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.