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

Buying my dress

The first big purchase of the wedding plans was my dress. Having done quite a bit of research, I knew that most wedding dress shops ask for at least 16 weeks before the wedding to get the dress in and alterations done. Since lovely beardy fiancé only proposed 16 weeks before the wedding, I knew I was cutting it tight and fully expected to be met with looks of disapproval from staff at the shops I went into. That said, I was also fully prepared to walk out of any shop which treated me with disdain because I dared to try to get married on a short time scale and not on their time scale.

The week after we got engaged I had a look around local bridal shops to where I live in Oswestry, Shropshire, and talked to other people, and everyone seemed to have nothing but good things to say about Trisha's. Having heard all these good things, I called them up to make an appointment to pop in to try on some dresses the next Saturday (3rd August), thinking that then I could get some ideas ready for when I went shopping with my bridesmaids the following week (10th August).

I was so excited I couldn't actually wait until the Saturday, and on the Friday I popped over to the shop in my lunch break to have a look around. Trisha herself was in the shop and was more than happy to spend a bit of time talking to me about what I'd be looking for and to show me around the private showrooms where dozens of beautiful dresses were hanging on racks ready to be tried on. Most importantly, when I told her the date of the wedding, she said it wasn't going to be a problem and that it would be perfectly possible to get a dress in that timescale.

On the Saturday I went back with my friend Rachel to give a second opinion on anything I found. Trisha was lovely, and had pulled out a few dresses ready for me to try on after remembering what I'd said the previous day. I was really impressed, and it was one of the ones she suggested that I eventually went for.

When it came to ordering the dress she said that they say it's a 16 week delivery timescale, but then reassured me by saying she wouldn't order in anything unless she was sure it would be in in time for any alterations to be done. She also said that even if it went down to three days before the wedding, they could take care of any last minute changes because they do all the alterations in store.

A few days later I got a call from Trisha again to tell me that the estimated delivery date was going to be 23rd October - a full month before the wedding. She then said I should feel free to pop in or call any time if I had any questions of concerns.

The staff in the shop were lovely, the experience of trying on dresses was really relaxed and fun, I found the perfect dress, and it was well within my budget and actually cheaper than I thought it would be!

Trisha's
57-59 Beatrice Street, Oswestry, Shropshire SY11 1QR
e: trishasbridalwear@hotmail.co.uk
t: 01691 671133
w: trishasbridalwear.co.uk

Guest lists dilemmas

We, like every other couple getting married I expect, have been having an issue with our guest lists.

Even without the lists provided by both sets of parents of people we really shouldn't forget to invite, we have a lot of people travelling from quite a distance to the wedding.

While some of those (like the best man!) were people who would be invited to the wedding breakfast anyway, some of them weren't, but if they had to leave early then they wouldn't be able to come to an evening do. They also wouldn't know the area at all, so they couldn't just pop home for some lunch and then come back for the evening.

Combined with all the children that our guests will be bringing, the numbers jumped quite quickly. At one point our list was something like 60 adults plus 17 children.

It would be so much simpler if we'd grown up within 10 miles of each other and never moved anywhere else! :-)

Love Is

I'm doing a Bible study on love at the moment to help me prepare for marriage. I've decided I'm going to post some of my responses and thoughts from it on here as well, to remind me that there's more to planning a marriage than just planning a wedding.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 NIV

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Using one word, how would you sum up what love is?

Worthy. A strange choice perhaps, but true love and the person or people who you love are worth making sacrifices for.

Which of these definitions of love stands out to you right now?

Not self-seeking - going into marriage I'm very aware that there will need to be compromises made by me and my fiancé. We've both been single for so long that we will have our own ways of doing things and we will need to work together to find 'our' way of doing things instead of 'my' way of doing things.

To love him and help our marriage I can't be self-seeking and demand everything to be done my way, I have to be willing to allow him to do things that he really wants to do and have things that he really wants to have, and to do it not grudgingly, but happily, because I love him - even if I really don't like the dead troll keyring that he has!

And because he loves me, he will let me have salad and chicken in his fridge even though he will never eat them :-)

He loves me!

Before he proposed, lovely beardy fiancé had never told me he loved me - the standard response when I would say 'I love you', would be 'yep'! I made sure he remedied that when he proposed. I know he's not going to say it often, but now I know he does love me.

Choosing a hairstyle

I love beardy fiancé dearly, but as far as my hair goes, he has terrible timing for trying to arrange a wedding!

A few months ago I cut off my 15" long ponytail and donated it to the Little Princess Trust - a charity which makes wigs for children with cancer. After the chop I had my hair styled really short and it's not even grown back out as far as my chin yet.

Now my hair does grow really quickly, so I expect it will be down to my shoulders by the wedding, but as I have really fine hair it does leave me a bit short on options for my hair style. I'm going to wear a veil, so it needs to be something that will fit in with that, but it would be nice if it also created some volume.

Some of the pictures I've been looking at for inspiration are here, with my comments.

 

I really like the waves in this hairstyle and the way the flowers fit in with the curls. It's a very natural look, but unfortunately I don't think it would work for me. My hair doesn't hold waves very well without masses of hairspray in it, and with the veil on top as well - assuming I could persuade it to stay - it would probably flatten any waves that did survive. Very sad, but that's my hair.

This is another quite natural look and I really like the bits soming down around her face. I'm not sure what's going on at the back of her head, but the front looks good, and I like the bit of extra volume she's got just behind her fringe. Definitely something to show my hairdresser when I go for a trial session.

This is the sort of style I'm thinking of, with bits around the face and the hair up at the back, but I think she has rather more hair than me! It's something I'll be experimenting with though, to see if I can do something along these lines - but a bit less messy.

In a similar vein but neater, I really like the way this works with the flowers in it. She obviously has much longer hair than me, but I like the way the hair is made more interesting with a few little embellishments. I'll be looking on eBay to see what sort of clips and decorated bobby pins are out there before I go to the hairdresser to see if I can find something that will go with my dress. It's also something I can give to the bridesmaids to tie all of our looks together.

I think this is my favourite picture that I've found so far. It's a lovely, soft, romantic look that's not too messy but not so neat that you'd notice if a few strands came loose. I can't quite see what's going on at the back, but it seems to have a lovely shape to it.

Another soft, romantic look, this is quite a simple style but I think it would look quite nice with a veil and wouldn't get squished or disarranged too much by it. The only problem with this is that the top is quite flat, and I'm not sure I'll have enough hair to pull it off. It's worth bearing in mind though.

• A lot of these looks came from a wedding hairstyles blog that I found and immediately bookmarked.

A better flower option

After the shock of florists' pricings of bridal bouquets I thought I'd look into other places to get flowers from.

One of the first places I looked at was Marks & Spencer, which does some lovely bouquets that can be delivered. The range is lovely and the prices aren't too bad. Some of my favourites were:

Fairtrade Rose & Alstroemeria Bouquet, Serene Bouquet, Classic White Roses Bouquet and Autograph Avalanche Roses, all £35

Setting The Scene Bouquet in white, £45, Centre Stage Bouquet, £50,  Setting The Scene Arrangement in white, £35

All of the above are available from Marks & Spencer's website.

Of course, the large bouquets would be too big for me to carry, but they could be split down into smaller bouquets for me and my bridgesmaids and tied up with ribbon to match the colour scheme. When you compare one bouquet for £75 to four for £35, it's obvious which the better option is!

After I'd done my reasearch, and feeling a lot more positive about flowers, I popped to the supermarket for some bits and pieces, and what should I see when I walked through the door but some beautiful bouquets.

Various bouquets from Sainsbury's, ranging from £3 to £12.50

I've mentioned before that I don't mind what flowers I have, so now I'm thinking that perhaps going to the supermarket the day before and getting some really nice flowers from there would be the best option. Sister-in-law has done bits of flower arranging before and has offered to help create bouquets if I'd like her to, and this does seem like a much better option than paying extortionate amounts for something that will only last a week.

How expensive are flowers?!

My sister-in-law offered to help with any bits of research I wanted doing for the wedding - venues, hair stylists, and so on. So I decided to take advantage of her offer and ask her to find out what sort of flowers will be in season (and so comparatively cheap) in November.

I'm really not too fussed about the type of flowers I have in a bouquet. When I was first thinking about the wedding, before we had a date, I was imagining a spring wedding and thinking a wildflower bouquet would be nice. I'm not really into the very formal arrangements, and I wanted something simple but pretty, and fitting in with the colour scheme which is mostly dark green. That, I thought, would make it simple because any flowers would go with the colour scheme!

Sister-in-law came back with a list of flowers which would be in season - (top row) narcissus, bouvardia, (bottom row) agapanthus and september, which I believe is a type of aster.

Because she went to a florist to make enquiries, she thought it would be rude not to get a quote as well. The reply - £75. When she told me I was flabberghasted (which is a fabulous word that's not used often enough). I couldn't believe that a simple bunch of flowers would cost so much. It reinforced something that darling beardy man (aka fiancé) has been saying all along - as soon as you mention the word 'wedding', whoever you're talking to will double the price at least.

So having discovered how shockingly overpriced the flowers are, I'm not seriously considering doing them myself.

Glencoe, 27th July, 2013