wedBlog

We have created wedding lists at John Lewis and Debenhams but the John Lewis list will not be available until the 20th of May. I don't know why so I am going to put it down to great british eccentricity.

I am so excited. I have bought the wedding shoes and they are the prettiest shoes in the whole world. They were a bit expensive but I my thinking is that as Andrew has just saved us £100 by taking the ceiling down in one of our bedrooms, it will all balance out. I am not going to post a picture because it will spoil the surprise and I am not sure if they will fit OK yet as I have ordered them from the internet.

If anyone else reading this is about to get married, my advice is to buy as much as you can over the internet as you really pay for the service in shops.

Another interesting thing I have observed is that many internet shops offer an amazing 7 days no quibble refund, which isridiculouse as the distance selling act which applies to catalogue and internet sales requires that they give a 28 day no quibble refund. I have half a mind to email them and let them know but I think I will wait till my shoes arrive first.

I finally managed to organise a trip to Somerset to see the dress maker last weekend and she seems very nice. We, i.e. Katharyn, Andrew (so he could visit his mum and dad), Ishbel and I all jumped in cars early last saturday morning and raced down the M5 to Wellingtonto see Roz for the first measurements to be taken. Contrary to prior knowledge, her house did not smell of dog, and although she is a little eccentric, probably from living on her own, she seemed quite nice and only charges £6 per hour for her work. I was hoping that she would buy all of the fabric for the dresses and sort everything else out for me (another job successfully delegated), but she wants me to get all of the fabric and the pattern and get them all back to Somerset. I also forgot to ask her whether she could make waistcoats for the boys. Ah well. I assume it will all work out OK in the end. At least somthing has happened.

The other thing I am a bit worried about is the cost of the dresses. Roz is refusing to give me a final cost as she insists that she doesn't know how long they will take. 35 hours was mentioned at one point so I will assume that that was for all of the dresses which would work out at a quite reasonable £55 per dress, which sounds about right based on what Ishbel paid for her dress last year.

Just have to buy the fabric now.

I have managed to foist the large task of making and distributing wedding invites onto my family. So far my brother has described it as a sweat shop only once but they have only made the save the date cards so far, which should be winging their way to you all asap.

Apparently it is bad form to send the actual invites out further than 8 weeks in advance, probably because people forget to RSVP otherwise.

Anyway, I have got lots of invite related stuff to do now so I better get on with it.

Katharyn approached the dressmakers house armed with some extremely pixilated pictures of the perfect bridesmaids dresses to be greeted by the smell of dog and a very nice lady who expressed that she would need a pattern to work from as she has never made dresses like that before.

Several hours of internet trawling later and Katharyn (who is now starting to look like a bit of an angel) had found a fantastic webpage containing hundreds of dress patterns. A week or so later i finally got round to ordering a couple of the most likely candidates and I am now the owner of some beautiful 1950' dress patterns.

Just before the weekend I phoned 'Roz' and myself and all the bridesmaids are going to visit her on the 18th of March for measurements to be taken and final discussions regarding the dresses. All very exciting. I am looking forwards to it. Hopefully, having the dresses made should save a bit of cash as most of the dresses I have seen in shops come in at around £200-£250 (or are horrible). I think it is looking like costing less than £100 per dress but I will have to wait till the 18th to get a final price. Maybe I can have more bridesmaids if they are going to be that cheap :-)

Since Christmas I have drafted Katharyn, my future sister in law and chief bridesmaid in to help organise obtaining the bridesmaids dresses. Katharyn was until recently based in Somerset, not too far away from my cousins and so it seemed sensible for Katharyn to source a dressmaker from the area to make the dresses (buying them pre-made is not an option as I have my mind set on some unusual designs).

Katharyn bravely took up the Good-Garrard wedding banner, put on her most sensible shoes (!)and staunchly set out towards Taunton to harrass each and every seamstress, dressmaker and wedding shop owner until she found a suitable candidate. Several hours and a few blisters later Katharyn had come up with a several names, one of which had been commended by several different sources. Meanwhile I was wandering round Attercliffe, which for those of you not from Sheffield is a little like Soho, warily staring into the window of an asian dress shop for possible fabrics. After several passes I eventually gained enough courage to confidantly walk into the shop, directly over to the fabric section and begin to browse in what I hope was a knowledgable fashion. After a few minutes my nerves settled and I was actually able to look at the fabrics instead of concentrating intently on looking nonshalont. I found some satin material in the 'wedding' colours and bought some small half meter sections to use as reference material. All I can say is thank goodness for GCSE textiles or I wouldn't have had a clue what I was doing at any point during the purchase.

On arriving home, I contacted my accomplice who informed me that she has arranged to visit the dressmaker and would be back in contact with me as soon as she had any further information.

To Be Continued...

Wow I didn't realise how long it has been since I last posted. I am however going to blame the entire lack of information on being very busy at work and moving house. I have just about finished moving into the house which me and Andrew have bought as our very first home together. Unpacking is almost complete and now we just have to decorate every room in the house!

On a more wedding related note. Planning is really starting to ramp up, as are the costs. We started out with a sensible financial plan and although we have tried to source as much stuff as we can by ourselves and call in favours from friends to keep costs down some things have turned out to be a lot more expensive than we thought. I am pretty sure that as soon as you mention the 'M' word everyone whoops and triples their prices which I think is very unfair. We are just trying to have a nice celebration which all of our family and friends can enjoy. Boo to all wedding related industries.

I will probably have changed my tune by tomorrow morning as I am fortunate enough to have a disposition which resists being sullen or upset for more than a few hours.

I promise to be more consitant with my posting habits from now on.

I have been having a bit of a difficult time deciding what to do about bridesmaids dresses for a while. I have had great fun looking at dresses and making my cousins try them on in shops but I haven't really seen quite the right thing for sale. I have however found a picture of some beautiful dresses on the internet which should match well with my dress so I have decided to have them made by a dress maker. I am also really hoping that this will keep all the bridesmaids happy as they can each have slightly different dresses and, hopefully, it will be a bit cheaper than buying dresses and then having them altered, which I would almost certainly have to do. If i can find the photo again and work out how to post it I will.

Anyway the problem with having the dresses made is that three of my bridesmaids live in Somerset at the moment and one lives in Sheffield. This means that if I find a dressmaker in Sheffield, I will have to ship three bridesmaids to Sheffield for at least three fittings and bearing in mind that my two cousins are doing their GCSEs this year I am not sure that is really a possibility. the other option is to ask Ishbel to travel to Somerset for fittings but I think that a dressmaker in Somerset will be more expensive, material will be more expensive and Ishbel is normally really busy.

I was talking to Ishbel about the problem last night and thanks to the thought clarifying powers of a glass of wine we came up with a slightly complicated plan which might just work. The plan is to have Ishbel and Kags' dresses made in Sheffield and then shipped down to Somerset for a dressmaker down there to copy. I can see more complications to this plan now in the cold light of day than last night but it still seems like the best plan so far. If anyone has any better ideas please let me know. In the meantime I should really get in contact with the dressmaker that Ishbel gave me the number for.

Update about house is still in the pipeline. I am waiting for some more interesting news.

So Neither me nor Andrew have really made any posts on the Wedblog for a while. This is almost entirely due to how busy we have both been for the last couple of months. In September we went on holiday to Spain with Ali and Kieron for a couple of weeks which was very nice and relaxing. However since coming back I have had to pack all my worldly belongings into boxes for an indefinate period of time, clean my old house, move all my belongings to a new house and organise several surveys on our (hopefully) soon to be new house. Meanwhile Andrew has been helping me move and clean, whilst also liasing with the solicitor and the estate agent, writting up his PhD and starting a new job at the Health and Safety laboratories.

Anyway suffice it to say that we have has very little time to chill out. On the wedding planning side, I have a picture of what I would like my bridesmaids dresses to look like and we have now booked a caterer and a photographer both of which were found through my lovely church.

So we now have sorted out:
venue for reception
Venue for wedding
Food for reception
DJ for when everyone gets too drunk to Celidh at the reception (thanks Kags)
Harp player for during the meal (thanks Alley)
Celidh band for the reception (thanks Owain)
Photographer


Still to go:
Wedding car? I am thinking about walking but I might be a bit stuck if it rains
Seamstress to make the bridesmaids dresses and alter mine.
Staff to serve in the bar at the reception.
Florist for the reception and additional flowers at the church.
Chairs/chair covers for the recption (the ones already there are covered in paint)
Honeymoon
Decorations for the reception
Rings (I think the man who made the engagement ring might be designing some)

I think that it is but I am sure I have forgotten something.

House buying update to follow.