Wedding Wednesday: TWO Wedding Days?!

Somewhere along the line, between booking our perfect reception venue and checking we had all of the right ID documentation to do the actual getting married thing, somebody booked August the 8th at our local registry office.

I shouldn't have been surprised; I'm aware of at least three other brides who are sharing my day, and local brokels (I went for local brides and local yokels there because I'm CLEVER) probably chose the date for the same reasons I did. It's a weekend. It's the school holidays in both England and Scotland. It's 08/08 which is nice and neat. August is a popular wedding month. I get it, I get it, and I shouldn't have left it so late to get this stuff finalised. So, this morning, I spoke to my local superintendent registrar and she informed me that the 8th of August was all booked up, sounding pained and uncomfortable as I'd just revealed that I'd already booked my reception.

"Oh, that's okay" I said. Easy, breezy, beautiful. "My reception isn't like a proper reception. It's just like people getting together to celebrate. It doesn't need to be on the same day. Just, like, some time within the next week or something would be cool!" I surprised myself with the ease at which I said these words. Not as much as madame registrar, who sounded very confused, spluttered a little bit then said "is the 7th okay?"

And here's why it is:

• We get to enjoy not one, but two wedding days. It's a wedding weekend, y'all!
• We have now cut our special day in half. Meaning, the busy morning and the busy afternoon are separated. Meaning, we have time to process and the stress level has just been slashed.
• We have a moment to step back and take in all of the best moments, instead of getting caught up running from place to place to make things on time.
• Our reception is a 'blessing ceremony' anyway. I'm not even wearing my dress to get legally wed so, really, the wedding day that everybody is going to see (only immediate family invited to the legal bit) is our proper special day that we wanted to share with anyone.

A year ago, the very idea of this situation arising would have filled me with panic. But as this wedding lark has gone on, I've come to appreciate the singularity of it all. I'll never be engaged again. We'll never get married again. We'd never have had a wedding day again but, guess what? Now we've got two. And we've got two whole days to soak up the happy. :)

Wedding Wednesday: The Stress With The Dress

As a child, I couldn't picture myself in the long white gown that sounded crispy when I walked. I couldn't see the sparkling tiara or the curled up-do that every bride wore with pride. I couldn't see myself walking out of a church to be showered with confetti, and that actually made me really sad. Why couldn't I be like my friends?

As you grow you realise the benefit of being unique. And, actually, quite often it is a lot cheaper not to follow the tide. I set myself a budget of £120 for my wedding dress, mostly because I fell in love with a little number on eBay the first day I started looking. The dress surprised everybody because it was so girly and quirky and completely out of the norm, but actually when I showed it to Jay (because, as you're about to find out, I didn't go for it in the end!) he wasn't surprised it all and said it suited my personality perfectly.

I do still miss this dress and wish I could 

have banked on it looking exactly like this as I'd have loved it.

Over time I started to see more and more horror stories about dresses from China. People were laughing at me and Googling articles about awful dresses from China when I'd tell them where my dress was from. And, actually, what was worse was when people simply asked me what my plan B was when I told them about my dress. Is it normal to respond to a beaming bride with 'what is your plan B?' when she talks about her dress?

At University one day I had one hour between lectures and in that hour I had a complete meltdown about my choice. I obsessively looked for a replacement in my price range that didn't come from China. I looked for small-time local dressmakers. I found a vintage-style dress that was made right here in Milton Keynes for only £30 and I felt really good about it, but when it arrived it was more brown than it had looked in the picture, the stitching along the hem wasn't great and it needed to be taken up about 5 inches. It just didn't *feel* like my wedding dress. Again I started to obsess about it and pored over page after page of alternative dresses. In the end I ended up showing Jay the dress, explaining that it just didn't feel right and I needed to get yet another one. He actually really liked it and said, since it was only £30, I should just keep it for special occasions. But I continued on my search.

My second rejected wedding dress. I was going to wear this

with a hot pink layered petticoat underneath.

Finally, I found her. Yes, she has a name, but I can't say it incase my fiance comes across it! £30 over budget. British dressmaker. Custom sizing, including length. Actually more traditional than I ever thought I'd go for, but when I look back on those childhood visions, that image I was embarrassed to admit because it didn't have a train flowing behind me, it is actually exactly what I always saw myself wearing. It is due to arrive around the 3rd of July (just over a month before the wedding, so time for any slight alterations) and I am so excited for it to get here.

Before wedding dress shopping I thought I was quite easy-going. I didn't 'get' why people got so angry about their dresses on Don't Tell the Bride because, hey, it's just one dress and it's just one day. But actually it turns out I really did know exactly what I wanted (who knew!) and I really wasn't willing to settle for anything less. Obviously I can't show a picture of what I went for!

COME ON, JULY 3RD!

Wedding Wednesday: Our Perfect Venue.

I've never done a Wedding Wednesday post before, and it's not because I don't want to but simply because I've just had so much on my mind with University and parenting that the blog has had to take a total back seat. Ironic, really, considering how I'm meant to be blogging about how stressful it all is.

Anyway, I'm here now, and I am so ready to talk about our venue. First, a back story.

Long before we got engaged we talked about how formal weddings were just completely not right for us. The long white gown would make me feel like a fraud, we felt like wedding venues and caterers were just such a waste of money and honestly we'd be too stressed to even enjoy our special day if it was meant to be 'perfect'. We talked about just wanting to get our favourite people together, lighting a BBQ, having some games out so the kids could blow off steam, and ending the night with our nearest and dearest huddled around a fire pit. We thought if we could find somewhere that was basically a holiday house with a nice garden we'd just invite people round for a garden party and we'd have a little break with our kids at the same time. No need to get portaloos. No need for caterers. No need for a generator for our electricals. Perfect idea, right?

So pretty much the day we got engaged I was straight on TripAdvisor, local cottage rental websites, any holiday website I could find. I

was met with brick walls all along the way. I found *the one*, a quaint rose garden with a converted barn as accommodation after about a month of looking and got to the stage of paying a deposit, 

but JUST as I was about to send it off I clarified that there would be a nearby power source so that I could play music and the woman sent me back a really shitty email about how she hadn't realised we would want music (at a wedding, hello) and that she had no intention of getting the appropriate license (at our expense) in order to have permission to play music because 'our garden is just that. A garden.' and I could take it or leave it. I left it. Very very reluctantly, I left it.

I've always believed in fate. I've always needed to believe that everything happens for a reason. And the reason that woman flipped and got shitty was so that I had time to find our perfect venue. I broadened our search to the other side of Northamptonshire (we live in Buckinghamshire) and I ended up finding a working farm about 45 minutes away which has two cottages and a coach house. We booked one cottage, my Mum booked the second and a load of my family clubbed together to get the four bedroom house together, meaning that we had all of the space on the farm without worrying about any other guests. We are so lucky that my family booked those properties - we had intended to have the reception in the garden at our cottage at first so would have been fine either way, but now we have access to an even bigger space and it is absolutely beautiful. 

Described by the owners as 'what was originally a bit of a secret garden', the area we are using was left overgrown and abandoned until the owners bought the property, dug it all up and found this amazing space underneath. There is a huge vegetable patch (patch is an understatement!) with criss-crossing paths, quaint trees, benches (we're putting picnic benches out too), two lawns and several arches. We are getting married under a tree at the head of the vegetable patch as our guests sit at their picnic benches and watch - our wedding is so casual that we've told people to just wear whatever they want. We just want a happy day for everybody. It's a great excuse to get all of our favourite people together. The small lawn will have games and toys for the children. A friend of ours has a sound system and the tack house with the arched windows in the background of the lawn space has been fitted with electricity so all we need is an extension cord. It's like the place was made for us because everything has just fallen into place perfectly. We were told yesterday that it will be harvest season and as it is a working farm there may be tractors coming in and out of the property, would that be okay? Uh, yes! For some reason that sweetened the deal for both of us, probably because once again the 'pristine' nature of a wedding is forgotten and our wedding is nitty gritty, not polished but a hell of a lot of fun.

A bit like us really.