Honeymoon booked!! eeekkkk!

Yey!!!! we have finally booked our Honeymoon!

We asked for money for a wedding gift from our guests. some people find this cheeky but we didnt want gifts that we wouldnt use and alot of our guests had already said to us they would rather give us money then search for endless hours for a gift that we may not even need.

We put a nice poem in our wedding invites that explained we were asking for money to go on honeymoon if they wish to give something but their presence was more important than anything to us.

After the we got married and opened our cards we were so overwhelmed with the generosity of our guests. We sat down and talked about where we would like to go on honeymoon. We decided to have munchkin before we got married so leaving him at home while we went on honeymoon was NOT an option. We are a family and knew that we wanted to honeymoon as a family.....and where would the perfect place to go as a family be?!.......

Yep! DISNEY WORLD!!!

So we finally booked it for next year as it would allow us to save the extra we needed

next year is my 30th, Andys 40th and munchkins 5th so we thought it would be the perfect celebration holiday!

We have booked a Disney hotel as we wanted all the extras like dining, transport etc

I am sooooo excited as ive only been once for 1 week a few years before I had munchkin. Andy had never been! He thought Butlins was exciting so I know hes gonna love Disney!

Munchkin always talks about Disneyworld and how he would love to go.....we have decided to keep it a secret from him until on the plane or at the airport.

So im welcoming any comments on good tips and tricks for what to do at disneyworld and also good places to eat.

Our BIG day!

Sooooo......our big day had come and gone and it went amazingly!

alot of the bits and bobs I did myself as I love being creative.

We have another few weeks before we get the official photos back but I have some that either family or myself have photographed.

So here is my table plan that I made. Its done on a mirror and each table is printed on pearlescent ivory card with ivory satin ribbon finished off with a brooch which I bought from Imagine doing it yourself and hot glued them on.

I bought the mirror from 'The Range'

Here are the table numbers that I made! I basically printed onto pearlescent card i then added ivory satin ribbon finished off with a brooch and diamantes on the numbers. I them backed them on a champagne card to add a bit of our colour scheme.

This is our guest book that we had made to match our wedding invites! This and the invitations were made by a fab company called byjo

I bough many different hair accessories for the bridesmaids many of which cost £30+ each but in the end this is what we ended up going with. The hair dressers put them at the top of their messy buns and they looked Fab! as you can see they are from Primark for £2.50.

My dress was something I really wasn't looking for and I was 100% looking for lace and every lace dress I tried on looked horrid on my so the girl in the shop suggested that i pick something to try on that is the complete opposite to what I've been looking for and from the second it went on I fell absolutely in love with it! The support this dress gives you is unreal! 

Its a Sottero and midgely dress called adorae!

I purchased it from an amazing shop Called All about eve who have shops in Newport and chepstow. I would recommend this dress shop to everyone as the service is outstanding and the selection is amazing!

As you can see from the above and below photos we had an ice cream trike! This was an amazing addition to our big day and all of our guests loved the idea (and the ice cream) a variety of cones, ice cream and toppings were available which saw Rohan eating 5 ice creams....yes 5!!!

The company we used was Icicle tricycle wales and he is amazing and so easy to get on with!

We only did a small candy buffet as we had another edible product going on too!

The jars were bought in home bargains (£1.99) along with the candy floss (29p each) im sure that we also bought the sign there too which was under £2.

The buckets were something i already had and also the heart bowls

(I do have some of the jars, bowls and scoops for sale)

We also had a chocolate heart from funky fountains that was filled with yummy chocolates!

I wanted to add a special something to my bouquet in memory of my mum so i added something blue to it too!  

We had this tshirt made for Rohan to wear the evening before the wedding as we were having a family meal then he could wear it the evening of the wedding as i wanted to change him into something more comfortable. I went into a uniform shop and they did us and amazing deal of £7 for the tshirt and printing.

Im in absolute love with our cake! i'd changed it about 3 times but im so so so glad that we settled with this one! The tiers we went for top to bottom is lemon, carrot, sponge and fruit. We choose to cut up the fruit one as dessert for the evening. 

We had an amazing dance floor and up lighters in the evening 

for my flowers i went for a bouquet mixed with roses, hydrangea and peonies all in ivory shades and the bridesmaids had ivory and pink roses.

For place names we hunted charity shops and boot sales for a year to be able to spell each guests name! I then glued the letters of each name together and painted the wooden scrabble holders in the peppermint blue to add some extra colour to the tables.

The bridesmaids dresses were one shoulder in a peppermint colour to go with the champagne.

For our chair covers we went for a white spandex with a satin champagne colour sash.

Over all we had the most amazing day it was so stress free! we opted for a very relaxed documentary approach with the photography which ment that we didn't have loads of people being dragged here there and everywhere.

I will be adding some of the professional photos soon! 

keep your eyes peeled!

Wedding planning update

Wow, this wedding is coming around so quickly! I thought I would write a blog post and update you all on my wedding planning progress.
I would be lying right now if I said I wasn't a tad bit stressed regarding the wedding. There are loads of questions that I need to ask my suppliers, choices we have to make like food, music etc etc
When me and Andy first got engaged I knew exactly what I wanted!.....a lace dress, lace decor, very vintage meets shabby chic! It's safe to say that it's developed into the complete opposite!
It all started because I must have tried on about 15 lace dresses that were totally amazing on the hanger but as soon as I put them on they just did nothing for me or my body shape and if I'm honest all the lace ones sort of moulded into the same thing in my mind.
The wedding dress that I ended up going for I only picked out to try on because I hated it and the girl in the shop asked me to try something out of my comfort zone. My friend kept begging me not to try it on but I went ahead and put it on.....I came out from behind the curtain and my friends jaw dropped! She fell in love with it and so did I.
I have most of my accessories, I never have been shoe crazy but I'm completely I love with my wedding shoes! The boys have been measured for their suits and I can't wait to see them on the day!
We are meeting with the venue to make food/drink choices this month and the bridesmaid dresses are coming in at the end of the month.
I still have to make an appointment for our hair and makeup trial and I'm working my butt off to get down to my goal weight before I get my dress fitting at the beginning of next month.
I want to change the design of the wedding cake as we booked it before I got my dress and it's got quite a vintage lace feel so I want to change this. We have also met with our registrar and choosen our vows etc.
Last week I took some of my mum and Nan's broken gold and odd earrings to one of the cash for gold places. I wanted to do this because my mum and my nan have passed away and I wanted to use this cash to buy my wedding ring so essentially it's like they are buying it for me. So the guy offered me £170, I was over the moon with that and took the money straight to buy my wedding ring!
It's all happening rather quickly now and I've gotta admit I am rather excited too. After our big day I will be posting pics and details about our day and how to do some of the DIY projects that I did for the wedding.

catch up with you soon 

K XX

Just vows OR more!

This week we had our appointment with the registrar who is going to marry us. We were told it would be about a 1 hour appointment which made me a little on edge as we had to take Munchkin with us. In the run up so many thoughts began floating around in my head.....what if hes tired and grumpy and cries through the whole thing or tries to run around the office like a looney! discussing vows and entertaining a 3 year old on a hot day for an hour!! I'm getting the sweats just thinking about it!
But Munchkin slept in the car on the way down. Tick!! that was the tiredness sorted! we arrived early so decided to go for a walk around town to bide our time! A gentleman came out of a shop and gave munchkin 2 huge punch balloons for free.....awwww lovely! (except when you are going to be shut in a small office on a hot day with a bored 3 year old and 2 huge punch balloons!)
We had also taken along Munchkins huge mini that opens out as a track with tiny cars inside hoping that this would be enough to keep him entertained.

We went into our appointment like we were moving in! I have no idea what the poor registrar thought about us! I quickly ushered the balloons under one of the desks and opened up Munchkins mini.....and......relax!

The meeting went well and the lady was so lovely! We went through some questions etc and she explained that there are some vows that have to be said by law and some that are more like promises that aren't compulsory. She gave us 5 to choose from in each section (3 sections) and we had to read them and choose which ones we wanted. My eyes were looking at the pages but nothing was going in! except Oh munchkin is quiet.....whats he up to!!, slightly awkward that we have to read and choose now!, Is Andy really reading them or is he doing exactly as i am. 
It was then followed by me thinking SHIT I have to read and choose one! So I turn to Andy and say 'ooooo they are all good.....what do you think babe?' to which he gives a number! brill yep we will go with that!
The registrar then took our choices along with the legal bit and read it all out. It sounded lovely and I even got quite teary.
The registrar then told us how things would go on the day to which munchkin had taken Daddies phone and was sat at the desk the same side as the registrar telling her about Angry birds!! Fair play she was amazing with him and engaged with him.

I read the chosen vows on the way home and the closer we got to home the more it began to feel not right.....our appointment only took 30 mins and we had just ticked boxes that id not even read.
When we got home I had a good read through all of the other options and as lovely as they were I found myself caring so much more about our vows than I thought I would. It then became more than the necessary part in order to get the marriage certificate. I wanted something more.....something more personal!
I explained the way I felt to Andy and he was shocked at how much it had bugged me and agreed that we would make our vows more personal. So today we discussed what was important within out relationship etc So we are working on them as we speak!
I think the reason it started to bug me was a few days ago we found out that a friend of ours had an affair and had planned to leave his wife to be with this other woman but at the last minute he changed his mind but his wife found out. They have been married a while and have 3 children together one of which is a baby under 1. My heart went out to her and I couldn't get it out of my mind! They had stood together and taken vows only a couple of years ago and still he had done this! So I began to realise at first vows may seem a minor yet essential part of your wedding day but in times of trouble you may well look to these vows! So Take the time to make sure your vows say exactly what you want them too.

Bridesmaid & wedding dress shopping!

Hey! 

So it's been a while since I've posted here. I've just been busy with family stuff and each time I sit down to write on my blog, something happens....munchkin wakes up upset, someone's at the door or on the phone! So I'm shutting myself off to everything tonight (except munchkin obviously).

Wedding plans are coming along nicely and it's scary how quickly it's coming around!

We have now ordered the bridesmaids dresses (woo whoo). I've decided to add a splash of colour into the wedding and this colour is the bridesmaids dresses!

We have gone for a minty blue/pale turquoise. The 'caribbean' in the pic below

 The bridesmaids dresses weren't what I'd thought I'd like at first but they are very different and a now love them!!

The shop gave me an amazing deal....if I ordered the two bridesmaids dresses and my dress I would get one bridesmaids dress free and 10% off my dress. Everyone loves a deal right?! So I quickly booked the bridesmaids dresses and started looking for mine.....after going back on two occasions the girl there kept putting me in a large A-line gown and told me that the mermaid/fishtail didn't suit me. I was very disappointed because after losing 4 and a half stone I wanted a dress that is going to show off my body shape. She kept saying things like 'awww this is most certainly the one for you' don't get me wrong....it was a pretty dress, just not what I was looking for and at £1599....this was a lot for just 'pretty'.

I soon began thinking about going to other shops to look even if it ment losing the discount in the other shop.

I went to another shop just to have a look at what dresses they stock and prices. It was very obvious that 3 of the members of staff were whispering about someone/something.....being the only person in the shop this does not create a good impression!! I hate people whispering because I believe it creates unnecessary  tension. They were lovely enough once they had finished their whispering session but still.....it did put me off slightly.

Each shop I visited just didn't seem right....I wanted to visit this one bridal store as soon as I knew we were getting married but had been put off with people telling me that they were really expensive but I decided to bite the bullet and book an appointment there! And I'm so glad I did! I'm hoping to do a review on this bridal shop and continue my dress hunt experience in my next wedding post but I'm going to speak with the shop first before I disclose their info. *keep your eyes peeled*

Picking Wedding flowers

This week I had an appointment with a florist regarding flowers for the wedding!

All i could think was.....how can I explain to someone what i would like when i don't even know myself!!

Since we got engaged in 2012 my tastes have changed so much! I say 'my' like its my wedding but please don't get me wrong! I go through everything with Hubs-to-be and see what he likes and what he doesn't but I'd like to think he trusts me to choose (or in fact he doesn't really care lol)

So i went to the consultation alone as i left hubs and baba to play. The lady was lovely and we chatted through some things that i liked and what i didn't like. 

I was convinced 2 years ago that i would have a tight rose bouquet....just off white roses with no greenery.....now I'm liking different flowers and I've fallen in love with peonies!

I love the way they almost look fluffy and light!

So during my consultation we talked about my bouquet, the bridesmaids bouquets and buttonholes etc but so many other things got asked that i wasn't expecting!

Did i want flowers for my cake?

Did i want a bouquet just to do the 'toss the bouquet'??? WHAT?? (£35 by the way!)

Did my mother in law want a corsage or a female buttonhole! (now i got confused)

At this point i just began nodding along while looking a bit dazed.

I asked for a quote on some centrepieces.....just basic tin milk jugs with flowers...

Later that day i received my price quote from them....

I was happy with the general price of the bouquets and buttonholes etc however...

I nearly spat my tea everywhere when i read £50 per centrepiece! 

So I think we are just going to book the bouquets for the time  being as £50 x 8 - 10 Tables = a lot of penny's! I'm quite creative so it looks like I'm going to be doing the centrepieces myself.

This wedding is coming around rather quickly!!!