We Have a Song!

I don't even know how we came to deciding about this song, and I am not even sure if it is 'OUR SONG' but it is the song that we've asked someone to sing at our wedding. It'll be in the reception as it isn't a hymn. So it's definitely going to be the focus... on second thoughts, it probably is our song.

Herrrrre it is:



Love, love, love it.

I also like the original version by The Calling, but this one is just so much more ME and ADAM. :D The colours are still the same for now. I know Emily and Bethany will look in burgundy but we will have to wait until the new season dresses come in, in March/April so the others can choose a spring coloured dress.

The theme of the wedding is: A wish come true

It was: Make a wish
But a charity I think has copyright to that but 'A wish come true' is just as good.


I think things are slowly but surely getting there. We have invitations on the go, Emily & Bethany are trying dresses on on Saturday, I hopefully get mine in November. The numbers for the guest list should hopefully be done by then so the invites will be nearly ready to go. AND THEN... we have all the hussle and bussle of Christmas haha ohhh fun. :D

Chillaxing

I'm not really posting every day am I? How rubbish am I?! Haha

I've been so busy trying to get my silly colours right. But I think I am getting there. I had to search for ages for the right colours, so here they 'possibly' are.

Burgundy
Lavender
Cream
(Obvious hints of green because of the flowers)

I have a picture up on my polyvore and pinterest accounts if anyone would like to see them.

www.polyvore.com (Username: gbbayb)

www.pinterest.com (Username: gbbayb/grace) I'm not sure on that one. But it is in wedding ideas anyway.

A good wedding dress shop owner told Emily and I that my dress is the most important and best to get first because of the material. She explained that I don't want the bridesmaid dresses material to be shiny if my dress isn't shiny. So for example, if I have a matt silk dress then the girls should look matt too... or something like that. I like the burgundy, lavender and cream. I think and hope that it'll look good.


We still haven't sorted the wedding list and Adam's "I'll-do-it-tomorrow" approach really isn't helping, but like he said we do have a month or so to think about it and the invitations won't really be going out until February. But still, we do need all the addresses before then... *sigh and smile*


I have Michael's girlfriend, Christina, helping me with the design of the invitations, RSVP's, Directions, Programmes, Placecards, Thank you notes etc... So hopefully we'll see a draft of that soon!! :D EXCITING!

Night peeps I am MAJORLY tired. x

Colour Conundrum

I think that's how you spell it.

I can't believe my last post was about my colours and how I had definitely chosen my colours and what I wanted to do and pick and now...

...I am back to square 1. It is all Emily's fault. I have decided, Emily, it is all your fault. I was fine with my blue and green until Emily's body decided it didn't like blue but that it actually rather liked burgundy; and I mean LIKED.

I was just wandering around Sunderland waiting for Emily to finish uni and I decided to stumble upon a dress shop to see what I could find... she at least had quite a few in my size so I decided it was worth a try going back later with Emily. Today was Emily's day, or rather bridesmaids day. I made her try on every blue looking dress I could find and something just wasn't sticking. Then eventually we knew why. So now I am thinking of burgundy. Obviously, green doesn't go with burgundy, so now...

...square 1. Burgundy matches brown (yes it does mother I'll prove it to you) but burgundy and brown and cream (colour option number 1) are Autumn colours, and I am not getting married in Autumn. Lol so here are my colour ideas for now. It's a good job we don't have to definitely decide on colours until January. But this is so confuzzling at the minute.

I've had my idea for dandelions as a theme okay-ed by quite a few people, at first Adam was a bit unsure of the idea haha but when I told him it wasn't the yellow wee-ing kind but actually the fuzzy wish-making kind, I think it changed his mind.

Post of Much Information

Sorry for being rubbish and not posting. I've been doing a million things including looking at dogs!

So here is a quick low down of what has been going on the past few days.

1. Adam has finally managed to crack on with the people he wants to invite to the wedding, only now the number is up to 176, and we already decided on 150. Uh oh. A lot of chopping will have to be made. 300 people can fit in the chapel but only 150 can fit into the reception room! The cultural hall isn't that big, so we'll have to make a few changes! To the list, not the cultural hall.

2. I took my mum's advice and contacted a member I know down in Bristol who knows someone that sells modest wedding dresses.

www.sunflowerbridal.co.uk

She is AMAZING. Her dresses are lovely and she is lovely. I mean we were sat chatting for about 15 minutes! She has dresses in my size and she too thinks the dress sizings are completely ridiculous! But we have an appointment in Radstock, by Bath, on the 19th November. My Bridesmaid, Cecily is going to be there and my dad's partner Gayle is going to be there too, whilst my dad and Adam have some nice man-time together.

3. The colour theme is most definitely decided, just so everyone knows. It is blue, green and rose. I think the blue will go perfect with Emily and Bethany, and the green will go perfect with the other three, Cecily, Isobel & Hannah, there'll be a hint of rose all around (Shoes, flowers, ribbon on the dress etc.)

4. Adam has chosen all of his Ushers and his Best Man. They are as follows:

Best Man: James (His brother)

Usher #1: Aaron Vigour (His good friend from church)
Usher #2: Dan Cain (Another friend from church)
Usher #3: Aaron Newland Bentley (My bestest friend EVER)
Usher #4: Michael Smith (My brother)

(I think we should definitely get these socks!)

I think that is pretty good progress in just a couple of days. I've been researching places that sell flowers for brides and bridesmaids so that will be next on our list once we've got the girls bridesmaid dresses. We think things will really start to hit the fan once January comes around and we have less time to prepare everything.

BUT

We'll manage. Then once the wedding dress, bridesmaid dresses, suits, invitations and flowers have been sorted we can start thinking of some funky and individual ideas for our reception, things that really mirror our personalities. The reception is the time to relax and chill out and really start to celebrate our wedding; so I'll keep you posted. At the same time we'll be looking at a seating plan and favours for everyone and special presents for bridesmaids, not to forget the food. The photographer has been sorted so I think that is maybe possibly probably everything.



Oh, and the wedding rings...

(Not the actual rings we are getting)

Dress Shopping

More like dress disaster.

Today I'd give 6/10. I know I'm not the skinniest person alive but seriously, if you ever want incentive to lose weight go to a bridal shop and ask for your size in a dress... it won't even go over your hips.

I asked for a 14 and it was more like a 10. So instead I had to try on 16/18 dresses and I even got in to a size 20, but only just. That was the first problem. The second one was that because I am such a 'large size' none of the shops had the size that I wanted or needed. So out of all 4 shops we went into to try dresses on I tried on 4. Not because I didn't find any I liked, I just couldn't find any that would fit. And wait there's more. The third problem was that I want a modest wedding dress, so something that covers the arms and top of the chest area, not a turtle neck but something that covers the cleavage area. But, NONE of the shops supplied even ONE dress with any type of sleeve, not even a cap sleeve just to see what anything would look like.

So now I feel fat, depressed and demolished. I'm sure the bride isn't supposed to feel like that. The only good thing about today is that I tried on a dress that was really different to what I wanted and I actually really suited it, the other good thing was that I got a bit of a make-over at a stall in John Lewis, Bobbi Brown, which was amazing. According to them my face colour is porcelian, which is quite light.

For a first dress shop I just feel like I didn't get anyway and I really don't want to buy my dress online because I am terrified it won't fit and then I'll spend the next few months getting it resized. *sigh* Yes I'm annoyed.

If anyone has any uplifting comments, feel free to share.

There was a bride to be in John Lewis by the Bobbi Brown counter and she was soooo majorly excited to be getting married, Monica said she seemed moments away from inviting us all to her wedding. Haha I have such an even head on me at the minute I do wonder whether I should be more screamy and excited?

I am excited :) The wedding is just another thing to plan, as much as I love weddings I love my fiancee more and it's the marriage I am more looking forward to. But today made me feel exactly how I thought it would... fat and crappy. Hopefully the next time I go to a dress shop, I'll feel better.

Weddingingy Things

So, now that I am off work for a week and a day or so it's time to really get stuck in to some of the things that need to get done. For 1. the wedding dress needs to get sorted. Jen, Adam's mum, has booked us into 3 appointments over the weekend for us, I mean me, to go and try some dresses on. I'm going to try on whatever fits and I guess in the shop they'll want to know what type of dress I want but I'm sorry peeps no dress ideas on here I'm afraid! Just in case the boyfriend looks on here (oops fiancee!).


Tomorrow, we are going for a celebratory engagement lunch with the other half's parents. I've no idea where we are going but apparently it's somewhere 'posh' so I need to wear my Sunday best. For that I have my blue and white flower dress, I don't think it is posh but it'll have to do.


Adam has his suits sorted and has nearly decided on all his ushers. We still don't have a theme yet but at least we have colour theme, which I am hoping will suit both Emily and Bethany. But this weekend is about me and I just need to remember that. The dresses this weekend are about me, but throughout the week I'm going to focus on Emily and Bethany's dresses and the other bridesmaid dresses after that. I'm off work next week so I've plenty of time to focus on it then.


Then it is onto the guest list and the all important invitations. If we don't invite someone it's not because we don't love you it's just because we JUST DON'T HAVE THE ROOM :( I have a list of everyone I want to invite I am just in the middle of collaborating with Adam on who he wants to invite. My list is more family based and his is more friend based. The wedding party is nearly confirmed so watch this space for the full list!

Timeline Checklist

Bethany, aka sister & chief Bridesmaid second in command, sent me an email with a very useful checklist on it. This one is amazing because it tells you what things need to be done and when. For now I think I am just getting a lot of research done, a lot of decisions need to be made for certain things, like what theme we want!

We're still stuck for that one. We've picked colours for our theme and the easiest option would be to pick flowers but we will see. The wedding dress is now taken care of, money wise. My lovely dad is going to pay for the dress which is amazing, so now I just need to find the right one, there is one my mum and I have been eyeing up online for a while but I am petrified of finding one online buying it and then having it not fit. So who knows for now, but I am going to try on dresses this weekend which should be extremely fun, I'm going to look for shape and style. I'm going with Emily (first in command chief bridesmaid), Jennifer (future mother-in-law) and Monica (Adam's brothers girlfriend).

Bethany, Adam and I have decided that we don't really need to start spending any money until January, except for the dress, so I can't to try some on then buy one and wait for it to arrive. It is going to be so exciting! We still have to decide numbers but so far I have more people coming than I need!

So what we have sorted so far:

Date
Bride & Groom :D
Venue
Registrar
Bishop
Colour Theme
Bridesmaids
Bestman & Usher
Person to Organise the music
Budget

What we are going to sort next:

Wedding list and invitation layout
Possibility of more ushers
Wedding Dress
Bridesmaid dresses
Suits

There is plenty more but these are things just for now


I can see myself becoming a bit of a bridezilla. I've decided that the decisions for things to happen at the wedding will come Adam and I, and no-one else. He has given me free reign but that doesn't mean I don't ask him on any decisions we need to make, but I've decided whatever decisions we make we can't please everyone, and we don't need too. Whatever makes us happy is what we should have.

Cakes and Colours!

I decided to only post 5 times a week :) And leave the weekend for some serious wedding planning.

I have a 'kind of' colour theme that I am really hoping I won't have to change because 1. I really like it and 2. The colours both suit Emily and Bethany. But who knows, they could get the colours on and they could look awful. Then there is the whole issue of whether I can get a dress in not only the colours I want but also the style I want *fingers crossed*. Things seem to be going really smoothly at the minute but I doubt I'll be saying that in even just a few months time!


So before I go mental on you for the colour theme. I finally have someone doing my cake for me. A lovely friend from church. Thanks Doreena! She asked me to get together pictures and colours of cakes that I like which will give her an idea of what I want and then I guess she'll tell me what she can do and the price.




There is one thing I really need at the minute and that is, a wedding planner book! I have all these ideas and plans and options and things that look good and ideas that I think look good until I put them together, which is why I love love love polyvore.com You can search through lots of different pieces of clothing and accessories to find the perfect colours to go together, hmmm magic.


As you can see from above, green and blue look awesome together. Or rather, aqua, turquoise and rose.

My Girls!!

So I 'finally' have it! My list of girls. I say 'finally' because I haven't got my flower girl yet, just waiting on a confirmation from someone.

But here it is!

Emily - Chief Bridesmaid & Maid of Honour (First in Command) A.K.A. Emmi-Moo



















Sunderland, UK.

Without this young woman, none of this would even be possible. She's been hiding Adam away from me for 2 years the little bugger! Emily is 20 and extremely funny we also share the same month for our birthday! WOOP!

Emily's first words when we told her we were engaged "uurr wwhat?! Does that mean I've got to put up with Adam now?"

Bethany - Chief Bridesmaid & Maid of Honour (Second in Command) A.K.A. Betni





















Preston, UK

Well... I couldn't very well have one without the other could I? Bethany is awesome. She was there when I first met Adam and she said she knew straight away that we'd hit it off... I don't think she ever thought we'd hit it off that much! Not many people know this, but Bethany was the first on my side to know! She'd texted me asking if Adam had arrived to Bradford yet, and I received the text just after he proposed so I sent her a text back that pretty much said "ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh", followed by a text from her asking if everything was okay, to which I responded with a picture of our engagement ring!

Lady Cecily-Daisy Zorab (Bridesmaid #1)A.K.A. Cecil-Bum





















Bath, UK

Cecily has been my friend since just before start of uni. All I remember about her are dreadlocks :D Bright pink dreadlocks (and brown ones... but no-one remembers those). It took us until 3rd year of uni to finally live together, which was the best university year ever! We had some awesome times!! In fact we had lots of awesome times! Her first words when I told her I was getting married were "You're getting married!! I'm so happy for you congratulations!" (she was very sleepy at the time)

Isobel Harding (Bridesmaid # 2) A.K.A. Smel-o-bel





















London, UK

There was a picture from first year uni lurking around online when Facebook started becoming FACEBOOK! and Izzy and I look soooo young on that picture! I don't think we ever realised at that time that 3rd year we'd be living together. Again, we had some seriously great times! Izzy's first words when I told her I was getting married "What? Like seriously your engaged?" I said "yes", Izzy "I knew it I knew it! I have to be there when you try on dresses, I seriously have to be there. I have to be there" (I do think she was slightly drunk).

Hannah Hadley (Bridesmaid # 3) A.K.A. Hanni-pants





















Worcester, UK

I think Hannah is hilarious. She too lived with Izzy and Cecily in first year, but really 3rd year was the best! When she lived with me! Hannah says she loves my Yorkshire accent and tries to copy it all the time. She's bouncy and crazy (in a good way) all I remember from third year is Hannah bumbling down the stairs singing and banging on my door. First thing Hannah said when she found out was "oh my goosh, oh my goosh oh my goosh, Grace I can't believe it. Congratulations"

(Possible flowergirl but we shall see)

I apologise to anyone if anything I have written above isn't EXACTLY what you said, but seriously, I was so happy and excited at that point I can't really completely remember what any of you said.

Dresses... Dresses... Dresses

Today was a day of dresses.

I've been thinking about the colour theme and I don't know who it was but whoever you are and you read this please make yourself known!


They said to plan the wedding colour theme around the bridesmaid dresses and what colours suit them, at first I thought "what?! are you crazy" (sorry whoever you are but that's what I thought) my second thought was "isn't the wedding supposed to be about the Bride's dress?" but then after a few hours I kinda realised something... If I were to base the colour theme around the wedding dress then everything would be white, and I don't know about you but white flowers and white everything seems a bit too boring.

So, now I'm waiting until the beginning of the year to get the bridesmaid dresses (doesn't we can't go out and try things on) then I'm going to base the theme around the colours my bridesmaids wear. I'm not revealing who is who until I've spoken to everyone and okayed everything with the husband - to - be. It's nice making decisions with someone else... let's see how long I agree with that statement haha, just kidding Adam.

Bridesmaid dresses are next, watch this space! It's going to be so much fun!

We Have a Date!

We have a confirmed date with our Bishop and the chapel we want to use!

I'm not going to reveal it for a few weeks, but honestly it isn't this year. I couldn't post until I had told Adam the date it felt like I was telling the world something before I had told him! Which feels weird.

Now we have the date, and a checklist I just need to find the right colours now. I am getting married in the spring sometime, so I want to use spring colours but since Adam has pretty much given me free reign on planning our day and my mum got married in October (complete contrast to the month I'm getting married in), I am extremely stuck on which colours we should use. Light green, lemon, fuchsia, green, bah! and everytime I think I've found the perfect shade of each of these colours... apparently I haven't and they look odd :D Oh dear, back to the drawing board.

I don't mind saying this, because what helps me might help others, this is going to be a very closely budgeted wedding, which someone told me today is harder to plan than a loosely budgeted wedding because you have to think harder about what you really do need, and literally pinpoint the exact way you want something to go. I think it is very safe to say that finding the perfect wedding dress on the budget is a lot harder than finding lots of perfect wedding dresses.

I have confirmed bridesmaid and I think the jury is still out on Adam's best man but I'm sure I know who he has in mind.

The Basic List

So on and off today I've been thinking about my checklist today and what I need to pay for and what I can get free/cheap. I've for a 'basic' checklist and split it into 3 categories.
General

Bride

Groom

Just to sort things out in my head for now, later on I'll sort them into what things need sorting first and what can be left until later.

General

Venue
Licence to Wed (As Adam and I like to call it)
Registrar
Bishop
Reception
Seating
Decorations
Invites & People to invite
Cake
Food
RINGS!
Music
Photographer
Engagement Party
Programmes on the day
Who will talk/do scriptures/ which hymns to sing

Bride

Chief Bridesmaids/Maid of Honour
DRESS for moi
Dresses for bridesmaids
Flowers (bride & 'maids)
Veil
Shoes for all
Make-up
Whose giving me away
Speeches on my side of things
Presents for Bridesmaids :)
Thank you cards

Groom

Suits
Best man/Ushers
Speeches on his side
Flowers in the guys suits (which will come from flowers in Bride's bouquet

Is that really it on the guys side? No wonder people say it is all about the girl! I am currently thinking about colour themes and flowers, Adam's first thought for colours were black and white; need I say why... if I think about some things at once then it'll slowly cross stuff off the list. We kinda have a date but it's not definite and it's not set in stone we just need to talk to a couple of people about it. Then it'll be heads on organisation. I don't think Adam believed how much planning a wedding takes until my boss/friend Carolyn said it took 2 years!! To plan hers! haha.



I don't know about all you married women out there, but when you first got engaged did you go through episodes of like shocked amazement? Like 'WOW I can't believe I am getting married!" unless it's just me? But I seriously hope not...

If you're hoping for brides dresses on this blog then look and listen no further. I've decided not to blog about any dresses at all because that way Adam won't be sneak peeking at my ideas for the dress :D

The Journey of the Ring

As Adam says: "One ring to rule them all"

The evening was perfect, the scene was romantic but the ring was cutting off my blood circulation and it HAD to be on the right finger for me to get majorly excited about it. Adam said don't worry we can get it exchanged in Bradford for you, so I was really happy. I said do you have the receipt, he said "yeah it's in the bag", so we checked the bag and it wasn't there!

We rang his mum and she said they had it there. Adam and I sat for a few minutes trying to work out what we were going to do, his mum suggested they could take a picture of the receipt so the people in Bradford could see it. We just hoped that they'd exchange it without the receipt.

So, the ever hopefuls Adam and I are went to Bradford jewellers and asked if they could exchanged it for us thy said they would! And without a receipt! I was SOOO HAPPY! They got the ring out of the window and asked what size I needed. As with everything when it comes to me 'common' bloodtype, 'common' shoesize, I also have a 'common' ring size... and the shop didn't have my size in! I was half a size short!

We were just about to order the ring in which would take 6 days when Adam, ever the clever bugger said, "we are off into Preston later to see Beth why don't we ring them up and see if they have it", the woman in the shop said it was really doubtful because with the type of ring we got they only ever hold one in stock and it's usually the smaller sizes.

But she rang anyway and told them that Newcastle store had rung through and said they'd seen the receipt, which hadn't actually happened, they told her they had my size!! So off to Preston we went!! And yes, it fit!

So, all in all Adam drove about 200ish miles for meee!

Where it Starts

Happily ever after...

Well, that's where it ends!

Adam proposed yesterday! So okay I was kind of expecting it, and all through the week I was second guessing myself, 'Will he, won't he, will he, won't he' in the end I TRIED to give up thinking about it before it blew my brain up. I mean he did KINDA give it away by sending me pictures of rings and then asking me my ring size...

So, when he txted me yesterday evening saying we should go to the temple when he got to Bradford because, let's face it... the temple is absolutely stunning at night time, I couldn't think of anything BUT him proposing but I didn't want to spoil anything so I just went along with things. The drive to the temple was just like any other drive, calm, cool, collected... the little actor he is, I really did start doubting my brain.


We got to the temple at about 8pm parked up and started walking around and taking pictures. We got to the back of the temple where there are six windows (3 on top of 3) and they were beaming with beautiful golden light and Adam seemed to linger there a little longer than usual.

I started to walk off then as soon as I did Adam said "hang on a minute I'm going to do something here". I said "oh". Then he got down on one knee, with the floor being wet from previous rain, produced a box and opened it with a beautiful ring inside, and asked me to be his wife for time and eternity!! I of course said most definitly yes! It was such a beautiful evening! The ring was amazing, although a little more expensive looking than I had expected!


I put the ring to my finger and it wouldn't fit! It did kind of but only if I cut my blood circulation off! I was a teeny tiny bit bummed but in the end it fit on my right hand on the finger next to my little finger and I left it there (Story about it this tomorrow).

He rang his family and said "It is done"... which I kinda laughed at. I spoke to Adam's mum and dad who welcomed me to their family and the ringing around of people we felt close to began... lots of congratulations and laughs later I am now thinking constantly about the million and 1 things I need to get done.

I am not a great planner, I mean I did my 10,000 word dissertation in 5 weeks... including all the planning and researching... there's no way I'm planning THIS in five weeks!! Haha