So You've Just Got Engaged...

He asks. You say yes. You might even cry. You tell your family. You tell your friends. You clink a glass of champagne and seal it with a kiss.

And then what? When the news has sunk in (actually, it's been a little over a week for me and it's still not quite real), you want to get down to business and actually plan the big day. So what happens next?

Buy a pretty notebook and talk to your fiancé about the things you expect from your wedding. Talk about how much money you want to spend and how long you'd like to be engaged. Talk about colour schemes and wedding themes. Scribble furiously throughout this conversation (he might not want to regurgitate it all 4 hours later - trust me, I understand that you want nothing but to talk about it again and again, but he might not) and use it as the beginnings of your wedding plans. I have a page for 'budget', 'wedding party', 'clothes', 'food and drink', 'decor', 'venues' etc etc and I add information, prices and ideas as they come to me. I always keep my wedding notebook handy.

Look up the legal-eagle bits and bobs. Find out what you're going to need to do in order to actually legally get married (in the UK the minimum notice you need to give for your nuptials is changing from 16 days to 29 days from the 2nd of March), where it is legal to get married, and factor the cost of declaring your intention to marry (£35 each) and of being married by an officiant (£45 if you're married in a registry office) into your budget.

Buy pretty things for your wedding party and do what you can to make sure everybody feels special. Asking somebody to be your bridesmaid or maid of honour can feel a bit like proposing in itself, so have a look around online for a cute and unique way of doing it. Once I've asked my lovely ladies the next big question, I'll let you know how I did it!

Start a pinterest board and subscribe to blogs/newsletters/magazines that fit in with the theme and tone of your wedding. If you're a white-gown and up-do kind of bride, look for glossy mags. If you want to get married in the woods, you won't find anything in your local supermarket. Change your search terms on Google and Pinterest loads until you find the exact inspiration you're looking for. There is loads of brilliant information out there, and I've definitely got some ideas. Have a look at my wedding board on Pinterest here - bang! There goes the surprise of my theme! 

Sit tight, lady and try not to get too impatient as you realise that you can't plan it all in a day and have it go ahead tomorrow - as much as I know how you'd love that. My current status is: we have picked a date we'd love, we've got a meeting loosely scheduled with a venue and it's perfect, we're just hoping the date and price are both right. I've got my budget nailed down (more on that later), I need to wait for my bridesmaid gifts to arrive so I can talk to my girls about it, we've sort of loosely decided everything without having set anything in stone. And I'd love to have the money to just compile it all into one big list, click 'yes' and have it all go ahead tomorrow. Is waiting not just the worst thing?

Real life still from the moment I looked at my ring for the first time. Yes, unfortunately, I was dressed like that. I was even chewing gum. Video is EMBARRASSING!

Stop ignoring the rest of your life. I am so so guilty of this. The washing basket has piled up. I am finding it really hard to concentrate on my studies. Everything seems a little bit pointless when you've got a wedding going around your mind at a million miles a minute. Even Christmas day was a bit like "Yeah, great, presents, but I'M ENGAGED!" and it's so hard not to let that consume you. But you do still have to do well at work. You do still have to look after your home. Your priorities before your engagement are still your priorities now and ignoring them now only makes things difficult in the long run. So when you're meant to be reading about 19th century revolutions and you open a new tab on your browser and start looking at pink sapphire earrings (REALLY, FEE?) think about how important it is that you look at them right now. Maybe try to use it as an incentive - if you write 500 words, you get 15 minutes of wedding porn. 

At least you tried.

Are you planning a wedding? Did you have a quirky wedding that I need to see? Get in touch!

Five Favourite Moments

Normally these types of posts are full of links from the year that has just passed, but as Busy Little Fee has only just become active (hello lovely new readers! You guys are awesome! Come say hey!) I resorted to looking through Facebook to remind me of some of our favourite times from this year. Obviously birthdays were lovely but I looked past those and, luckily, I appear to have organised my Facebook photos into yearly albums, and I had a whole lot of amazing memories all staring back at me in one place. So here they are! In date order and filled with love.

At the moment we're living in a two-bedroom flat, which means that our lovely kiddies have to share a bedroom. Keeping an eight-year-old girl and a one-year-old boy happy was difficult, so for their birthdays (which are both in April) we decided to jump on their mutual love of superheroes and decorated their bedroom as a surprise. We handpainted that city silhouette (made it up as we went along!), the yellow windows are all covered with glow-in-the-dark paint and there are loads of other cool little in-jokes and personal touches. If there's any interest in their room I'd be happy to do a blog post on it in the future.

Another birthday present this year was tickets for Jay and I to take Jelly to see Wicked. We had seen it for our anniversary in March (which was my third time seeing it as it is!) and she was so envious listening to the music, reading our Grimmerie, fantasizing about what the characters must look like... We just knew we had to take her. The tickets weren't for a few months after her birthday, but one Friday in July we picked her up from school and took her straight to Birmingham for some pub grub and a trip to the theatre. She was hooked from the beginning and can't wait to go again. The cast wasn't as good as when we'd seen it a few months before, but we told her it was exactly the same and, honestly, seeing her so excited was better than having an Elpheba who could hit the high note. Just. ;)

Jelly's sports day was another happy day for our family in 2014. We spent the day in the sunshine, cheering her on and having Mooster run around our feet. This picture was actually taken at the moment she threw a foam javelin and it changed direction in the air and bounced right off my head. I love candid pictures like this, and the sunshine just makes me think of our whole summer, which was full of bike rides, country music and wonderful family memories. I can't wait for this summer already. (Don't we ALWAYS do that? Say we can't wait for winter when it's hot, then say we can't wait for summer when it's cold?!)

Christmas day isn't necessarily as special to me as the month or so leading up to the big day. Lights aglow, chilly smiles, friendly waves and those amazing pork rolls that every Christmas fair seems to sell. I loved seeing the wonder in Moo's eyes this December, as he got excited about Santa and Snowmen and lights blazing around him. He loved watching the tree light up, he loved reading Christmas books and singing Christmas songs... He is well and truly mine and his Dad's son when it comes to Christmas because he is already just head-over-heels in love with this time of year. We're actually dreading taking the decorations down because we think it's going to depress him!

And of course, not only the most special moment of 2014 but the most precious day of my life... On Christmas Eve, after almost five years together, Jay proposed to me. My ring is three natural emeralds on a gold band and I adore it; green is my favourite colour, emeralds mean everlasting love and faithfulness and if you look closely you can see the all the little cracks and inclusions inside the gem which just perfectly sums up the five years we've had together: everything is shiny and perfect now but if you look closely you can see a tough history. It's like we earned those shining emeralds.

2014 has been a wonderful year and I am beyond excited for all that 2015 has to bring.

Happy New Year!