Tag Archives: wedding

Intentions

Posted on by

19

I wake up each morning full of enthusiasm and intentions and tell myself that I’m going to write a blog post today. I get up, turn on my laptop… and then it’s 6.30pm and I find myself finishing work for the day and feeling mentally spent. It isn’t that I don’t want to blog – even after eight years I still get an enormous buzz from pressing the ‘publish’ button, but it has become less of a priority as other things have taken over. I’d like to change that, especially after receiving so many nice messages from bloggy friends who were wondering where I’ve been.

As I haven’t posted for several months, there’s a lot to talk about. 

Continue reading →

The Vows I SHOULD Have Said at my Wedding

Posted on by

73

A year ago today, I put on a big, poofy dress and walked down the aisle in front of our family and closest friends, given away by my mother to Journey’s ‘Don’t Stop Believing.’ Now, when I say ‘walk,’ imagine the kick-line of the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders (if the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders had overdone it on the cheesecake and hadn’t properly exercised in years) – my dress was so massive and poofy that I was desperately trying not to fall on my face, so I chose kick the bottom of the dress out of the way instead.

What can I say – I like to keep it classy. 

The Bloke looked all dashing and handsome in his suit, we said our vows, the registrar made a joke about triplets (don’t ask), and then we took the photos, ate the food, cut the cake, danced a bit, talked a lot and generally had a rather knackering (but wonderful) day.  Continue reading →

A Wonderful Week and a Wedding

Posted on by

21

Last week was wonderful.

The Bloke and I watched Matilda on Monday night at the Birmingham Hippodrome. I’d heard endless good things and was intrigued to see how it transferred to the stage, and in many ways it didn’t disappoint. The set was incredible, the songs and choreography were great and some of the actors in particular (Bruce Bogtrotter, Miss Trunchbull and Miss Honey) were fabulous. However, it wasn’t completely my thing – I’m an enormous RENT freak and the shows that I have enjoyed the most have much more of a rock inspired content (Rock of Ages being one of my favourites) and while the child actors were certainly talented, I found it difficult to totally understand their dialogue at times. There was also a technical hitch in the second half which caused the show to be suspended for a little while, so by the time it finished it felt excessively long. It’s certainly something that I’m glad we had the opportunity to watch, but probably not something that I would rush to see again.

Continue reading →

The Wedding!

Posted on by

108

My napkins on each place setting

After a lovely weekend it’s back down to earth – The Bloke is now back at work for a while before we go on the honeymoon and I have returned to the the online world. It’s been more strange than I expected in the fact that it hasn’t been strange at all – I was told by numerous people that I would feel different, but I don’t at all, apart from the fact that I greet him with ‘hello, husband!’ every time he walks through the door…

The wedding was lovely. I was told to expect something to go wrong, but absolutely nothing did – our duty manager for the day, Derek, kept things running like clockwork (he’s ex-military so that helped) and everyone seemed to have a great time. Continue reading →

Mr & Mrs Bloke: Suzie Gets Married!

Posted on by

157

After months of planning and organising, I put on my dress and walked down the aisle to Journey’s ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ (what can I say, I like to keep things classy…).

The Bloke looked very handsome and the day was amazing. I will do a more detailed post later this week but I wanted to say thank you for all the messages and best wishes, and share a pic that my awesome photographer sent me yesterday evening…

Mr and Mrs Bloke

A massive thank you to our fabulous photographer – Andy Vokes

How I Saved Thousands On My Wedding

Posted on by

95

Wedding money saving tips

This post contains affiliate links, which means I receive a small amount of money if you make a purchase from any of the Amazon links included…

Right from the beginning of my wedding planning eighteen months ago, I was determined that I would do my absolute best to keep the costs as low as possible. Of course, I wanted the day to be beautiful, but our budget was small and I didn’t want us to still be paying it off for years after it was over.

Essentially, I wanted it to be as cheap as possible, but I didn’t want it to LOOK cheap.

The problem is, the minute the word ‘wedding’ is mentioned, the prices of everything are automatically increased and there are numerous places that aren’t always upfront about their total prices – we discovered that there were lots of hidden costs in all sorts of different areas.

The key to saving money lies in forward planning, lots of research, asking for help, being patient and shopping around. It also helped that we had a long engagement, giving us sufficient time to work out what we wanted and how much we were prepared to budget for it. Continue reading →

The Wrong Dress

Posted on by

80

In the early hours of Friday morning, I was in a hotel room getting ready for my wedding. My family were there, the guests had started arriving, the registrar was waiting and I was putting on my wedding dress. Suddenly, my dress had changed to a pink and red flower summery monstrosity and I was frantic – where had my dress gone? I looked in the same cupboards over and over, then went downstairs to ask for help, only to discover that the guests had started to eat their wedding buffet, and were complaining that there wasn’t enough food. My dress was nowhere to be found so I ran back upstairs to look in the same cupboards again, with no luck. I realised I still hadn’t put my make-up on so I decided to wear the wrong dress and started scrabbling around in an effort to find my eyeliner, only for The Bloke to walk into the room looking upset. Except, it wasn’t The Bloke – it was actor Kevin McKidd, who I thought was The Bloke. He informed me that the registrar had grown tired of waiting and had cancelled the wedding and also cancelled our passports, which meant that we couldn’t go on our honeymoon. He handed me a sticker that I had to put on my passport to make it invalid. I was so disappointed… Continue reading →

I’ve Discovered that Twine Makes Me Happy…

Posted on by

74

With less than two months to go before I get married, I’ve been busy finalising the last bits and pieces required before the big day – bouquets, decorations, seating plans, food orders… Luckily, I had done a large amount of organisation at the beginning of the year so most of these jobs mainly involved checking and rechecking things, but it has still felt like I have had a large list to complete every day. On the whole, it’s been quite an enjoyable experience and of course I’m looking forward to the day, but I have learned a lot of lessons – namely the fact that I am never organising a large scale event ever again. I have also discovered an intense interest in all things crafty that I didn’t realise I had – who knew a glue gun, some scrabble tiles and some twine could be the source of so much enjoyment? I blame Pinterest, eBay, Hobbycraft and my youngest sister – the house is filled with jars for centrepieces and flower arrangements, photobooth props, photo frames, seating cards, RSVP’s… I got ridiculously excited the other day when I popped round to my next-door neighbours house after they returned from their honeymoon and they gave me a massive box of craft things left over from their own wedding that they were going to throw away, including twine. So much twine! The Bloke should count himself lucky – if I could glue gun twine onto him, I would. Continue reading →

Suzie Goes Wedding Dress Shopping!

Posted on by

71

Have you got your dress yet?
Have you got your dress yet?
Have you got your dress yet?

If I were given a pound for every time I’ve been asked that by increasingly concerned family members and friends in the last six months the wedding would have been paid off by now and then some.

I’m getting married at the end of October and of all of the things on my wedding ‘To Do’ list the dress was far from what I deemed to be a priority. While a number of my friends who have become engaged or got married in the last eighteen months bought their (stunning) gowns fairly early in their planning, I have waited until the last minute. Admittedly, it was more about the lack of body confidence than the money – I had a horrible imaginary scenario in my mind of not being able to find a dress that fit (or only finding ones that would make me look bigger) and having to walk away feeling worse about the whole thing than I did before. I also didn’t want to spend an enormous amount of money on something that I would wear once. Continue reading →

A Wedding at Sherborne Abbey

Posted on by

10

 

I always love a good wedding, but when the bride is an old friend it makes it particularly special. For the last year our conversation and activities have been wedding oriented. We’ve looked through Pinterest and magazines, discussed endless ideas over cocktails and I went on her hen do last month.

She got engaged a few months before I did last year and at the time it felt like an age before the Big Day would arrive. However, after what seemed like five minutes since she first showed me her engagement ring, The Bloke and I found ourselves stood in our wedding finery in Sherborne Abbey (a 1300 year-old church which was built in 705AD). It was a blisteringly hot day and and we had navigated our way through the tiny streets of the town, arrived at the Abbey early and took the opportunity to take lots of photographs before everyone else got there. The groom and the groomsmen arrived shortly after us, all looking handsome in their blue suits. The groom took it all in his stride – he’s naturally quite a calm and collected person – it was only a few minutes before the bride arrived that he showed flashes of nerves.  Continue reading →