadasuttonhotel.co.uk
t: 0121 351 3111
w: www.ramadasuttonhotel.co.uk

It's getting closer!

A marriage, not just a wedding

Because we're getting married in the Church of England, we have to do marriage preparation with a minister. We didn't want to have to travel to Birmingham for a session with the vicar at Aston, but the pastor at our church was happy to do some sessions with us instead.

We had our first session last night using the Marriage Preparation Course, which was produced by the same church that started the Alpha course. The session lasted about an hour and a half and involved watching a DVD of the course leaders Nicky and Sila Lee talking about various issues, then time to discuss things with each other. Pastor Ken didn't take part in the discussions and was really just there if we had any questions.

The five sessions cover all sorts of issues, from communication (what we looked at last night) and commitment to conflict resolution and sex. At the end of each session there's 'homework', which is really just a few things to talk about with each other related to what was covered in the session.

The session was different to what I expected, and I had problems concentrating to start with because Nicky Lee looks and talks so much like Kevin McCloud (of Channel 4 Grand Designs' fame), but it was useful and interesting, and it did give us an excuse to just sit and talk together as a couple about coupley/relationship things. I'm quite looking forward to the rest of the course.

Whatever the weather

One thing you can never count on in Britain is the weather, so for our wedding we've decided to plan for rain.

In November, the likelihood is the weather is not going to be brilliant, so we've decided that if we plan for rain then we'll be fine if it does bucket it down, and if it doesn't then that's an added bonus!

The pictures after the service will be taken in the church, and the reception is going to be in the church centre, which is connected to the church by an indoor link, meaning no one will have to go outside.

It would be nice if we could have a few pictures taken outside, and I would absolutely love it if it was snowing! I think that's unlikely - Novembers in the Midlands tend to be wet and grey - but even if it is soggy and overcast, we're prepared for the worst.

To love, cherish and obey

I, N , take you, N , to be my husband,
to have and to hold from this day forward;
for better, for worse,
for richer, for poorer,
in sickness and in health,
to love, cherish and obey
till death us do part;
according to God's holy law.
In the presence of God I make this vow.

 
I plan on promising to 'love, cherish and obey' darling beardy man. This may come as a surprise to people who know me, who know that I'm rarely short of an opinion and always happy to vocalise it or to disagree with other people. It all comes down to what you understand by 'obey' though.

In the context of marriage I don't believe that 'obey' means I should always do exactly what and only what my husband says. I believe there is a place in marriage for differences of opinion, and that there's nothing wrong with a couple disagreeing with each other over some things.

Where I believe the obeying issue comes in (and I have talked about this with darling beardy man) is if there's something which we need to make a decision on but we can't agree. In that case, I would go with his decision as he is the head of the household.

I imagine that in most cases we'll be able to agree on something, or the issue won't be one that requires us to agree (for example, what shall we eat for tea? I want chicken and you want pork? We'll cook both.) But in the cases where we do need to make a decision, if we can't make one then he will make that call.

Counting down

A friend told me yesterday "you know tomorrow it's 10 weeks to go". It was scary and exciting to hear that, but then when I looked at the calendar today I realised he was wrong - it's not 10 weeks to go, it's actually 9!

A bit of history

My dad organised the car to take me to the wedding through a work friend whose family owns a wedding car hire business.

When it came to booking the exact vehicle he discovered that the company still owned the same car my mom travelled to her wedding in, so I'll be travelling to the same church my parents married in, in the same car that they had. It's a very nice thought that it's a bit of family history repeating itself.

The car is called Rupert (I have no idea why!) and is a 1934 vintage blue and white Rolls-Royce 20/25 limousine – "a car of character and distinction which carries up to six passengers also has a sunshine roof." The car hire business has been around even longer, having been set up as a family business in 1927.

AB Taylor Wedding Services
49 Wolverhampton Road South, Birmingham, B32 2AY
t: 0121 434 4340
e: taylorweddings@btconnect.com
w: www.abtaylor.co.uk

A terrifying moment

I had a really scary moment on Wednesday (11th August) when I was at work.

I was in a training session waiting for it to start and brought my hand up from under the desk. As I was doing that I caught my ring on the metal bar under the desk. The bar hit one part of the claw setting and the aquamarine flew out of the ring and under the desk.

I was completely surprised by how emotional I got when I looked down and realised the stone was gone. I shoved my chair back and disappeared under the desk - to the surprise of the lecturer - and found myself crying as I was grovelling on the floor looking for the stone.

The lecturer was very nice and came to help me search, and after a couple of minutes I found it, safe and un-chipped, lying on the carpet under the desk. I put the stone back into the setting and squished the claw in as tight as possible, but I spent the rest of the day nervously fingering the setting to reassure myself that it was still secure.

I would never have thought that something as relatively unimportant as knocking a stone out - which was quickly recovered - would have made me so upset.

Walking up the aisle

The last time I walked up the aisle of Aston Parish Church was just over three years ago for my brother's wedding, when I was a bridesmaid.

A few things were different to the way they will be on 23rd November - they were married in May rather than November, and they had their reception at a different location. But we have pinched a few ideas from their wedding which worked well.

Firstly, we're planning to do our photos inside the church, using the chancel windows as the background. That way it doesn't matter if it rains because we'll be inside, and no one will be getting too cold or wet hanging around outside.

If the weather is good, we've still got the option of going outside for a few pictures, but we won't have to worry if it is tipping it down with rain.

We're also planning to have cake and a drink available at the back of the church for people to eat straight after the service and while the pictures are being done. A nice thing about this means that we'll get the chance to see people who aren't coming to the reception before we disappear.

How the parents cope

My parents have two very different approaches to the organisation of the wedding.

My Mom is very much a list-maker, and she has dozens of pieces of paper filled with lists, dates, contact details, things to do and questions to ask. My Dad joked last week that the whole upstairs of their house was pull of pieces of paper!

Dad, on the other hand, seems to be very laid back about it all and is happy to take a back seat unless we particularly ask him to do something for us.

I think I fall somewhere in the middle of the two. I do have lists, but certainly not as many as Mom. It would be impossible to take a back seat in the organisation, but I don't think I'm worrying about things as much as Mom is - although lovely beardy man may disagree!

What not to wear

Lovely beardy man has been threatening to wear a boiler suit for the wedding - his reasoning being that since I said he has to wear a new suit, he could use a new boiler suit anyway. We've bougt him a waistcoat now, but he's still threatening to just wear it under the boiler suit!

In return I've told him my dress is a beautiful, huge, pink blancmange of a dress, complete with fairy lights around the bottom. I was bored last night so I Googled 'pink wedding dresses' just to see what would come up. The results were... interesting... :-)

OhMyGoodnessI'mGettingMarried!

I've had two moments so far when it's actually hit me that I'm getting married.

The first was a couple of weeks ago when we got the letter from the church to confirm our booking for the wedding day. It was very exciting to actually see it all in print, and it was a bit of an 'oh my goodness' moment to realise that yes, this is actually happening!

The second moment was yesterday when we had our banns read for the first time. Because we're getting married in a Church of England church we have to have the banns read at the church we're getting married in as well as in the parishes we live in. Since we live in different parishes and we're getting married in Birmingham, this means three lots of banns.

Banns have to be read at some point in the three months before the wedding, and have to be read on three consecutive Sundays. Essentially, they're the "if anyone knows of any reason why this couple may not marry" bit which takes place during the actual ceremony, but repeated several times.

We had to give lots of information to the vicars - full names, addresses, age at time of wedding, status (widowed/bachelor/spinster) and where we're getting married - so that they could fill in the forms, and even more information to Aston, because they have to fill in the marriage certificate.

Finally, after meeting the vicars and filling in the forms, our first reading of the banns took place at Holy Trinity Church in Oswestry yesterday. Although beardy man and I both go to the Baptist church, the banns have to be read in the CofE church, and I live in the parish of Holy Trinity.

The service started half an hour before the one at our church, so we decided to go along and listen to the banns being read. Paul, the vicar, welcomed us when we arrived, and there were quite a few people there that we knew from various places, so it was quite a nice welcoming church to be at. The service had a couple of hymns and readings before the notices, and then it was the banns. It was very strange to hear our names being read out in front of so many people, and it made me feel like it was actually official now - we're getting married! They prayed for us and another couple having their banns read at the same time, which was really nice, and then we snuck out to go to our church service.

While we were walking back I got a bit teary, which is really silly, but I got very emotional at the thought of us actually getting married! (Emotional in a good way, of course!)

Oh, and no one objected when the banns were read :-)

Wedding stationary

We went to eBay to find somewhere to get our wedding stationary. After browsing thruogh a few different options we found Noah's Nuptials run by a lady called Abbi. She makes all types of wedding stationary - invitations, place cards, orders of service and thank you cards - all with beautiful designs and various embellishments.

We had narrowed down our options to Abbi and another company, but it turned out to be easy to choose between them. We requested samples from both - Abbi's arrived within two days and was absolutely beautiful, but the other didn't arrive until the next week and when it did, it looked like something we could have done ourselves on a desktop printer.

Abbi's website says:

Five years ago, my son Noah was born. I didn't want to return to work full time, knowing that I would be missing those first few crucial years. One day, my mum said to me "You're good with your hands, why don't you try making cards?"
That day, Noah's Nuptials was born.

And the rest, they say, is history! I never had to return to work and the hobby which was going to make me a little extra money is now a full time job.

So if you have something special in mind, a way to make your stationery perfect for you, just drop me a message and find out how I can bring it to life!

Noah's Nuptials
w: www.noahsnuptials.com
Abbi does have a shop on eBay, but also has her own website. She has a dozen designs to choose from and is willing to make changes as well for specific requests.

Something old...

I'm quite traditional at heart, and ever since I was little I've been thinking about what I'd wear for my 'something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue'.

I'd considered an old piece of jewellery that I'd had for years and loved. I had a pair of pearl earrings at one point that would have been perfect for a wedding, but sadly they went missing when I moved house. I also wondered about an old ring, if whoever I married gave me a family heirloom or if we used my grandmother's engagement ring which I inherited as my ring.

Then I considered underwear. I'm not talking about really old skanky underwear, just something that I hadn't bought new especially for the wedding. I had a friend who got married who wore an old pair of blue pants for her wedding, along with tights borrowed from her sister and a new dress. But while I'm sure I'd be quite happy wearing comfortable few month old pants from my sock drawer, it's not exactly something I can show people if they want to know what I'm doing for my something old.

I hadn't really thought much about it in the few days after the proposal until my Mom mentioned her wedding dress. She still has it, safely in a box in the loft, so I asked if I could see it. It was a very typical wedding dress of the 1970s, with a high neck, long sleeves, and made of beautiful lace. The underskirt (made of crinoline, I believe) had unfortunately yellowed while it had been in storage, but the lace was still beautifully white. As well as the dress, Mom had kept her veil and cap, and they were both still in beautiful condition too. While we were ooh-ing and ah-ing over the dress, Mom produced several pearl necklaces in case I wanted to wear one of those for the wedding.

I said I wouldn't reveal any secrets in case darling beardy man wants to read this blog, so I'll just leave it that I found my something old out of the selection of beautiful things that Mom showed me, and after the wedding I'll post a picture of what my gorgeous something old was.

Something blue...

My beautiful ring arrived on Wednesday, especially made by Charlotte, a friend of lovely beardy man. It's silver with aquamarine (my birthstone), and Charlotte is going to make our wedding rings as well. It's absolutely gorgeous and I absolutely adore it!

Welcome to the church

One of the simplest things we had to do was book the church for the wedding. We're getting married at Aston Parish Church, in Birmingham, where I went to church until I was about 18, my parents still go, and my parents and my brother were married.

For anyone who follows Premiership football, it's almost directly opposite the Aston Villa ground, and darling beardy man, knowing that I wanted to get married there, even gave me a list of Villa's fixtures when he proposed, so that we could make sure that we chose a day when the club was away and we'd be able to get cars in and not get swamped by football fans!

The church itself is beautiful, with its Victorian architecture and stained glass windows. (It also has a lovely aisle, which is very important, because I don't want to get married anywhere where there isn't an aisle for me to walk down!) It's very interesting to look around as well, and a few years ago little brother and I wrote a new guide book for the church to replace the old one which was written in 1985.

Another good thing about Aston is that it's got a church centre which is attached to the church via an indoor link, meaning that if the weather is bad we don't have to go outside at all to get to the reception. A lady at the church has an amazing way of decorating the centre so that it looks like a marquee, and there's a kitchen if we want to do any of our own catering, toilets, and plenty of space to sit and eat, and to dance later in the evening.

Aston Parish Church
Witton Lane, Aston, Birmingham, B6 6QA
t: 0121 327 3880
w: www.astonnechellscofe.org.uk

The perfect green

When I was choosing the colour scheme for the wedding, I wasn't quite sure where to start.

How I'd imagined my bridesmaids - sort of...

Before we'd set a date, I was thinking it might be a spring wedding. If it had been, I was envisioning bouquets of wildflowers for me and the bridesmaids to carry, and the bridesmaids wearing dresses all of the same sort of style in different pale pastel colours.

Once we set our date, however, the pastel idea didn't seem like it would work as well, and there would certainly be very few wildflowers around in November!

Our colour scheme, but not our dresses!

One of my favourite colours is green, and I particulary like the nice rich Christmassy green of holly leaves. On various websites I've seen it described as hunter green and forest green. I decided to try to get bridesmaid dresses in this colour, and because it's a Christmassy colour it will be nice for that time of year.

When I told darling beardy man I was thinking about colours he jokingly said I could co-ordinate with the Morris Minor pick-up truck he's just finished restoring. We're planning on leaving the wedding in the pick up, and it had sort of crossed my mind that it was the same colour, but I'd not thought about it in those terms!

Darling beardy man's "other woman"

I think he was a bit surprised and pleased after the bridesmaid dress shopping trip when I told him that yes, we will actually we co-ordinating with the pick-up!

While the main colour is green, that has potential to be a bit bland if that's the only colour aside from the ivory of my dress, so I've picked an accent colour as well that's just as dark and rich as the green, and that will be picked up in the flowers and in the little bridesmaids' dresses.

Still undecided on my hair...

The old, new, borrowed, blue tradition

I'm very traditional at heart and so I really wanted to include this old tradition into my wedding. I was intrigued about where it came from though, so I did a bit of research and found out that it dates to at least the late Victorian era when it was included in a book of folklore, with the addition of a last line 'and a silver sixpence in your shoe'.

Historically, the items would be given to the bride by her family and bridesmaids for luck and as tokens of love. I was interested in what each part signified though.

Something Old is to represent the past, and where the bride comes from. Because it is being used on the wedding day it is also a sign of a link to the future. One of the common something olds would be for the bride to have a piece of lace or other fabric from her mother's dress sewn inside her own gown. Other something olds are jewellery, or a button from the bride's father's coat which can be sewn inside the dress of even included in a bouquet.

Something New signifies a new beginning and a new life with the bride and her new husband. The most common new thing is the wedding dress itself, but as so many new things are usually bought for a wedding, it could be anything from a hair accessory to shoes.

Something Borrowed, depending on where you look, either shows borrowed happiness or that the bride's friends and family will always be there to support her when help is needed in the future. It goes without saying that the borrowed item must be returned after the wedding, or it is no longer borrowed! Often brides will borrow jewellery, and if it is a family heirloom that is borrowed it can also be counted as the something old, but I've known friends to borrow pairs of tights from their sisters or a hanky from the groom as well.

Something Blue can be seen to symbolise faithfulness, purity, loyalty, love, modesty and fidelity. Blue items don't have to be a bright shade, and could be hidden from view if the blue item is a garter. I've seen blue pants, blue bridesmaid dresses, a single blue flower in a bouquet, and blue stones in jewellery. Some people use blue for their eye make up, and others will have blue-soled shoes.

The Greatest Love

The second part of the Bible study on love.

John 15:13 (NIV)
Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

How does this demonstrate love?
It shows that someone or something else is more important to us than ourselves.

Of course, the same could also be said with fanaticism, but it's a different beast. With fanaticism you can be blind to the faults of the object of your obsession. I know from when I had a crush on a pop star when I was 15 and found out he smoked, I was all too willing to think it was cool than to see it as a real failing, even though I hated the smell of cigarettes.

With love, you see the faults and you accept them as being faults, but you still love that person or thing. As an example, I love my cat even though at times he makes horrendous smells, is sick on my carpet and sometimes scratches me. Despite all that, he also comes for cuddles, likes to snuggle up on the sofa, and is always there to welcome me home by rubbing all around my legs.

We know Jesus did this, but how do we do it?
In the context of marriage, it could be as simple as cooking something that someone you love enjoys, even though it's not something you would choose, or giving up a day to help the person you love. It could be more extreme like donating a kidney(!) or relocating far away from your home because that's where the person you marry has to be.

I suppose the word I'm looking for is 'sacrifice' - it's making sacrifices to help, encourage, or console the person you love.

Dressing the big bridesmaids

Almost as urgent as getting my dress ordered was sorting out the big bridesmaids' dresses. I wanted to go shopping quickly because it's the end of prom season and I was hoping we might find something suitable and reduced in prom sales. I also suspected that if we couldn't find anything, we might have to order some in, and then they might need altering.


Last weekend (10th August) I went down to my parents' for the shopping trip because both Jenny and sister-in-law are based in that area. We started our hunt in Erdington, where there is a large bridal shop - The Wedding Centre - and a prom dress shop - Lulaann Prom.

The Wedding Centre was a large shop with lots of wedding dresses, a florist, and a reasonable selection of dresses for little bridesmaids/flower girls, but nothing for big ones. We mooched through the little dresses and made a note of a couple that looked nice, had a quick look at the accessories in the displays, asked about wedding shoes (they don't stock any) and then went.

We headed to Lulaann Prom, which is owned by the same people of a bridal shop two doors down, and we had to go into the bridal shop to ask the staff to open the prom dress shop. There were a lot of dresses in there, but half of them weren't really suitable for bridesmaids. We tried on a few different styles, and there were some that could have done at a push, but a combination of the styles not being quite right, the colours not being right, or the dress not being available in the right sizes or only one being available because they were end of line, meant we didn't get anything.

The next stop was in Boldmere, where there were two more shops - Singular Sensation and Red Rose Bridal. We went into Singular Sensation first, as much because I knew they stocked shoes as because I wanted to look at their dresses. The shoe selection didn't have what I was looking for, so we turned our attention to the dresses.

THE colour! But not the dress :-)

One thing I knew for sure before we started our shopping trip was that I really wanted dark green dresses for the big bridesmaids. I had a backup colour, but dark green was what I was aiming for. Singular Sensation was the first (and only, as it turned out) shop we went into that could do the dresses in the exact colour I was looking for. They had a variety of styles available, all very beautiful, and all able to be ordered in in a range of sizes and colours.

Jen and sister-in-law tried on a few different styles, and Jenny, very annoyingly, looked stunning in every single one! Sister-in-law is more curvy than Jenny though, so it was important to find something that would look good on both of them. We narrowed it down to two that we really liked, made a note of them, and moved on over the road to the next stop.

Red Rose Bridal was a much bigger shop, with its wedding dresses and bridal accessories in an upstairs showroom. I went to have a look at their shoes, and one of the first pairs I looked at was almost exactly what I was looking for. Most importantly, as well as being the right style, it had a low heel - pretty essential as far as I'm concerned if I'm going to be wearing them all day, dancing in them, and want to stay comfortable!

We looked at the bridesmaid dresses after I'd chosen the shoes, and there were a few which were quite nice, but nothing really reached out and grabbed me, and again there was the issue of them not being available in the exact style I wanted. The order time would also have been pushing it to get the dresses in in time, and some of the styles had such low backs they would have caused serious underwear issues!


When we got back to Mom and Dad's for lunch we talked through the various dresses and decided on one of the styles from Singular Sensation, so we measured Jenny and sister-in-law and phoned the shop to order. The lady was very helpful, took all the details, and reassured us that the dresses would be in in plenty of time before the wedding. She did have one concern, asking if 'the tall bridesmaid', aka Jenny, was planning on wearing heels, because the dress might come up too short if she was. Jen had already told me she's planning on wearing flats, so I could reassure the lady, but I was very impressed that she'd noticed that detail and had remembered to mention it to me even though it was almost two hours after we'd left the shop, and they had been busy all morning.

I then had to call Red Rose as well, because I'd left my shoes by the till. They were very nice about it. I blame Bride Brain - the wedding equivalent of baby brain!

Singular Sensation
8 Boldmere Road, Sutton Coldfield, B73 5TD
e: info@singularsensation.co.uk
t: 0121 355 8158
w: www.singularsensation.co.uk

Red Rose Bridal
11-13 Boldmere Road, Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, B73 5UY
e: redrosebridal@btinternet.com
t: 0121 354 6292
w: www.redrosebridal.com
 

A fantastic shop find

As I've been going around Oswestry over the past few weeks I'd noticed a shop window with a beautiful little girl's dress in the window. It was white with a sash around the waist and gorgeous red satin roses on the skirt.

Now in Oswestry there's a project called Footfall, which uses empty shop windows to create displays of art and other items, usually on a theme. I'd assumed this shop window was part of Footfall, because there was bunting in the window to match the colour scheme, flowers, and other pretty bits of decoration, but there was no name above the shop.

The dress in the window had caught my eye though, so I decided to walk up to have a look at the dress and see if it was an advert for a shop or had any clue as to where I might be able to find something similar. I was delighted when I got there and saw an 'open' sign on the door - it actually is a shop!

When I pushed open the door I started grinning - the first thing I saw was a rack of little white dresses, and on the back wall was a sparkling display of tiaras, hair pins and other pretties suitable for accessorising bridesmaids with.

The lady in the shop was sitting at the counter working on a sewing machine, and she smiled at me when I walked in. I had a mooch around, looking through the racks and investigating the sparklies, and then the lady asked me if I was looking for something in particular. When I told her that I was interested in bridesmaids dresses she produced two catalogues full of beautiful girls' dresses in a variety of colour schemes for me to look through, all very reasonably priced and absolutely gorgeous.

The dresses only take a week or two to come in, and when I said the girls all lived quite a long way away she said that was no problem, and that I could take the dresses away to try on and bring them back to order a different size if needed. She also said that if necessary she could make any alterations that were needed, and was really nice and helpful when she was suggesting possible changes.

Not my bridesmaids, but cute all the same! Pic by shutterpal

I ordered three dresses on the spot - all different but with elements that tie them all together - and then browsed  through the accessories. There were so many lovely things, again, very reasonably priced, and I picked up some hair pins and some flowers, which are lovely and have been tied up with ribbon ready to be carried as bouquets by big and little nieces.

I'm so glad I found the shop, because it's such a lovely place just to mooch around and I'm sure I'll find excuses to go back in there again for hair accessories and an evening bag closer to the wedding date.

PS - The shop also sells eggs!

Kirkham's Sewing Boutique
26 Willow Street, Oswestry, SY11 1AO
e: kirkhamsboutique@yahoo.co.uk 
t: 07546 107172