it's all official - saying "I do" on 20th July 2013 ** venue pics page 59 **

[Tarkwa]

Yay - I'm so excited for you. CONGRATULATIONS ! New stalker here!

I had Pachebel Canon in D - so so nice so would defo recommend. Advice on bridesmaids - try to keep the numbers down, having too many people fuss over you is a nightmare. Choose one person who you are happy to have hold up your dress whilst you go for a pee too! I chose my sister and DH's sis. My two closest girl friends I had as 'usherettes'. Having 2 b'maids also kept the cost down (nice dresses are soooooooo expensive, even those off the peg!). I had one flower girl (too young to walk or do anything on 8 months old!) and I got her dress from Sainsbury's in the sale for £8 (which was half price). It looked BEAUTIFUL and you would never have been able to tell it wasn't a stupidly expensive one like those in the shops retailing at £100+.

Here are my opinions on the b'maids dresses you have chosen:
Numbers 1-4 are WAY too short (imo) and you need to know if your b'maids would be comfortable wearing something like that (and also if you would want them showing off their legs that much!). Number 5 is lovely. Yellow chiffon will be so summery - perfect for a may wedding! A really flattering length bridesmaids of all shapes and sizes is 'tea length'. It's below the knees and almost kinda 50s skirt length - google 'tea length wedding dresses' to get an idea. And you've got some good advice from WhisperOfHope about ordering from eBay, esp if from China.

Re save the sate I love the first blue one you chose. Are you going for turquoise blue? Anything that has wedding in front of it will make it stupidly expensive - hence why I made my own invitations. They weren't 'animated' like the ones you've shown (I sense you have quite a fun style!) but were perfect for our wedding. Keeps looking around - maybe you can design your own invitations and have them professionally printed? Much cheaper and I know you have the talent to do it .

WOW - Buckland Hall looks amazing (and v.expensive!). The other place also looks lovely. Wait until you get prices before falling in love with anywhere and have a good look around. I got married in a restaurant and had the reception in their function room. We stayed (with all our guests) at the Premier Inn next door!!! Weddings are very expensive (as you will find out I'm sure) so have a good hunt around. And last bit of advice today is to pick up second hand magazines. I used to get mine from the local market stall - 4 for £2. Some were barely out of date. Or try eBay for bundles (though postage might be expnsive if not local). Great for ideas though which is mainly what you use them for.

Congratulations again!
xxx

 

[EmmyReece]

thanks for all the advice hun, it's so very much appreciated, I'm so completely clueless

We're going to be having quite young bridesmaids, so I'll probably end up giving them the choice of which dresses they prefer I'd like them to have the chance to use the dresses again if they wanted to

There's one seller from china that my brother's gf has brought dresses from before, and we got flower dresses from too and they came back amazing, so we'll probably stick with that one

Plas Dolguog already seems so much more affordable, so am just waiting on what comes back from them now

I'd love to design my own invitations, might have a go at it, just not sure how they'll come out

 

[EmmyReece]

I've had an e-mail back from Plas Dolguog and the only Saturday wedding they have available in August 2013 is the 3rd. The only problem with this date is it's the anniversary of my dad's funeral, so I'm a bit iffy about actually going for it on that date just yet until I've had chance to talk to Mum.

I've e-mailed back and asked if they have any weekday dates available as that's what we'd prefer, and have also asked what sort of deposit they would like if we wanted to reserve any of the available dates

They've also reassured me that the function rooms, restaurant etc are all on one floor which means that mum will be able to get around with ease

 

[lovie]

hia emmy you are so creative at making your pics in your signiture on here i bet you could make some lovely invitations! I have a little bit of skill in the photoshop department if you need any help with that kind of thing

its a really personal choice weather to have your wedding on the date of your dads funeral, maybe it would feel a little bit like his presence was there if you had it on that day? if you like a weekday tho it probably will be cheaper?

xxx

 

[EmmyReece]

That's what I'm thinking ...

I've just added up meals, drinks package and buffet for 95 people and we're on £3500 :O

I know they probably won't all accept, but omg it's alot

 

[Damita]

Yay a wedding journal!!

 

[EmmyReece]

I asked Nikki if she wanted to be a bridesmaid for me and she was over the moon, I've asked Donna about Tammy and Lexi (that's what the youngest is going to be called) being flower girls and she said yes

ANNNNNNDDDDDD

Nikki has been helping me all afternoon to come up with this ................

 

[Tarkwa]

Ah, that is lovely - will you use that on the save the date cards as well as the invites? I did a save the date e-mail!!! Terrible, I know. Try and get lots of ideas from websites that do similar invitations to the style you want and order free samples so you get the feel of them. As long as they are printed on good quality paper they will look professional!
Didn't realise you had young bridesmaids. As long as the dress material and colour is the same you could go for different styles to suit each maid (within reason!). Glad you have found a reliable seller - you hear so many horror stories.
95 people for £3500 sounds very reasonable chick. Weddings are expensive - I thought mine would cost something like £8k all in, but we were more like £14k for everything! Luckily we didn't pay for it all *phew*.
I'm glad my advice was helpful. I looked into becoming a wedding planner last summer when I was looking for a job, but ended up finding an office job instead. If I can do anything to help hun please ask - I really enjoy talking about wedding stuff !
xxx

 

[Tarkwa]

Ooh, and I just had to show you a piccie of my tiara!

Spoiler

https://farm4.static.flickr.com/3447/3275803667_a7c31b5ab4.jpg
https://farm3.static.flickr.com/2629/4157803726_1b4642c448.jpg
https://farm4.static.flickr.com/3598/3610083125_f477f029ab.jpg

though the last one is in gold and mine was in silver like the first two.

The lady who made it (found her on eBay) doesn't make them any more from what I can see . And I had a veil too which I also bought on eBay:
veil
No-one knew and said they were beautiful (as everyone always does on your wedding day, but I knew they genuinely meant it!)
xxx

 

[SophieGrace]

I really want to copy the idea this couple had that for the evening reception the bridal party entered to this ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUHD3OFdDds

I'm sooooo sad

Thats Fab!! Although I Couldnt Imagine My OH Doing That
xx

 

[lovie]

emmy the invitation is so cute!! im glad your bridesmaids are happy! it must be such an honour for them

tarkwa i think you would be a fantastic wedding planner... well i think you would be great at any kind of planning

xxx

 

[Tarkwa]

Thanks Lovie - wish I could plan something for work though. Really struggling to organise a venue in London for a meeting where I don't know how many people there will be! I hate London - far too much going on. Would feel much happier if they chose a location outside of the sh!tty city (I can only say that because I was born in London!). Give me a rural countryside location any day (but not too rural mind!).
Oooh, I really wanted a barn for my wedding. There was one just down the road from where we got married, but they were quite expensive and only had one bedroom there for the bride and groom . I really wanted to make sure I had brekkers with everyone the following morning, and was so glad we did as it was lovely! Mind you, it helped that no guests were drunk (I know, it must sound like we had a crap wedding, but honestly, the alcohol was flowing, but people I know just don't tend to get hammered) so everyone was up bright and early the following day. My friend even asked if we consummated our wedding (is that the right terminology?!) and we certainly did! So many people I know have said they were so pissed they couldn't do a thing when it came to bed-time! Such a shame if you ask me, but that's just me!
xxx

 

[EmmyReece]

Tarkwa the silver tiara is gorgeous, I'm going to be keeping my eye out for something like that closer to the time.

We found the stick people on a free images website, edited them slightly, then what I'm going to do is print out the details and an rsvp note and put them inside the card, plus I can get 40 cards printed for just under £40

And hopefully we're going to be putting a deposit down at the beginning of next month

 

[Tarkwa]

Me again...told you I liked wedding stuff. Have you looked at the BHS website for dresses (for you)? They have some gorgeous dresses on there for great prices i.e less than £500 and some for just over £100! I got my shoes from there and they were lovely. But be warned they only sell wedding stuff between April and September I think.
xxx

 

[EmmyReece]

Just about to search bhs now ...

But I have spotted this dress on ebay, and if I could spot something very similar then I'd be a happy girly

https://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI...945&var=470017585541&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

 

[Damita]

what a pretty dress!

 

[Tiff]

Beautiful! I definitely recommend going to a salon and trying some on. I had thought that I had a certain type of dress in mind, but when I tried it on at the salon it didn't look right on me at all. (I was crushed! LOL) and I didn't think I liked mermaid style dresses, but ended up with buying one.

LOVE the idea for the Glee reception! I almost think it works better as a reception entrance. If I could ever convince my wedding party, I'd TOTALLY do this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tjX89RCfxE

That was mine and DF's song back when it first came out, we both LOVED it! But yeah, no way we could convince our wedding party to do it unfortunately.

 

[EmmyReece]

Chris wouldn't go for that one ... he'd want to do as little dancing as possible

I'll probably go round wedding shops next year once some more weight has gone and try things on I just hope that style will suit me because I really like it

Am sat with my cousin watching Bride Wars

 

[Traskey]

Lovely dress Emmy. If I can offer a little advice, go and try some on in a dress shop. The styles you think will suit you may not and others you wouldn't pick in a million years can look fab on you. You always buy the eBay version after but you'll have an idea of which styles work best for you. When I bought my wedding dress I found it in a shop here and because of the great $ to £ rate bought it in the USA, had it shipped for half the price of buying it here. It was an original, identical to my dress. The US are a lot more reasonable in their dress prices!

I had save the date magnets. Made our own wedding invites, place names etc and it still cost a small fortune. We paid for almost everything ourselves. Your venues look lovely. A weekday wedding would be an awful lot cheaper than a Saturday. If you really want the big nice houses then it would work out a lot less for you during the week. Often up to half price.

Remember to add to your budget, accesories, shoes, underwear, Chris clothes, rings, honeymoon, hair, makeup, car?, licence, gifts, invites, order of service. It adds up so quickly!

 

[EmmyReece]

I might ask my cousin to do my make up and hair as she's really good with it, she always looks fantastic and always tries to make sure her hair looks perfect

Might have a look at some simple wedding hairstyles today as I'd prefer to have a half up, half down hair do