When I originally spoke to Jan at Cinders she was keen to point out that she didn't run a 'conveyor belt' style of bridal shop and I didn't really know what she meant until I went to Confetti Bridal Centre in Wokingham. I suppose the word 'centre' should have given it away really!!
Anyway so there we were all again, this time my niece armed with fruit pastilles and ready to go. I had to do the same thing again but this time I had to do it whilst avoiding the fifteen other brides there that day plus their visitors. Eek. I had my own changing room into which my dresses were magically placed and then we were raring to go...when we got a chance given that everyone is straining to use the mirrors. First one I tried was lovely and simple and mum adored it but a little too simple for me...knowing what I'm like, I need something with a bit more ooompha so it got discarded. I tried on a few more and then tried on one very similar to the 'wow' dress from Cinders and it was very wow here too; I must admit that I looked amazing and my waist was tiny!! So that got put into number one place. I tried a very similar one on, in fact the 'actual wow' one from Cinders and....it made my hips look huge so it got canned! I did try on the 'wow but quirky' one too that I had tried before and it was....okay so it got canned. Finally I tried on what was a late entry in the final three from previously and it actually became the 'wow I feel like a princess' one. So there were two from which to choose and the pressure was on...I think deep down I wanted something that made me feel like I was getting married as opposed to something that I felt sexy in so I made the choice. BAM!
Deposit down, out of the shop....doubts creep in and I spent the whole weekend like that. obsessively surfing the net for pictures to remind me. Painstakingly trying to recreate what i had tried on to try and remember why I chose it over the sexy number and by 8.59am on Monday I had rung the shop and shouted "STOP". The dress got put on hold until I could speak to my sister in law to see if she could come and help with a fresh opinion - a) I couldn't and wouldn't put my sister, mum and niece through that again and b) a fresh pair of eyes is exactly what I needed to make my decision. Off we trundled on Tuesday and I had the whole shop almost to myself - heaven!! I tried it on and....Jane had a tear in her eye! Excellent, just the response I needed and I must admit that I fell in love with myself. I got a wonderful feeling in my tummy and I just wanted to wear it all day. There were some grannies there waiting for their granddaughter and they told me I looked fabulous....and they probably have seen a few brides in their time! So the dress got reordered and all is well with the world.
PS. Jan at Cinders was amazing but sometimes having something on your doorstep just makes all the difference; I would totally recommend her though for all Wiltshire brides.
Thursday 27 March 2008
Princesses and Tiaras
The dress buying was surprisingly quick; I had heard stories of visits to several dress shops and then back again and then back again once more! Yuech. I am not the world's greatest shopper as I prefer to nip in, get a visual check on whether or not there is anything I like in thet particular shop and then I either step further inside and grab certain pieces or make a dash for the door. Wedding dress shopping seems to be a whole new scenario!
The first shop I went to with my mum, sister and niece was Cinders in Devizes, which was very traditionally run by Jan. We entered into what could only be described as an Aladdins Cave of pretty dresses and were promptly passed a pair of white gloves each. Wow! Jan prefered shoppers not to handle the dresses with their sticky paws and I actually do agree as I imagine they would get grubby fairly fast. She had a definite plan : I had to go round the room and pull out any dresses that caught my eye and then we would go from there. So I mooched around, pulled out what didn't seem like very many and then surveyed my selection. A definite theme of colours and ruching and the unusual. Oh well, this may be interesting. I spent three hours with Jan and my family trying on dresses and quite quickly you get used to the "Yucks", the "Ahhs", the "Hmmm not suressss", "Wowss"...you get my gist. I never thought I would get through them all and find something I liked but I did - three ones I liked actually. Not telling you any more than that though...never know if the beloved could be reading this!
The first shop I went to with my mum, sister and niece was Cinders in Devizes, which was very traditionally run by Jan. We entered into what could only be described as an Aladdins Cave of pretty dresses and were promptly passed a pair of white gloves each. Wow! Jan prefered shoppers not to handle the dresses with their sticky paws and I actually do agree as I imagine they would get grubby fairly fast. She had a definite plan : I had to go round the room and pull out any dresses that caught my eye and then we would go from there. So I mooched around, pulled out what didn't seem like very many and then surveyed my selection. A definite theme of colours and ruching and the unusual. Oh well, this may be interesting. I spent three hours with Jan and my family trying on dresses and quite quickly you get used to the "Yucks", the "Ahhs", the "Hmmm not suressss", "Wowss"...you get my gist. I never thought I would get through them all and find something I liked but I did - three ones I liked actually. Not telling you any more than that though...never know if the beloved could be reading this!
Thursday 13 March 2008
The Planning Slog
I've refered to planning a wedding as a 'slog' because it is, in fact I would liken wedding planning to DIY: necessary to create something lovely to last for a long time but takes over your life including any free time you may have both at home and at work. It even sneaks into the Land of Z - dreaming of weddings has been a bugbear of mine this year. How can I possibly be expected to concentrate at work when I have venues and florists and photographers and bands and colour schemes (more on those later) and wedding rings and dresses all floating around in my head. I have been abducted by the wedding aliens during the last few months and only now have they released me!
I completely admit that getting engaged meant I could buy lots of lovely wedding magazines (I do have penchant for magazines of any sort really). However, I quickly realised that I was being charged between £3 and £5 for magazines that contained an obscene amount of dress advertising and very little else of any substance. These magazines do encourage the competitive and envious streak in a bride - 'real life' weddings all seem to be so perfect but they also seem to be hovering around the average cost of a wedding mark i.e. £20,000.
So the first and most important thing to get sorted was a venue; where we currently live doesn't hold any personal connection but similarly neither of us have parents living where we originally grew up. Initially we looked at the Lake District, Scotland and Northumberland but quickly decided that viewing venues could be time-consuming, which is something we want to avoid - the wedding taking over our life! Stan's ideal wedding would be just us two abroad but there was no way I was going to get married without my family there so that option rapidly got binned. We did look at that new buzzword 'a destination wedding' but I wasn't sure that everyone we wanted there could afford it so we ditched that as well. Mum eventually suggested her local CofE church (we're catholic), which escalated into looking at venues nearby and the local catholic church. I also had a look at venues close to home but couldn't really find anything that ticked all the boxes so we went with my first option but getting wed in a catholic church didn't feel right. We were about to plump for a civil ceremony when Mum had a word with the local vicar who would quite happily wed two catholics in his CofE church. Hoorah. It is on Mum's doorstep and we walk the dog around it when we're there and we just love it - fantastic, venue booked!
Second biggie was a photographer. This was something that really meant a lot to me as I am keen on photography and I am keen to have a certain look. I spent ages and ages and ages looking at photographers ranging in cost from £550 to £5500 (!); days were spent looking at online portfolios and albums until I was about to go mad with photo overload. I met with two in the end - both ladies - and liked them both. Jo Hansford won in the end as our personalities clicked, I liked her use of cross-processing with film and I just thought she had a lovely outlook on life. I can't wait for her to photograph our wedding.
So two biggies sorted - venue and photographer. Next - florists. So far have only met with one - a local lady who lives near Mum but she seems to be very nice and very accommodating. I'm also meeting this weekend with the florist who is local to the venue so will be updating you on who I choose as soon as I decide.
Finally, and quite frankly the most fun, dresses....
I completely admit that getting engaged meant I could buy lots of lovely wedding magazines (I do have penchant for magazines of any sort really). However, I quickly realised that I was being charged between £3 and £5 for magazines that contained an obscene amount of dress advertising and very little else of any substance. These magazines do encourage the competitive and envious streak in a bride - 'real life' weddings all seem to be so perfect but they also seem to be hovering around the average cost of a wedding mark i.e. £20,000.
So the first and most important thing to get sorted was a venue; where we currently live doesn't hold any personal connection but similarly neither of us have parents living where we originally grew up. Initially we looked at the Lake District, Scotland and Northumberland but quickly decided that viewing venues could be time-consuming, which is something we want to avoid - the wedding taking over our life! Stan's ideal wedding would be just us two abroad but there was no way I was going to get married without my family there so that option rapidly got binned. We did look at that new buzzword 'a destination wedding' but I wasn't sure that everyone we wanted there could afford it so we ditched that as well. Mum eventually suggested her local CofE church (we're catholic), which escalated into looking at venues nearby and the local catholic church. I also had a look at venues close to home but couldn't really find anything that ticked all the boxes so we went with my first option but getting wed in a catholic church didn't feel right. We were about to plump for a civil ceremony when Mum had a word with the local vicar who would quite happily wed two catholics in his CofE church. Hoorah. It is on Mum's doorstep and we walk the dog around it when we're there and we just love it - fantastic, venue booked!
Second biggie was a photographer. This was something that really meant a lot to me as I am keen on photography and I am keen to have a certain look. I spent ages and ages and ages looking at photographers ranging in cost from £550 to £5500 (!); days were spent looking at online portfolios and albums until I was about to go mad with photo overload. I met with two in the end - both ladies - and liked them both. Jo Hansford won in the end as our personalities clicked, I liked her use of cross-processing with film and I just thought she had a lovely outlook on life. I can't wait for her to photograph our wedding.
So two biggies sorted - venue and photographer. Next - florists. So far have only met with one - a local lady who lives near Mum but she seems to be very nice and very accommodating. I'm also meeting this weekend with the florist who is local to the venue so will be updating you on who I choose as soon as I decide.
Finally, and quite frankly the most fun, dresses....
Getting engaged and getting the sparkler
So I meant to blog when I first got engaged but getting engaged seemed to take over and then wedding planning came along! For the first two months of this year I have been in a maelstrom of weddings and wedding planning and wedding suppliers, in fact anything with the prefix of wedding!
Being asked to marry Stan was the most amazing but surreal experience ever! He asked me as part of a conversation - just dropped it in - in the Hotel Altepost in St Anton (oh dear, we'll HAVE to go back there now just to reminise - how difficult will that be). It was inevitable that he would have done it but it could have taken a while although he did say he was thinking of doing it in Finland. Looking back at the holiday in Finland I'm not sure he would have done - just not one of those sort of holidays i.e. too many people around. Anyway, I digress (something I'm likely to do on many of my blogs). Stan had also been amazing and told me that he had bought me a wedding present in advance - the Perfect Story - a beautiful sculpture by Lorenzo Quinn of a book hollowed out and a embracing naked couple inside. Just gorgeous! I proceeded to inform everyone in the hotel that I was getting married (little bit tipsy at this point) and then we had some champagne. Bad idea! Consequently I have completely and utterly decided that a) drinking champers at altitude is a real 'no no' and b) I don't really like the taste of the bubbly stuff anyway so what the hell was I thinking of?? I felt dreadfully ill the next day and having to wake up and pack to leave on a coach at 7am was so unpleasant that the day after was one of hangovers, feeling dazed and experiencing dumbfoundedness. Neither of us were particularly 'over the moon' as one would expect a newly engaged couple to be....come Monday though, we were soaring for the stars! Monday, or Christmas Eve, was wonderful; I was so excited that it was Christmas and I had my mum, sister and niece to stay and that I was ENGAGED. No longer to be left on the shelf - hoorah!
We got my engagement ring that day; Stan popped into town to get last minute presents (how did I not see through that one??) and texted me to say that he was in the pub recovering after putting the deposit down on a ring. He suggested that I pop in after Christmas to look at it - yeah right!?!!?!? I motored into town and dragged him back to the shop; he had paid for the one we had originally seen a while back and loved but I insisted on trying on the entire selection before plumping for the original gorgeous sparkler. The words 'typical female' were uttered more than once by my beloved!!
Being asked to marry Stan was the most amazing but surreal experience ever! He asked me as part of a conversation - just dropped it in - in the Hotel Altepost in St Anton (oh dear, we'll HAVE to go back there now just to reminise - how difficult will that be). It was inevitable that he would have done it but it could have taken a while although he did say he was thinking of doing it in Finland. Looking back at the holiday in Finland I'm not sure he would have done - just not one of those sort of holidays i.e. too many people around. Anyway, I digress (something I'm likely to do on many of my blogs). Stan had also been amazing and told me that he had bought me a wedding present in advance - the Perfect Story - a beautiful sculpture by Lorenzo Quinn of a book hollowed out and a embracing naked couple inside. Just gorgeous! I proceeded to inform everyone in the hotel that I was getting married (little bit tipsy at this point) and then we had some champagne. Bad idea! Consequently I have completely and utterly decided that a) drinking champers at altitude is a real 'no no' and b) I don't really like the taste of the bubbly stuff anyway so what the hell was I thinking of?? I felt dreadfully ill the next day and having to wake up and pack to leave on a coach at 7am was so unpleasant that the day after was one of hangovers, feeling dazed and experiencing dumbfoundedness. Neither of us were particularly 'over the moon' as one would expect a newly engaged couple to be....come Monday though, we were soaring for the stars! Monday, or Christmas Eve, was wonderful; I was so excited that it was Christmas and I had my mum, sister and niece to stay and that I was ENGAGED. No longer to be left on the shelf - hoorah!
We got my engagement ring that day; Stan popped into town to get last minute presents (how did I not see through that one??) and texted me to say that he was in the pub recovering after putting the deposit down on a ring. He suggested that I pop in after Christmas to look at it - yeah right!?!!?!? I motored into town and dragged him back to the shop; he had paid for the one we had originally seen a while back and loved but I insisted on trying on the entire selection before plumping for the original gorgeous sparkler. The words 'typical female' were uttered more than once by my beloved!!
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