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Don’t get me wrong people – I LOVE being married; especially newly married, there’s a certain thrill in throwing the word ‘husband’ into the occasional sentence and it gives me the warm and fuzzies every time. However, even though many Brides who had gone before me had warned of how fast the day flies by, I had never really quite believed them. On reflection though, I think its not the pace at which the day shot past, but the feeling that it was all so sort of surreal that it was finally happening that looking back now its hard to remember enough individual details to be sure I felt truly “present”. Certain moments I vividly remember, which ground me to the fact that, yes, I was there, we did say “I do”, people laughed, cried and danced the night away, and we ran off into the night to the cheers and congratulations of our nearest and dearest.

The best decision we made in the last weeks leading up to the wedding? To get it filmed and be able to edit the video myself… a project I am heartily looking forward to as I await many hours of footage to arrive next week so that I can truly ‘re-live’ the day and see all those little moments and details which I was too distracted, scatterbrained or unfocussed to see when I was actually there!

Stay tuned, there will be lots more to come later this week as we get our pro pics and video back and ready for editing!

The weeks (ok, ok, months!) before our wedding turned out to be somewhat busier than I really anticipated – its true when Brides tell you that time seems to shrink and race away at light-speed… so I kinda fell off the blogging bandwagon. For those of you who were following along – I’m sorry! For those of you just joining, welcome, you’ve just arrived in time for the fun to begin!

Our wedding day was the most amazing, beautiful and perfectly “us” day – I’m so thrilled with how everything turned out and I can’t wait to get back to blogging and share it with you all. It may be a few days yet as I’m awaiting our professional photos… but here’s one to whet your appitite – our photographer posted this as a teaser a couple of days after the wedding.

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Until the next time, signing off as a MRS! xx

The Christmas holiday gave me an excellent (and the last before ‘wedding week’) opportunity to take time off my day-job, knuckle down and spend a few days slaving over some of my DIY projects; mainly our invitations which will be mailed out very soon, as well as a getting to grips with our ceremony program, our placecards, favour bags and making progress with gifts for our bridal party. I’ve got lots to share, and there will be lots of yummy pictures to come soon, so stay tuned – but in the meantime here’s a sneaky peek at how things are shaping up:

Peony bouquet; candy buffet; yellow bouquet; blue poms; tux; dress; cake

all other pictures are personal photos

Did you use the Holiday period to crack on with any projects?

Things I did to entertain myself before getting engaged:

• Go out salsa dancing with the Mister
• Movies with my friends (not just the Mister)
• Dressmaking / crafting / card-making / baking / house-decorating (any many other ‘crafty’ things besides)
• Eating out for the sake of enjoying the food – not just because there is no food in the house
• Sneakily read a couple of wedding blogs “just in case the inspiration would be useful someday”

Things I do under the context of ‘entertaining myself’ now we’re engaged:

• Only salsa dance when the Mister and I practice at home, while I wear my wedding shoes and a mock-ballgown skirt (yes, we really do this!)
• Obsessively read more wedding blogs than there is time to follow in the course of a normal day
• Stalk our wedding photographers blog
• Wish I had the energy to suggest going to the movies with my girlfriends (and NOT to watch a “Wedding” film!)
• 1001 wedding-related craft projects
• Eat too much take-out on weekends because I’ve procrastinated from grocery shopping all week by reading wedding blogs…
• Buy craft materials on a whim having been inspired by a project I saw on a wedding blog and “had to have it”
• Realise I am obsessed and need help… my brain is ‘utterly engaged with the thought of being engaged’

I think I need a time-out…

Perhaps the worst thing is that I actually spend such a silly amount of time looking at weddings on the Internet, and searching for ideas to infuse into our own day, that I’m left with not enough time in the day to tackle my own list of projects – and a perpetual feeling that I am starting to ‘compare’ our wedding to everything else out there in blog-land… when that’s not what it’s about; or what it has ever BEEN about. Sigh.

Does anyone else out there feel a bit like this at times?

I made some calls… sent some emails, and got several very similar responses; “Sorry Miss, but that’s a bank holiday weekend… we can only book rooms for a minimum two-night stay.”

What the heck!? Honestly, hearing that more than four times begins to get a bit frustrating, and left me wondering if we might end up spending our first night as Man and Wife like this:

source – At least they look happy, right!

I decided to widen the search to local Bed and Breakfasts… with a little more luck; one or two were prepared to book us for a single night, and at very reasonable prices – but most were further out of town, and not as convenient as staying somewhere we could easily leave a car the day before.

Then one day a few weeks later, having temporarily ‘given up’ the search (my default approach to when the hunt gets tough, take a break and calm down!), we were driving to church one Sunday and I noticed one of the ‘pubs’ up the road from the church wasn’t a pub at all – it was a hotel!

I quickly made some enquiries, at the Bull Hotel (Woodbridge) and was overjoyed when the manager, Nathan told me that a single night stay on our wedding night would be fine.

source – seriously, we drive past at least once a week!

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They even have a couple of four poster bed rooms/suites available on a bed and breakfast deal, so we can spend the night in style, and then enjoy a newly-married breakfast before rejoining our families for Sunday brunch and post-wedding cleanup. I think we really got a good deal here; and I can’t wait to raise a few eyebrows of any late-night drinkers in the bar when we rock up in our wedding clothes at midnight!

The best part? The Mister will be able to drive our car down there on the day of the wedding; collect the key and drop our bags, leave our car in the carpark and then walk himself and his best man down to the church and wait for me to arrive! Saving us worrying about a second ‘bridal car’ (since the Bus can’t make more than one trip what with the top speed being 30mph and all!).

Have you ever found the answer to a problem, “right under your nose”?!

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Check back soon to hear about our latest achievements: Somewhere to stay after the wedding, and I finally found (and purchased!) a ring I like!

Just a few of the tissue poms and their glass candle-stick holders

Pretty flower-balls all in a row…

View from the other end of the mantlepiece…

Pretty huh? They are also horrendously time consuming. By myself, it takes around 4 hours to make just one pom! Most of them are on a 5″ polystyrene ball… but I did want to make a few on larger 6/7″ spheres. So far we have 9 completed poms; 7 small (five-inch), 1 medium (six-inch) and 1 ‘large’ (7-inch). The smaller poms are a bit easier; I purchased a 2″ scollop edge circle punch which I’m using to cut the tissue for those. But the bigger spheres need larger-diameter circles of tissue, and my 3″ punch can’t do the job for some reason, so I’m stuck tracing round a template and cutting all those by hand! The job is made much easier when doing it on a ‘production line’ basis with a couple of slaves friends, we’ve managed to average about 1/2-ball-per-hour (2 balls in 4 hours) which is around twice the speed I can get this done on my own.

I got the method for creating the tissue carnations from Folding Trees – this has been a popular tutorial and I’ve seen it used in several places around the blogosphere. I’m using florist wire in the centres rather than pipe-cleaners, and I’m not bothering to colour the edges of the ‘petals’. The flowers are fixed to the sphere purely by sticking the remaining 1/4″ of wire into the ball; they seem to stick pretty securely without any glue.

Currently we’re planning to have 4 long banquet tables at the reception, each seating around 18 people. I want to put at least 6 poms down the length of each table, a staggering total of 24 poms (I’ve already collected 24 candlesticks).

24 poms x 4 hours per pom = 96 HOURS to complete this project! That’s 4 days (and nights!)… Mad? Yes, but I’m still convinced it’ll be worth it… and at less than than 100 quid for the whole set (candle-sticks, balls, tissue), it’s a steal compared to the cost of using real carnations and paying a florist to do the job for us!

Have you embarked on any seemingly insane DIY projects after falling in love with an idea you saw somewhere else?

The cardbox has been one of those projects which I deliberated over; crossing back and forth between trendy ideas like bird cages and just a simple wooden box without any adornments. However, both these options come with a price tag, which I sadly just can’t justify right now. But just look how cute the ‘birdcage card box’ option can be!

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In the end, I decided to DIY this project using items I already had to hand. I wanted a simple, secure solution where once a card is in the box, it can’t be easily removed (not that I don’t trust our guests; but I have heard stories of card-boxes going AWOL from receptions… and you never know who might sneak in off the streets these days, sad but true). I also wanted to be sure that the box would be big enough to take even a larger sized card; my own concern when idealising over bird cages was that most would only be big enough to fit a standard card through the bars – and often wedding cards seem to come in larger formats and I was worried guests would leave them outside of the box.

What I had to hand, turned out to be the box my new printer came in, the spare fabric from our (as yet unmade) table runners and a pack of wooden letters. What I ended up with was this:

finished… but not sure I like it!

It’s certainly big enough to hold even the most monster wedding card… but its also extremely ‘bold’ and to be honest I’m just now sure how I feel about it. I feel like it’s not delicate enough and that it looks a bit chunky and ‘too home-made’. Perhaps I’ll feel better about it if I set it up on a table as it’ll be on the day…along with our (soon to be blogged I promise!) Guestbook tree and wishing notes:

{Cardbox, Tissue Pom, Fingerprint tree and instructional sign}

Meh… I don’t know – what do you guys think? Too “playschool”? The only problem is even though I’ve ‘completed’ this project, I still can’t get those cute cages outta my head! Should I go for something a bit more delicate and just nicer looking, or am I obsessing overmuch about something which is really less than 1% important in the great scheme of things?

Have you compromised on an aspect of your wedding decor, due to cost or considering something an un-necessary extra?

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This is the Clinique 3 Step skincare program. I’ve never been much for ‘beauty regimes’, but it’s funny how knowing that you’re going to spend the day having your photograph taken and having people up-close-and-in-your-face can all of a sudden make you care about whether you have dry skin or visible pores! To be honest, I have always been much more of a soap-and-water, quick cleanse and slap on some cheap and cheerful moisturiser type of girl – I always get overwhelmed by the choice and the price of more ‘upmarket’ beauty products – but at the same time I’ve always been fascinated by the beauty counters in department stores; run by perfectly made-up girls with seemingly flawless skin… are they all models or does just being employed to work on one of those somehow initiate you into the secrets of How To Look Like A Model?

Now, obviously I am not expecting miracles for our wedding, and I want to look and feel “like myself, but in an absolutely-freakin’-awesome-blow-the-socks-off-the-mister kind of way” but I figure starting to take care of my skin now should pay off in time for the wedding and hopefully I will look at least radiant, if not completely stunning, on the day…

So, a couple of weeks ago, I wandered into my local department store looking for a good moisturiser – and came out with an  entire skincare set (in travel size… the budget-buy of course!). I have always had ‘combination skin’ – and after a brief consultation with one of the lovely girls on the Clinique counter, she recommended I try their 3 step set for combination complexions.

On day one, I had been suffering from dry, flaking skin on my forehead but prone to an ‘oily T-zone’ and outbreaks on my nose and chin.  After just a couple of days I started to notice an improvement in the skin on my forehead, and now I’ve been using the 3 step set morning and evening for around 2 weeks and I have to say I’m pretty impressed. My skin has been break-out free, feels softer and the dryness is pretty much gone – score! I’m still working on a cure to reduce the signs of visible pores on the nose, and to find a really good concealer for under-eye shadows, but I feel like I’m building a good canvas on which to put my war-paint when it comes time to trial wedding makeup.

Have you ever tried an ‘upmarket’ beauty product just because you were preparing for a ‘special occasion’? Or do you think that we should take good care of our skin no matter what the occasion?

(Just for the record: no, I don’t work for Clinique, am in no way affiliated with them and yes, other skincare ranges are available! These are all just my experiences/opinions.)