It's me! On the fabulous Any Other Woman A-Z of Weddings - W is for Wedding Planning-Work-Life Balance
Wednesday, 30 January 2013
Monday, 24 December 2012
It's Christmas Eve!
Today I am mostly enjoying an unexpected bonus day away from work - never a bad thing.
There is cheese and champagne in the fridge (darn, I miss champagne at French prices...) and presents are nearly all wrapped. The Snowman was on television yesterday which means it is properly Christmas now. Alan will be home from work soon (don't feel too bad for him, he had a festive work breakfast this morning, and is about to have a festive work lunch!) and then the holidays can begin properly. The next few days will be a blur of visiting family and friends and trying (probably failing) not to eat all the delicious food in sight.
I love Christmas Eve - in some ways I prefer it to the day itself. The anticipation in the air, the hours spent baking festive treats; a selection of wrapped parcels under a shimmering, sparkling tree. Carols from Kings on the radio in the late afternoon, the beautifully haunting tones of Once in Royal David's City adding to the magic as night draws in. Lights, good food and carols - you can't beat it.
Merry Christmas - and a happy New Year.
There is cheese and champagne in the fridge (darn, I miss champagne at French prices...) and presents are nearly all wrapped. The Snowman was on television yesterday which means it is properly Christmas now. Alan will be home from work soon (don't feel too bad for him, he had a festive work breakfast this morning, and is about to have a festive work lunch!) and then the holidays can begin properly. The next few days will be a blur of visiting family and friends and trying (probably failing) not to eat all the delicious food in sight.
I love Christmas Eve - in some ways I prefer it to the day itself. The anticipation in the air, the hours spent baking festive treats; a selection of wrapped parcels under a shimmering, sparkling tree. Carols from Kings on the radio in the late afternoon, the beautifully haunting tones of Once in Royal David's City adding to the magic as night draws in. Lights, good food and carols - you can't beat it.
Thursday, 20 December 2012
2012: How was it for you?
Funnily enough, today is 20.12.2012. So, a good day for writing about... 2012, no?
January
New Year in Paris, under the Eiffel Tower. No official fireworks, but firecrackers everywhere. We walk back to the flat, from one side of the city to the other. It's magic.
Ring shopping, an afternoon spent playing with diamonds and designs. Excited. A secret that noone else knows.
February
Paris gets cold, temperatures below zero for a fortnight. Snow, but less than an inch.
We get engaged, in the sparkling cold of Place des Vosges, our favourite place for every season in Paris. Champagne for breakfast, enjoying that bubble of time where we are the only people who know what we have done. Letting everyone know - phone calls, texts and emails flying about.
March
Moving back to London, refamiliarising myself with the workings of our London office. Sad to leave Paris, less sad not to be working there anymore. Excitement at finally starting our life as a new family together and the journey of engagement. Spreading the happy news further and showing off our ring.
April
Venue hunting. Panic, despair that we will never find somewhere suitable for hosting our wedding.
Resignation at visiting the last place on the list. Delight when we realise it's perfect. Nervously waiting to see if they still have the date we want. That moment when we realise we will be getting married on 11 May 2013. That's our date. This is really happening.
May
Realising there's one year to go, and being glad we don't have to wait until the following September.
Walking on Hampstead Heath in the early summer sunshine, not realising that we will have to make the most of every minute the sun is out this year.
A weekend in Devon at cookery school, a whole weekend of food and laughter.
June
Wedding blitz week 1. Meeting lots of people and creating a vision for our day. Being let down by people who don't turn up to appointments.
The Dress. Trying on several, picking one. I love it, but have I settled too soon?
It rains.
July
A quiet month, with a lovely housewarming dinner in a friend's new flat.
The Olympic Opening Ceremony. What was that about?
It rains more.
August
Going to the Olympics, being part of the nation's excitement. I am an expert on dressage, synchronised swimming and lord knows what else.
Going to the Proms, losing myself in an evening of Scottish-themed music and chocolate ice-cream. Inexplicably I feel like we are on a proper old-fashioned date night.
Wedding blitz week 2. Getting there, most suppliers booked.
Two weddings in a week, both lovely. One on the hottest day of the year so far.
September
All change at work, a new office and supervisor, different work. That feeling that I am six months from qualification.
Another lovely wedding, disappointed to be struck by cold and sore throat. City centre brunch in the sunshine the following day.
Off to the theatre to see the Mousetrap. Whodunnit? Not telling.
The Dress is here. I try it on. I am not sure I like it any more, I feel frumpy and miserable. Am I crazy?
My birthday, another year passes. A day off work and a lovely evening meal out by the side of a lake.
October
A weekend spent kayaking, culminating in a BCU 1* award and a capsize and rescue drill in the chilly autumn water. Paddling down the canal in the sunshine on a Sunday morning. It's bliss.
Our house goes back on the market, people come to view but nobody is taken by it. We start planning where to live next, searching houses in so many different places. Waiting.
An afternoon of wedding ring design. Annoyed that the appointment is late to start, happiness that they do not kick us out at the time they would normally close. That moment of horror when the sapphire I am holding pings out of the tweezers and onto the floor. Relief when it is found, twinkling its blue light under the table.
November
A lovely day of museums and afternoon tea with my old housemate, who will be my maid of honour in May. I am struck down by a headache and am inexplicably sick lots. Brightening up and going to watch fireworks together in Blackheath - thousands of upturned faces reflecting the mesmorisingly bright sparkles exploding in the night. Back to my friend's flat for warmth, wine and popcorn.
Visiting friends in Ashby, just enjoying catching up in the late autumn sunshine. Dinner in a pub with THE largest portions of food ever. The waitress mentions desserts and at least one of us turns visibly pale.
Trying on the Dress again. I have lost weight and it is far too big. But the lady shows me how it can be solved, and I am happy again.
Alan turns 30, celebrations and an excuse to spend a day making the perfect birthday cake.
December
That first morning when we have to scrape ice off the car.
Buying our first tree together, a real one that smells of pine and Christmas. Decorating, delighting in the baubles twinkling in the lights. Watching a series of Christmassy films and drinking ginger wine. Checking to see when The Snowman is on.
About to find out whether I will be staying at this firm come February. Nervous. It's not the end of the world if not. But nervous.
January
New Year in Paris, under the Eiffel Tower. No official fireworks, but firecrackers everywhere. We walk back to the flat, from one side of the city to the other. It's magic.
Ring shopping, an afternoon spent playing with diamonds and designs. Excited. A secret that noone else knows.
February
Paris gets cold, temperatures below zero for a fortnight. Snow, but less than an inch.
We get engaged, in the sparkling cold of Place des Vosges, our favourite place for every season in Paris. Champagne for breakfast, enjoying that bubble of time where we are the only people who know what we have done. Letting everyone know - phone calls, texts and emails flying about.
March
Moving back to London, refamiliarising myself with the workings of our London office. Sad to leave Paris, less sad not to be working there anymore. Excitement at finally starting our life as a new family together and the journey of engagement. Spreading the happy news further and showing off our ring.
April
Venue hunting. Panic, despair that we will never find somewhere suitable for hosting our wedding.
Resignation at visiting the last place on the list. Delight when we realise it's perfect. Nervously waiting to see if they still have the date we want. That moment when we realise we will be getting married on 11 May 2013. That's our date. This is really happening.
May
Realising there's one year to go, and being glad we don't have to wait until the following September.
Walking on Hampstead Heath in the early summer sunshine, not realising that we will have to make the most of every minute the sun is out this year.
A weekend in Devon at cookery school, a whole weekend of food and laughter.
June
Wedding blitz week 1. Meeting lots of people and creating a vision for our day. Being let down by people who don't turn up to appointments.
The Dress. Trying on several, picking one. I love it, but have I settled too soon?
It rains.
July
A quiet month, with a lovely housewarming dinner in a friend's new flat.
The Olympic Opening Ceremony. What was that about?
It rains more.
August
Going to the Olympics, being part of the nation's excitement. I am an expert on dressage, synchronised swimming and lord knows what else.
Going to the Proms, losing myself in an evening of Scottish-themed music and chocolate ice-cream. Inexplicably I feel like we are on a proper old-fashioned date night.
Wedding blitz week 2. Getting there, most suppliers booked.
Two weddings in a week, both lovely. One on the hottest day of the year so far.
September
All change at work, a new office and supervisor, different work. That feeling that I am six months from qualification.
Another lovely wedding, disappointed to be struck by cold and sore throat. City centre brunch in the sunshine the following day.
Off to the theatre to see the Mousetrap. Whodunnit? Not telling.
The Dress is here. I try it on. I am not sure I like it any more, I feel frumpy and miserable. Am I crazy?
My birthday, another year passes. A day off work and a lovely evening meal out by the side of a lake.
October
A weekend spent kayaking, culminating in a BCU 1* award and a capsize and rescue drill in the chilly autumn water. Paddling down the canal in the sunshine on a Sunday morning. It's bliss.
Our house goes back on the market, people come to view but nobody is taken by it. We start planning where to live next, searching houses in so many different places. Waiting.
An afternoon of wedding ring design. Annoyed that the appointment is late to start, happiness that they do not kick us out at the time they would normally close. That moment of horror when the sapphire I am holding pings out of the tweezers and onto the floor. Relief when it is found, twinkling its blue light under the table.
November
A lovely day of museums and afternoon tea with my old housemate, who will be my maid of honour in May. I am struck down by a headache and am inexplicably sick lots. Brightening up and going to watch fireworks together in Blackheath - thousands of upturned faces reflecting the mesmorisingly bright sparkles exploding in the night. Back to my friend's flat for warmth, wine and popcorn.
Visiting friends in Ashby, just enjoying catching up in the late autumn sunshine. Dinner in a pub with THE largest portions of food ever. The waitress mentions desserts and at least one of us turns visibly pale.
Trying on the Dress again. I have lost weight and it is far too big. But the lady shows me how it can be solved, and I am happy again.
Alan turns 30, celebrations and an excuse to spend a day making the perfect birthday cake.
December
That first morning when we have to scrape ice off the car.
Buying our first tree together, a real one that smells of pine and Christmas. Decorating, delighting in the baubles twinkling in the lights. Watching a series of Christmassy films and drinking ginger wine. Checking to see when The Snowman is on.
About to find out whether I will be staying at this firm come February. Nervous. It's not the end of the world if not. But nervous.
Thursday, 29 November 2012
Happy Birthday Alan!
It took forever to light these sparklers, and had us debating which end we were actually supposed to light! Literally, the wrong end of the sparkler...
Monday, 26 November 2012
The Perils of Bridesmaid Dresses
So here we are, less than six months to go and everything is slowly starting to come together. My dress has arrived and I've tried it on (twice - slight fit of bridal craziness but that's a whole other story!). We have just sent off designs for invitations and I can't wait to see the finished product. I badly want to post the samples on here but you'll just have to wait and see.
The one area where we have really struggled recently is how to dress the bridesmaids. Having narrowed ideas down to blue or green, and long, and not strapless, many hours seem to have been spent searching websites for dresses for the ladies in question.
Bridal magazines only ever seemed to suggest three or four sources of bridesmaid dresses. That in itself is nothing to criticise, I'd seen several pretty styles which I was interested to track down. However, what I soon found is that while these designers all have an extensive range of dresses on their websites, this doesn't seem to extend to actual shops where you can buy the darned things.
I have four lovely bridesmaids, none of whom live near me - one isn't in the country at all and may not be until a week before the wedding. While I love the notion of 'going bridesmaid dress shopping' with them all, they are busy people too and if I am going to demand that they take the time to travel to a particular place (bridal shops are never close together!) I wanted to make sure that there were several options for them to try on.
Whilst browsing the website of a bridal shop nearish our house, I noticed that the shop had "over 65 bridesmaid dresses in different styles and colours". 65? SIXTY-FIVE?! Having been a little disappointed by the limited range stocked by the shop where I'd bought my dress, 65 sounded like a dream come true. I had hazy notions of picking a handful of beautiful dresses to showcase to my bridesmaids.
Hopes faded upon being led to a small alcove where the dresses in question were kept. 65 was clearly a gross miscounting. A severe overcounting, if you will. There were perhaps 15 dresses, all of which were various degrees of hideous, either in colour, shape or material. Based on what was there, the bridesmaid industry seems to think that 1980s shiny American prom princess is a good look. We left feeling slightly desperate. Why so little choice?
I have considered getting dresses designed specially, but I am not sure it is really worth the money, even if they are dresses which might well be worn again.
And so we turn to the high street. Not often lauded by magazines, but mainstream shops nowadays have cottoned on to the fact that there's a whole market of budget and style savvy brides out there and have upped their game considerably. A slight lack of choice in colours notwithstanding (but then who needs a palette of sixty colours if the style is all wrong?), I've found a range of flattering styles and think this may be the solution; a real competitor against bridesmaidwear designers. To be honest, I'm not sure why I didn't realise this before - since when has John Lewis not had the answer to most problems?
Now, where to find pretty wedding day shoes?
The one area where we have really struggled recently is how to dress the bridesmaids. Having narrowed ideas down to blue or green, and long, and not strapless, many hours seem to have been spent searching websites for dresses for the ladies in question.
Bridal magazines only ever seemed to suggest three or four sources of bridesmaid dresses. That in itself is nothing to criticise, I'd seen several pretty styles which I was interested to track down. However, what I soon found is that while these designers all have an extensive range of dresses on their websites, this doesn't seem to extend to actual shops where you can buy the darned things.
I have four lovely bridesmaids, none of whom live near me - one isn't in the country at all and may not be until a week before the wedding. While I love the notion of 'going bridesmaid dress shopping' with them all, they are busy people too and if I am going to demand that they take the time to travel to a particular place (bridal shops are never close together!) I wanted to make sure that there were several options for them to try on.
Whilst browsing the website of a bridal shop nearish our house, I noticed that the shop had "over 65 bridesmaid dresses in different styles and colours". 65? SIXTY-FIVE?! Having been a little disappointed by the limited range stocked by the shop where I'd bought my dress, 65 sounded like a dream come true. I had hazy notions of picking a handful of beautiful dresses to showcase to my bridesmaids.
Hopes faded upon being led to a small alcove where the dresses in question were kept. 65 was clearly a gross miscounting. A severe overcounting, if you will. There were perhaps 15 dresses, all of which were various degrees of hideous, either in colour, shape or material. Based on what was there, the bridesmaid industry seems to think that 1980s shiny American prom princess is a good look. We left feeling slightly desperate. Why so little choice?
I have considered getting dresses designed specially, but I am not sure it is really worth the money, even if they are dresses which might well be worn again.
And so we turn to the high street. Not often lauded by magazines, but mainstream shops nowadays have cottoned on to the fact that there's a whole market of budget and style savvy brides out there and have upped their game considerably. A slight lack of choice in colours notwithstanding (but then who needs a palette of sixty colours if the style is all wrong?), I've found a range of flattering styles and think this may be the solution; a real competitor against bridesmaidwear designers. To be honest, I'm not sure why I didn't realise this before - since when has John Lewis not had the answer to most problems?
Now, where to find pretty wedding day shoes?
Thursday, 20 September 2012
Our Wedding - Finding the Venue
During the initial phase of excitement we skipped and flitted over all of the minutae and details that makes up a wedding. It soon became clear that until we had a venue there was little that could be done in earnest.
We live in Hertfordshire, on the border of North London, close to where I grew up. Our guests, however, live as far afield as the Alsace; and Frances grew up in Derbyshire. We toyed with the idea of getting married in the beautiful surroundings of Derbyshire or a location that suited where people would be travelling from - but quickly realised that to be able to organise the wedding that we wanted around our work commitments meant we needed somewhere close at hand.
This certainly helped narrow down the search (Try typing "Wedding Venues" into a mapping search engine of your choice and see if you can spot land underneath all of the resulting tags!). I dislike too much choice - it constantly leaves you feeling that you are missing out on something just around the corner.
We compiled a long-list of venues that caught our eye (My father was exceptionally useful at sending through additions to the list and seemed to do little else for a couple of days with e-mails arriving every few minutes - I swear he made a few of them up ...) and then spent time filling in a spreadsheet of all the costs. Every venue has its own methods of obfuscating the real costs involved and go out of their way to make sure that the headline figures are incomparable with other venues. It took hours of detailed investigation to get to a position to be able to compare apples with apples, but it was worth it as the results were often counter-intuitive.
We made appointments in priority order - so you can see why we were getting dispondent when we found ourselves getting to the end of the list without anywhere that had stood out.
All the venues were lovely, and any one of them would have been more than adequate - but somehow none of them really felt right.
We suspect that the venues around us cater for North Londoners wanting to get married in the countryside, rather than the suburbs, which explains the extraordinary prices that some places wanted to charge. We also found that the majority of venues were based in golf-clubs, spas and barns. The previous top venue in our list was a stunningly beautiful golf club set within acres of land, with picturesque landscaped water features. It was by far the best that we had seen, although the most expensive, so neither of us wanted to mention what we later both admitted to being concerned about - the fact that the wedding would take place with golf club members playing around us and ill-defined parts of the ground that our guests would be prevented from exploring. It didn't represent us - we don't play golf for a start!
There were certainly some that we walked away from with an instant no. We arranged proper viewings with the majority of venues, but for a few we either went along during a wedding fayre or just popped in for afternoon tea.
(The wedding fayre idea was a mistake. While we thought that it would be the perfect opportunity to see the venue's sales pitch it ended up being the opposite. The focus was on the suppliers and it made it impossible to actually see the venue underneath.)
During one of the afternoon tea visits we found out that that particular venue was ordinarily used as a spa. Every guest but us was wearing little other than a white cotton bathrobe ... It takes a lot to put me off my scones but that came close!
We also found a disappointing number that advertised gorgeously picturesque buildings - only to turn up to find that these were available for a 30 min photo shoot only, and that the actual wedding would take place in a small conference centre at the other end of the grounds.
The real struggle was just understanding what it was that we actually wanted. It was proving frustratingly difficult to articulate. Decision making should be such a straight-forward process. Gather requirements, look at options, choose best outcome - so why is it so hard? When we questioned recently married friends and family about how they chose their venues, the general response was "we just knew it when we saw it"!
So when we travelled to one of the last venues on our list and the rain came pouring down, we expected the worst. Imagine our joy at finding that, despite the rain we still found it beautiful. Every question that we asked the lady showing us around got the right answer, and every flaw that previous venues had had was absent. There was just something about it that matched what we had both been so unable to articulate that we wanted.
As soon as we left we both looked at each other and said 'I think this is the one'. We spent the drive home saying that we should sleep on it, look again at the spreadsheets and discuss in more detail - but by the time we had arrived home we had decided that it couldn't hurt to ask them what dates they had available, and by the time we picked up the phone we had already set our hearts on it.
The idea for starting this blog came after months of frustrated searching, with the decision looking like it would be led by necessity.
The morning that we set this up we were feeling low, and rather pessimistic, about the single viewing that we had for the day. We'd seen some dreadful places the day before and thought that sharing some of our experience might elicit useful advice from people, or at least assist others in similar future searches.
That one viewing changed everything.
Golf-clubs and Barns
We live in Hertfordshire, on the border of North London, close to where I grew up. Our guests, however, live as far afield as the Alsace; and Frances grew up in Derbyshire. We toyed with the idea of getting married in the beautiful surroundings of Derbyshire or a location that suited where people would be travelling from - but quickly realised that to be able to organise the wedding that we wanted around our work commitments meant we needed somewhere close at hand.
This certainly helped narrow down the search (Try typing "Wedding Venues" into a mapping search engine of your choice and see if you can spot land underneath all of the resulting tags!). I dislike too much choice - it constantly leaves you feeling that you are missing out on something just around the corner.
We compiled a long-list of venues that caught our eye (My father was exceptionally useful at sending through additions to the list and seemed to do little else for a couple of days with e-mails arriving every few minutes - I swear he made a few of them up ...) and then spent time filling in a spreadsheet of all the costs. Every venue has its own methods of obfuscating the real costs involved and go out of their way to make sure that the headline figures are incomparable with other venues. It took hours of detailed investigation to get to a position to be able to compare apples with apples, but it was worth it as the results were often counter-intuitive.
We made appointments in priority order - so you can see why we were getting dispondent when we found ourselves getting to the end of the list without anywhere that had stood out.
All the venues were lovely, and any one of them would have been more than adequate - but somehow none of them really felt right.
We suspect that the venues around us cater for North Londoners wanting to get married in the countryside, rather than the suburbs, which explains the extraordinary prices that some places wanted to charge. We also found that the majority of venues were based in golf-clubs, spas and barns. The previous top venue in our list was a stunningly beautiful golf club set within acres of land, with picturesque landscaped water features. It was by far the best that we had seen, although the most expensive, so neither of us wanted to mention what we later both admitted to being concerned about - the fact that the wedding would take place with golf club members playing around us and ill-defined parts of the ground that our guests would be prevented from exploring. It didn't represent us - we don't play golf for a start!
Definite No
There were certainly some that we walked away from with an instant no. We arranged proper viewings with the majority of venues, but for a few we either went along during a wedding fayre or just popped in for afternoon tea.
(The wedding fayre idea was a mistake. While we thought that it would be the perfect opportunity to see the venue's sales pitch it ended up being the opposite. The focus was on the suppliers and it made it impossible to actually see the venue underneath.)
During one of the afternoon tea visits we found out that that particular venue was ordinarily used as a spa. Every guest but us was wearing little other than a white cotton bathrobe ... It takes a lot to put me off my scones but that came close!
We also found a disappointing number that advertised gorgeously picturesque buildings - only to turn up to find that these were available for a 30 min photo shoot only, and that the actual wedding would take place in a small conference centre at the other end of the grounds.
Gut feeling for the rationalist
The real struggle was just understanding what it was that we actually wanted. It was proving frustratingly difficult to articulate. Decision making should be such a straight-forward process. Gather requirements, look at options, choose best outcome - so why is it so hard? When we questioned recently married friends and family about how they chose their venues, the general response was "we just knew it when we saw it"!
We'd recently noticed that the weather was also affecting our decision - probably coincidentally, but every venue that we had liked had been seen on a sunny day - and every definite no had been in the gloom or rain.
So when we travelled to one of the last venues on our list and the rain came pouring down, we expected the worst. Imagine our joy at finding that, despite the rain we still found it beautiful. Every question that we asked the lady showing us around got the right answer, and every flaw that previous venues had had was absent. There was just something about it that matched what we had both been so unable to articulate that we wanted.
As soon as we left we both looked at each other and said 'I think this is the one'. We spent the drive home saying that we should sleep on it, look again at the spreadsheets and discuss in more detail - but by the time we had arrived home we had decided that it couldn't hurt to ask them what dates they had available, and by the time we picked up the phone we had already set our hearts on it.
So when we found that they only had two dates left we had a tense few minutes shaking ourselves to make sure we really knew what we were doing before spending an agonising lifetime on the phone trying to get back through!
What made this the right venue? How did we work out that this was the one for us?
We just knew it when we saw it ...
What made this the right venue? How did we work out that this was the one for us?
We just knew it when we saw it ...
Monday, 27 August 2012
What I Did On My Holidays
For several reasons, we did not go on holiday this summer. Firstly, I was on secondment in our Paris office until the beginning of March – it turns out that 6 months' worth of Eurostar tickets is not particularly cheap. Secondly, as you'll know if you are reading this, we are getting married next year – again, not cheap. However, we also needed the time elsewhere. Weddings not only do not pay for themselves; they also don't plan themselves.
I will, at some point in the not-too-dim-and-distant future, be writing a post for the fabulous Any Other Woman's A-Z of Weddings on the subject of how to plan a wedding when you feel like you have no time day-to-day to do so. This post is therefore just a little place to say that although we haven't been exploring the exotic beaches of Ecuador, or toasting ourselves in the trattorias of Tuscany, we have had a lot of fun - having a wonderful summer really doesn't have to involve going to the airport or ferry terminal.
In August, we went to the Olympics (four times) and were glued to the tv whenever we weren't sunning ourselves in the garden. Synchronised Swimming? Dressage? Beach volleyball? We're experts:
We cooked:
And baked and bought ourselves a beautiful shiny KitchenAid mixer:
 |
| Lemon drizzle cake |
 |
| Orange drizzle cake with chocolate buttercream |
 |
| Never thought I would be in love with a piece of machinery - but look how pretty! |
We went to weddings of friends and family and made each one into a lovely weekend away - we went punting, ceilidh dancing and each has been a valuable chance to catch up with people we don't see often. Looking forward to the next wedding on 8 September.
And finally, we planned our own wedding. But that's for another post.
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