happy days.

Thank you thank you thank you you lovely peoples. It has become quite strangely reassuring and exciting to come on here to find lovely comments from of you :), and to find that my number of followers jumped by almost 50% today (from 3, to 5 I might add. it wasn't a massive jump!). I'm greatly enjoying finding more blogs to read, and I'm equally enjoying the increased freedom on here now that I've relaxed my self imposed rules on subject matter for my blog.

Anyway, on the wedding front, the little things happening in the next few weeks are:

tomorrow, meeting up with sister in law to be as she's offered to make the cake. I'm not sure she's realised how much I love cake, but I'm sure she soon will! Anyway, she's dug out all the baking tins she was given by a friend - lots apparently - so that we can have a look through and see what might work. On the cake front, we decided fairly early on having had a quote that shocked me for cake, to buy a basic one from M&S and tie ribbon or lace round it, and instead to spend the money on a couple of beautiful individual cake stands that we could keep for ever and be able to say 'we had our wedding cake on that' in 50 years time. More on them another day I feel.

In a couple of weeks we are going to stay with my Aunt and Uncle in Shropshire. We have an ulterior motive for this visit, in that we hope to be able to ask one of them to perform part of our ceremony. In the mean time, until I go, I want to read through the different wedding services. I believe there are 3 versions of the same service that are still legally binding, and I have a feeling that I will prefer one of the older ones. Then just to convince the vicar. ha! good luck on that one...

lastly, because I have no idea how you all find these lovely pictures you post each day, I leave you with a picture of my older cat, Benny, who I found in my wardrobe this morning, amongst my dresses...

money rears its ugly head.

Theres been some wedding dilemmas going on chez us overnight. We started tackling the problem of entertainment the other day. This is the part that scares us most (or at least me) because we are not party throwers extraordinaire, and dancing is like a phobia to me. I got this fear from my dad I think. I don't want to be like this, I'd love to shake my booty like beyonce (and I've got plenty booty to shake) but I a) don't have the confidence, and were someone to drag me out onto the dancefloor, I would actually just sit down in the middle of the floor. Its irrational I know, but that's what I'm like. Its not exactly what James would say was his favourite pastime. Please don't think we are complete losers, (especially you Peonies since you have to spend the day here!) we just like relaxed funtime drinks and eats, rather than mad dancing.


That's rather why we liked our reception venue, there isn't a prescribed dance floor, waiting yawningly for us to get up onto it. We do, however, totally realise that as my family are travelling from the other end of the country, we can't just tell them to sod off at 7pm. (that and we wouldn't get to stay in the hotel after!) So in my mind it looks rather like a sort of jazz club, with some relaxed music playing from a 3-piece in the corner, with a few people dancing away (that aren't me!) and other people sitting around chatting and enjoying themselves.


I contacted - and by contacted i mean looked for in costas every day for a month, and then ran into him on the street when I had given up hope - a friend who used to do live music nights at the pub I worked in, to see if he could do anything akin to what we'd been hoping for, and he can, it turns out. In fact he suggested it before I'd had time to say it myself.


Then I had one of my day to day panics - its my favourite pastime - that the venue might not be able to have live entertainment. I don't know why I had this panic, it was fairly stupid thinking about it, but still. The basic response I got was that if you're not having a marquee (we weren't) then music is usually played on a hifi. er, no thank you. So we thought we'd go for a marquee. Then my mum audibly baulked at the word marquee this morning. So I had another panic, and rang the venue again. She was right to baulk. have you ever contemplated hiring one of them?! I'm in the wrong job. seriously. Which i could have told you anyway, but that's another story. At a ball park figure, it worked out more to hire a fully decked out marquee than it is to hire out the entire hotel for the night, and feed 70 guests, and to stay there, and have breakfast the next morning?!?! WHAT? I need to get me some tents.

So we're not having a marquee. If any of you have actually got to this point, I'm sure you'll be sighing an audible sigh of release on behalf of my mother, who I'm sure you'd like to know has escaped that heart attack the idea of a marquee was close to giving her. We must have sounded like really naive idiots for thinking they were an affordable addition to a wedding, ( I might add that these are stunning gorgeous fully heated draped carpeted marquees, but still) but for about 12 hours, we were happy with this idea because it meant we could invite more friends to the evening reception. That ideas been scrapped though, and potentially replaced with just inviting those friends and others to a party at home after the wedding (if I wasn't a partyer before I will be after this friggin wedding). i do sort of like the idea of a party though, as it gives me the chance to do all those DIY decorations that it annoys me I can't do for the wedding itself.

Back to the band. When I spoke to the venue lady this morning, during the conversation where I tried to keep my cool while being quoted redonkulous amounts for tents, she also let me know that it is possible to have the band in the bar room, dependant on numbers. So we're sort of back to where we started now. we can have a band, we don't have to have a marquee. whoop de doo. seriously. thats 24 hours of panic and worry I needn't have had...

a very tart tart.

This evening I turned these...

Into this:

...a very zingy lemony tart tart. I cheated on the pastry bit, (I havn't mastered pastry yet) so I just had to make the lemon curd for the filling. yum. It was Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipe, but I can't find a link online. night night.

branching out.

So, after a lot of deliberation (well, a few hours), a bit of poking from Hannah, and a bit of blog envy, I might open this blog up a bit. I started this blog because I wanted to be able to talk about my wedding without boring the hind legs off my bridesmaids and hubby to be, but now I'm finding that I want to be able to talk about other things that I find, or do, and its frustrating that I feel it has to be wedding related. I still intend to start up another blog at some point, because like I said in the comments on my previous post, I don't think I want potential clients and customers to be able to read all the personal details of planning my wedding, or my day to day life on what should be a professional blog. But for now, I think I'm going to put it all in here. Partly because I can't yet decide on a blog name for my 'official' blog, and partly because I'm not yet ready to start writing it. then later on, in a month, maybe 3, maybe 6, when I start another blog, I'll decide what goes in what blog, and any of you who are reading this (anyone?) can decide whether you want another blog on your lists. So I'm sorry if this annoys you, but bloggings also a personal (public) thing right? There will still be weddingness here, with out a doubt, I'm still getting married after all! But I've been scared of seeming rather one sided to you all, there is far more that I'm interested in, worry about, like to look at, than, say, wedding flowers. ( I do love me some wedding flowers though).

So...heres the highlights of the weekend that I wanted to share with you. Yesterday I went (with a dear friend and bridesmaid) to Potfest in the park. its not as drug fuelled as you may imagine, in fact its not at all drug fuelled. Its one of two festivals by the same name, run by the same people, which celebrate and promote local, national, and international ceramic artists, in the beautiful settings of a country house.

See?:

Hutton in the Forest.

ceramics by Janet Halligan

teapots by: Virginia Graham

platters by: Charlotte and Sigerd Bohmer (no website unfortunately)

These last bowls almost made me cry with their prettyness. Seriously. We were planning to go back today, James and I, but the weather was so rubbish we didn't. I was hoping that I would get one of these, but it was not to be. They were so lovely. Ho hum. When we were there though, we met one of our college tutors who was exhibiting there, he told us about the walled garden at the back of the house (does that really count as a house? it had turrets. also I wanted to get married there.) so we went for a wander in there too, which was lovely.

See?:

All in all, a lovely morning was had. I just wish I'd had the money to buy the things I loved there. Thy weren't even expensive, I'm just uber skint. And I just found out that the one thing I did buy, a really cute tiny tile with a blue bird on, was made literally two villages away from my parents home! Phew, did that go ok?

p.s. on a technical note, why will blogger not allow me to drag my photos down through my post now, when it used to? I have to move it down bit by bit now, its irritating as hell, and I don't think I've done anything to change it. Or do all you clever people out there have some different way of doing things?

apologies.

sorry I'm not being very evident at the moment. I'm still here, commenting and enjoying other blogs, but I'm not feeling very weddingy so theres not much to post about. I'm having a fairly rubbish week, and the wedding has sort of taken a back burner in my mind. We have been playing around with the invitations, so I'll post about that soon, but I've been busy creating instead, because I'm getting really sick of not doing what I want to with my life. I may start another blog soon, a sort of everything else blog where I can post about my work, but I'll tell you all when I start that up. Speak soon :) xx

p.s. every time I post about being non-weddingy, about 4 wedding posts appear in my head, so I'll probably be back sooner than I think!

etsy arrivals :)

I realised that I never showed you the things I bought from etsy when they arrived. So here they are:

They're certainly all very pretty, I'll be honest though, inches do become bigger in my head than they really are, I think. So these may not get used quite the way I imagined. The idea for the guest book is still there though. The heart shaped doilies though, now they are gorgeous. so gorgeous I decided they warranted their own photo. I love them. I really want to get on and make this idea become real, I'm just scared to fold the doilies. that and I dont have any card yet. but when I do, you'll be the first to know!


And I think I might have found a lovely thing to hold them all in once its done...

letter organiser from yaneshops on etsy...as usual!

I've actually seen a couple on etsy, but I'm going to keep one to myself for the moment, I can't really afford this right now, even though its not expensive, the recession and that holiday last week are hitting my wallet a bit at the moment. what do you think? I'm loving hearing from you all, keep the comments coming (as long as they're nice!).

yay!

Thank you so much, Hannah of seeds and stitches! you would not believe how happy this made me, to be given an award! I really don't feel particularily worthy of it, having only been blogging for a month or so, and because I write appalingly but thank you so much!

Apparently I am allowed to bask in the blog lovin glory, but I've quietly (no-one in the real world knows I blog) done that for several hours now, so I'll continue to the next option of passing it on. I only have a small list of blogs I'm following at the moment, so I'll be super selective :)

Favourite blogs:

Accordions and Lace - just wonderful. she really makes me feel like shes letting me into her life with every post

Tea and Whimsy - because her wedding will be wonderful, and its been a joy to see her planning

(I blogged about both of these lovely ladies just the other day too, I'm not stalking I promise!)

iDIY - I only just discovered this properly, and my weddings already benefiting from it!

Peonies and Polaroids - IMHO this woman should be a writer. But I'm glad she isn't, because then she wouldn't be photographing my wedding! Go read her blog - but then, you probably all already do!

EDIT: see hannah, what happens when you give an award to a dummy like me? I forget to tell my awardees what to do with it?! anyway, either you can just enjoy the blog loving I gave you, or pass it on to any blogs you love yourself.

And if she hadn't passed it to me, I'd pass this award to Seeds and Stitches - she took a crocheted blanket camping, and has named her veg patch for Gods sake. what more do you need?! Thank you Hannah, you made my day :D