Favours!

So, Mark had ONE job this week. Which was to organise speaking to his boss about using the White Hart as a reception location. Did he manage to do it? Of course not!

So rather then turning into a bridezilla at such an early stage in the wedding planning I have decided to instead tackle the list that my VERY organised Maid of Honour has emailed me! (While glaring at Mark occasionally to make my point clear!) 

I've decided on some things I can get working on, one of which is the envelopes for my favours. I have decided on a bit of an 'alternative' favour, and have had some very mixed reviews about them so far! 

Im going to be favouring our guests with a packet of seeds. Yes, garden seeds. Probably seeds for some english tea roses, which are the flowers i plan on using for the wedding. Roses are perennials, which mean they blossom each year without being replanted. They often get off to a slow start the first year, with only a few flowers, but by the third year they are in full bloom. I like the poetic thought of this for our marriage, that each year it will grow and blossom more and more (just like the seeds!)

So while some people have looked at me like I have grown three heads when I have suggested this idea, I have decided that I love it and so it shall go! Im not a fan of the traditional almonds or chocolates and think the seeds are a more personal touch. 

They are also very budget friendly! I'm going to make the envelopes with some vintage, environmentally friendly paper (which I am yet to find) and I cant wait to get started on them! 

As for Marks job of talking to his boss...what a man can do a woman can do better! He has a three day time limit before I go down there myself! 

Let me know what you think of the seeds idea, and if anyone is an expert in envelope making, I'd love to hear any tips!

WHAT A WEEK!

I have not stopped this week, I recently went back to work from maternity leave and the last few weeks have been totally manic between mine and Marks schedules. It hasn't left much time for wedding planning (much to my frustration) and my project I was working on also didn't go completely to plan. Grrr.

My project was a card which I wanted to make for my sister, asking her to be my maid of honour. I had asked her informally, but I wanted to do something special for her. After a few total disaster attempts at making my own card (Grrr), I ended up ordering one (which the lady let me design parts of!) from a gorgeous shop on Etsy, which has since been taken down, and I now can't find it to link it (Grrr, again) It only cost about £3.50 for the card, and £2.00 for the delivery, which for such a unique piece, i thought was a bargain!

The picture of it isn't great. My lighting in my kitchen is awful (soon to be changed though thank goodness!) and I took the picture on my iPhone, but you get the gist. Inside I wrote a little note, asking my sister if she would take the job, and telling her I need her along for the ride! 

I then planned on posting it to her house, but since I haven't even had a chance to make it into town this week, I decided to just give it to her today at a family lunch we had. Obviously the whole thing was destined to go horribly wrong because I had a bag of her things and popped it in there so I wouldn't forget it and then ended up forgetting I had put it in there...so she found it rather unceremoniously while I had my hands full with Harry. (Grrrrrrrr)

ANYWAY! The basic idea of the project, was to give my sister a little something to mark the beginning of what will hopefully be lots of fun times planning the wedding. I couldn't do it without her (she is my go-to person in a crisis!) and she not only knows how to handle my emotional meltdowns but doesn't judge me for them either, so I think she's the best person for the job!

In other wedding related news, Mark has also asked his friend Dion if he will be his best man, and we are going out for dinner with Dion and his girlfriend on Thursday, where im sure we will discuss wedding business!!

While on the topic of Mark, he is desperately in need of a good kick up the bum, as he STILL hasn't organised a day for us to go and see Paul (the owner of the White Hart) about our reception - and because of that - all real planning business is on hold! Therefore, I should publish this post and get nagging him until he gets on with it!

Hope everyone had a nice weekend! 

2013!

WAHEY! It's 2013, and I can finally start the wedding planning without Mark saying 'Lets just get Christmas out of the way first...' Im so excited to start making all my ideas into reality and blogging about it along the way!

I had hoped by now to be able to share my little project I am working on but due to some logistical issues I haven't had part of it arrive, hopefully it will make an appearance in the next few days!

One thing i have started doing is collecting various sizes of wine, beer and cider bottles for some of my table decorations. I know its a bit early to be worrying about table decorations yet, but until we have set a date, theres not much else i can do except the little things (it also gives me an excuse to drink more wine!)

I plan on using yarn to wrap around the bottles as part of a centre piece. I found this on Pintrest, and its very similar to what I will be trying to do.

Im thinking they will look very in-theme with the wedding, and will cost practically nothing to make.

I also want to say that I've had some really lovely and unexpected emails and messages since starting my blog, offering help, advice and even decorations and a hair piece to borrow for the day to help meet my budget.
It really reminded me how kind some people are, and I cant thank those people enough for being so unbelievably generous to go out of their way to offer help. Im feeling very inspired to extend on the generosity to other brides-to-be somehow...just need to work out how!
My email address for anyone who wants to contact me but isn't sure how is at the bottom of this post - I would love to hear from more of you!

I hope to blog more this coming week, about my project, my wedding planning schedule and hopefully our meeting with Paul - the owner of the pub we want to have our reception in. It's time to get this ball really rolling now!

My Email: rebeccabradleysmith@btinternet.com

Christmas!

A Tip For All Brides To Be - Don't start planning your wedding two weeks before Christmas!

Due to Christmas being literally just around the corner my wedding planning seems to have tailed off for a little while (and just as I was getting some momentum!) 

With a fresh year brings lots of planning to get excited about and lots of blogging to be done about it. I have already written a plan of all local (and not so local...) wedding fayres, and have roped Mark into going to them (I think he is only coming for the cake samples...) 

We also are speaking to the owner of our potential reception venue in January and I am planning on starting some sort of exercise class, just to tone me up a bit (groan) in time for what will hopefully be a late summer wedding!

I also am working on a secret little project, a tiny but important one, which I can hopefully share with you soon! Ohhhh the suspense!

Enjoy your Christmas!

My Church Dilemma!!

It's well known that getting married in a church is usually the cheapest place to get married. It also happens that sharing a car park with our possible reception venue is very beautiful village church.

So it would seem that getting married in the church, and then going next door for the reception would be perfect, doesn't it!

But me being me, it's not so simple. I'm an atheist and generally tend to avoid church as much as possible. I have nothing against religion or people who practice religion, it just very much isn't for me. I feel like getting married in a church would make me a hypocrite!

I need to do some research on church ceremonies before i make a decision. I can't help but feel very drawn in by the logistic and financial benefits getting married in that church would have but it feels like a moral line might be crossed there for me - is it okay to use a church for those reasons or is that offensive to what a church is there for in the first place?!

Its possible that im thinking far too much into it but before i make any decisions i would have a couple of questions to ask.

• Are we able to say our own vows in a church? This is important to me.
• Does the ceremony have to reference God?

Should I decide (Mark isn't fussed either way) that its not appropriate for us to get married in a church then we need to consider where we would have the ceremony (and what that would cost) and how we would get our guests and us from the ceremony to the reception venue. It would absolutely complicate matters and so i have to decide what is right for us. 

I shall find out the answers to my questions and go from there!

Venues!

The starting point for any wedding planning I suppose would be a venue! This is probably going to be the most costly part of the day and so it's going to take some serious research to find our perfect location. 

However...

Mark has a second job working in a pub local to us. He has worked there for a while now and the owners have offered for us to come and have a chat with them in the new year about possibly having our reception there!

Its a beautiful pub, with a fabulous garden that overlooks the surrounding fields and countryside. I would absolutely LOVE to have our reception here. Here are some pictures!

These pictures do the pub no justice, but give you a general idea of the type of place it is. They are from their website which you can find at the bottom of this post.  

I am hoping that we are able to come to a good deal with Paul (the owner) because i know we would be very well looked after here and also be given a bit of artistic license when it comes to decorating the space we use.

Obviously having your reception at a pub comes with its own challenges. Although we would most likely be having our reception in a marquee in the garden, the pub itself will be running business as usual inside. This means that the venue wont be closed off to just us and our guests. Mark has the attitude that he knows most of the people that come into the pub and so he wouldn't mind 'sharing' our location as a lot of the faces would be familiar. I'm happy enough with that too. 

So should we be able to agree on a price that comes enough under budget and both me and Mark are happy with it - then it looks like we have found our venue! Fingers crossed!

 The White Harts website: http://www.roydonwhitehart.co.uk/

Our Vintage/Country Theme

We have decided on a vintage theme, with a nod to where we live, Norfolk. It is a beautiful place to live and we are lucky enough to be surrounded with so much inspiration here for our day.

The above picture is my ultimate inspiration all in one photo. The dress, hair, flowers...it's all perfect. I have decided to take that photo and run with it. Its the kind of look I'll be aiming to recreate.