Not at all! Did I miss your date? Love the orchids btw... beautiful!!!!

Thanks! x
We're a little conflicted on the date so we're waiting to find out what dates our venue has available. I'm hoping for July next year - 15th if they do Sundays - but Keith wants it sooner (I told him we can have another baby but only after we're married. He took that to mean we'll start trying straight away so he's rushing it a bit! )

Awww, what a sweetie.

Well girls, as short-lived as this journal was, I don't think I have much use for it now.

Last year when he first proposed, I'll confess to going wedding crazy and getting way ahead of myself with the planning. Then when reality set in and Keith told me we wouldn't be getting married straight away, I got really down in the dumps and refused to let myself get excited again.

Well, this year, both of us decided to start planning. I asked him at the start if this would be like last time because I didn't want the heartache again. He said it wouldn't. We would get the money and get hitched.

But now, even after I offered to get cheap jewellery from Etsy, not have the wedding meal, buy a dress from eBay and sell all my valuable records, he's freaking out about money and wants to wait.

So for the second year running I've had my day snatched from me. Only this time he built me up to expect a wedding to happen. He was even arguing about doing it sooner than I wanted. So this has come as a shock and while I can see that he's being practical and has a very valid point, I can't help but feel like there will always be money issues and I'm destined to be heartbroken again and again every year for the rest of our lives.

At least I'll have all the time in the world to get skinny for it... Sigh.

hope you're ok sweetie and that he comes round to the idea of planning it soon xx

you sure thats the real reaosn he is freaking out? weddings dont have to cost the earth hunny! x

Yeah that was the reason... I kinda suspected that it might be to do with me telling him that i dont want to try for another baby yet even if we are married soon.
But we stuck to an appointment we had with a wedding coordinator at a local hotel and their Friday and Sunday rates are really good... They're apparently not too booked up either so if we can book for the Sunday before the may bank holiday next year we're just gonna go for it!

Aww hun, that would devastate me as well.

good luck honey xx

Ok, it's been two weeks and things finally look like they're back on track. Wahoo!

Despite OHs money fears, we carried on looking at venues and found that the Holiday Inn chain did a good deal where, if you get married on a friday or sunday, the venue for the entire day will cost £999... so we went for it!!

We've now set a date and paid the deposit on it.
We'll be getting married on 6th May 2011.
It's the bank holiday so even though it's a Sunday wedding, very few people will need to worry about getting up for work on the Monday.

The £999 price includes:
- All day hire of the Academy area which has 2 rooms for ceremony, meal and reception, a garden, plus private bar area, 2 other rooms for storage or equipment or cloakroom or playroom for kids or whatever we want!
- Wedding Meal Main Dish
- Red Carpet on arrival and a glass of sparkling wine for the Bride and groom
- Children under 3 eat for free
- Use of Cake Stand and Knife
- Wedding coordinator
- Disco and D.J
- Overnight accommodation for the Bride and Groom
- Top table flower arrangement

For a Saturday wedding, the Academy/room hire would cost £850 and the DJ would be £300... so that's already more than £999 without the other stuff thrown it too!

We have to pay for:
- Me and bridesmaids and Mum to stay the night before (at discounted rate)
- Canapes
- Starters and deserts for meal
- Drinks package (1 drink on arrival, glass of wine/beer with the meal and sparkling wine for the toast)
- Evening buffet (although this is reduced from £18pp to £8pp)
- Decorations

The venue and all of the above is going to come to around £3000 in total.
This also includes the cake as we'll be getting that free from MIL who makes and decorates cakes for a living!

I really want to start looking for a dress and a photographer as I know these things take time and photographers can get quite booked up. I need to convince OH to help me with that asap because he's convinced that now we've booked the venue, everything else can wait til after Christmas

In the meantime, I've got July 9th booked to go to visit MIL. Her best friend's OH is an amazing guitarist but I've only ever seen him play when he's drunk. I'm thinking of asking him to do an acoustic song for our first dance so I'm going to see him play at a local venue where he'll hopefully be sober because it'll only be early afternoon!

We're also taking that day to look at flowers. The shop MIL makes cakes for also does flower arrangements, both real and fake which is important as DF suffers from terrible hayfever. Hopefully we'll see something we like in there or get some ideas as we can get them at discounted prices.

This wedding is going to be all about saving money wherever possible. At the moment, it looks like it'll cost around £6000 unless we can find a good-but-cheap photographer and get a bargain on a dress!


So excited to have things progressing finally... now it feels so real! It's kind of scary!