summer jollies.

picture: martin burns on flickr

ok, I'm not 'off' my wedding, I just don't have anything to report at the moment. We are, however, taking a much needed break to Edinburgh starting sunday. any (reasonable) suggestions welcomed, for places to visit/eat/drink/do in the centre ish of the city. I have some old college friends who we're hopefully going to meet up with, I can't wait! We havn't been for a couple of years, which is stupid since we live so close, so we're hoping the restaurants we went to last time are still there! We found a lovely teeny tiny mexican in the old town, and Howies near the grassmarket possibly gave me the best meal I've ever eaten in my life. I wanted to go to the zoo, see the baby pygmy hippo thats just been introduced to the world, but its £14 EACH to get in?! so thats maybe off the cards. anyway, any ideas welcomed, and I'll tell you what I got up to when I get back. in the meantime, there may be more posts, I just don't know!

pretty plate.

How cute is this plate? just another reason for a gift list...

plate: thebrickkiln

the fatal etsy addiction aka bridesmaids presents.

I don't have money, but oh how I wish I did. Every day i find more beauties on etsy. And then I found etsy wedding. *ouf* , how dangerous that blog is. its like having a personal etsy shopper. I've found so much on there that I love, my favourites list gets longer by the day. I think I've found presents for all my bridesmaids (not that I can afford to get them yet...) I've been looking at pearls, because its so hard to match to their dress colour, and I want to get them something jewellery related to give them to wear. I'm debating whether to get them different presents, or all the same. I'm toying now with the idea of different because I'm finding so many sweet necklaces and such. I really like the mismatched look thats doing the rounds, but all my girls have got the same dress now. Its also a high street dress so I'm terrified (literally, I am going to have nightmares about this nearer the time) that a guest will turn up in the same dress, but its highly unlikely(isn't it? please tell me it is). To combat this, we decided that we have to make them look as similar as possible outfit wise, so that they don't look like 3 guests in the same dress. Not identical, because these 3 girls are so very different that they will all make it look individual anyway, but similar. Same shoes, (or at least same style and colour), and a wrap the same(which two people have challenged me to weave myself. argh). so I think the jewellery can be different? at least then I can get them each something that reflects their personalities and style more. these are the contenders I've found so far:

pearl necklace and earrings: weddingjewels

carrie necklace: erinkeys love song necklace: kgarnerdesigns

necklace and earrings :beadsinthebelfry peapod earrings: sudlow
(sold separately)

bracelet and earrings: bumbershootdesigns

I'm addicted. not only to etsy, but to pearls. thats ok right?! I know I've posted the peapods before, but I just love them. I think they're adorable.

And how scrummy is this locket?!
just in general... I can't believe the work in it.

locket : mstevensondesigns
since this post became rather longer than I expected, Ill post on my own jewellery thoughts tomorrow....

blah blah blah

yeah, I was right, I've hit that quiet point. At least until all those lovely things I bought off etsy arrive and I can fiddle with doilies and lace for a while. I wanted to tell you all about my plans for my dress, but i'm afraid of sounding like a bit of a pretentious idiot (also a lot of the photos of dresses that I like I can't use in here), I want to tell you more about me, in an effort to seem less weddingly 1 dimensional, but when I start writing it comes out wrong, so I don't have anything to write basically. So, instead, i'll leave you with a photo of my cats.

(please don't think me a grumpy sod!)

here comes the sun(dress)

I bought this sundress yesterday:

picture: H&M

It might actually be the best £12 I've ever invested. I feel like I'm wearing nothing. its fantastic in this heat. Even Carlisle gets the sun sometimes.

big bookings, big smiles.

Several weddingy things have happened in the last week that I'm excited about, All the big things seem to be falling into place, I think I'm about to hit that lull that everyone talks about, where having booked all the major parts of the wedding, its just pottering and fiddling for quite a while until I reach the year mark.

Firstly, I confirmed with the venue for our reception. Cumbria, for all its beauty, seems a bit short on interesting venues for wedding receptions. Its largely a choice of country hotels, even when you get into the Lakes itself, and most of these now market themselves as wedding venues, meaning that the prices are exorbitantly expensive. We didn't want to actually go out into the lakes to get married, while its nearby, and stunningly beautiful, it seems to be becoming a cliche. When we first got engaged we had to decide which end of the country to get married in - I'm a southerner who moved up here for college, and he's a cumbrian through and through - I'd always imagined that I would marry in my parish church, but when it came to it, I didn't want to plan my wedding remotely, and we wanted to see the church we got married in for the rest of our lives, have our children christened in it, and so on.

So a little hotel it is. It only has 11 bedrooms, so we have sole use, which means I get breakfast too :) Neither of us had ever been there before, despite it being about 5 miles from our house, and it looks over the Eden valley. Its a small venue, which limits our guest list for the day to 70, and we can invite 30 more in the evening. We wanted a small wedding, we're not crazy partyers, to be honest the Evening reception is still the biggest stumbling block I have, so we liked the fact that the venue was forcing us to make that choice. Anyway, it looks like this:

pictures from: Crosby Lodge

The other major thing we've booked is the photographer. In one of my first posts I mentioned my photographers, but we've changed quite suddenly at the last minute. I have no regrets about this, in fact I can't stop grinning, and I wouldn't have found them were it not for the blogging community. Heres a couple of their photos:

photos by: Lillian and Leonard

So yes, Peonies and the Boy, or Lillian and Leonard in their official capacity are going to be our photographers! Suddenly, I love living in Carlisle, because we're really close to Glasgow! Peonies has already been delightful to work with, coping with my Mum giving her the wrong year for the wedding, and me asking lots of stupid questions, and what I'm finding really wonderful is that I know she'll record all the little details for me, and that their style is so unobtrusive. J and I are quite camera shy, I love taking photos, although I'm rubbish at it, but I always look like a complete idiot when I'm in front of the camera. We were both a bit nervous of being very posed, doing grooms running up the road pictures etc, so we both really love their background style. Thank you Peonies!!

Lastly, thank you all for the lovely comments you've been leaving me, its nice to know people are actually reading the ramblings I leave here, please keep talking to me!

etsy buys...#2 - for a guestbook

I can see this becoming a regular post unfortunately for my wallet...

I've bought some red heart shaped doilies (wierd, I know) to make little teensy weensy envelopes from for a sort of guest book thing I'm imagining will work, and is so far entirely etsy bought. Here goes. hopefully (in my mind...) I can make envelopes from these doilies...

doilies from : pinkgrapefruitstyle

...Using this tutorial at Martha Stewarts, then (hopefully) fill it with this card I bought last week from etsy that I mentioned in this post a while ago - are you following so far? - ...

card from: tripletrouble

...So that eventually they look something similar to these cards below, which I'm also buying a pack of in case mine don't work, and so that if they do, it has a sort of mismatched look to it all...

envelope sets from: pookybutt

...Then I'll put the cards out in a couple of boxes around the room, so that if anyone wants to leave us guest booky sort of messages, they can, and they're more private because they're in envelopes. Am I mad?