I always knew I could never rock a meringue ( too petite, no hips, fear of looking like I was trying to be bridal Barbie etc) and I was just as adamant I would never wear a veil.

I’ve seen some gorgeous brides with a whole array of different veils – short and frothy, birdcage, polka dot ….those fabulous black and white shots of them blowing in the wind, the smitten groom lifting the blush to reveal the beauty he is lucky enough to be spending the rest of his life with…..the list goes on.

Thing is I was always leaning towards the boho – not too styled hair do with a few flowers scattered in it, the whole big pouffy bouquet…..a veil just seemed too formal and traditional.

My Mum on the other hand was LOVING the veil and right from the first appointment where I tried on the first dress I had liked in a magazine ( the Stephanie Allin Gina) she was holding up several varieties and jumping up and down with glee ” Ooh Charlotte look at these, look at how beautiful they are ahhhhhh they are so lovely, try one on try one on please please for me please…..”

Me: “But Mum I’m not wearing a veil so what would be the point? I’m having flowers in my hair and both together would look odd and totally over kill no?”

Mum:” Oh I know I know but just try it for me? I promise I won’t ask again”

So on went a mid length veil and with this particular dress ( the strange gold/ivory colour of the gown material and the fact the veil was white didn’t help much) it just looked oh so very wrong.

My sister agreed, the dress was a little bit sexy ( ignoring the fact the colour made me look like I had a severe case of jaundice) and the veil just made it look well – a little bit frumpy.

So that was that then.

Many frocks later ( Mum and Melissa were in bridal gown heaven – I was slowly losing the will to live..) and I put on a “this is definitely the last one I swear” Pronovias number with a full lace and heavily beaded overlay.

Oh and here was Mum looking incredibly sheepish and waving a cathedral length raw edged affair with tiny scatter crystals about my head.

me : “Mum what are you like? liar liar pants on fire….”

Mum: ” Oh pleeeeease please last one promise – I just love this one… love it! “

So on went the longest veil in the history of long veils and……

Oh really quite chic actually.

The single tier and raw edging meant it wasn’t too “done” and the crystals actually caught the light in the most spectacular way.

Mum had actual tears in her eyes at this stage and my sister just looked well….bemused.

me : ” Melissa be honest with me now, what do you think?”

Melissa: “Honestly? I think the dress makes you look like a giant doily….lovin’ the veil though”

me: (peels of laughter) “Really you like the veil too? ….hmmmm”

I didn’t decide for definite of course until I bought “The one” – the Amanda Wakeley. The plan was to have the best of both worlds by wearing the veil for the ceremony only – besides at that stage I knew it would completely cover my back jewels and I wanted those on display!

And it was…….nice…( yes I know I know I wasn’t doing just “nice” but it was the one thing I did because it made someone else happy – namely my Mum rather than just pleasing myself as per usual )

So along with the dream dress was also ordered a (totally unexpected) cathedral length, raw edged, crystal encrusted explosion of ivory tulle .

Brilliant.

Erm no.

First mistake – not trialing it with your bridal barnet before the big day ( the hair do was one of my favourite things – it wasn’t made for a great big bloomin’ comb shoved in it though) had such headache had to take asprin with my champagne.

And then having the most clumsy Dad ( God love him) in the UK….and what do you get?

Your Dad trampling all over your veil the entire way up the isle.

Yes really.

I didn’t notice.

James didn’t notice.

Until he got tangled up in it at the end.

Everyone else noticed.

I have the pictures to prove it.

So my advice would be – if it really isn’t something you want 100% then DON’T DO IT!!!!!!!!!

Seriously though – it was very very funny. A lot of people said it started off the whole day on the right note – a whole lot of laughter and fun.

Look at me and James – then look at my Dad …then look at who the guests are all looking at

When we first went to the NEC Wedding Show it was really quite exciting, I guess as we had been engaged less than a month everything was so new and shiny ( plus I went with two very enthusiastic bridesmaids and we found a fabulous photographer).

The second time around – October 2008, James and I went together – I was looking for inspiration while in my “can’t decide on anything/wrong venue/generally confused” phase and thought a visit might relight my feigning enthusiasm.

That would be a giant NO then.

It seemed all of the cool suppliers had hot -footed it down to the equivalent London show ( including our fabulous photographer so we couldn’t even drool over the amazing album eye candy) and what was left was an abundance of dress stands selling off samples at bargain basement prices.

There were literally hundreds of manic brides practically fighting with each other to grab the nearest bridal gown – the vast majority being grubby and creased to hell I might add ( the gowns not the brides ) – team that with intense arena lighting and what do you get?

A nightmarish hot bath of hysteria.

I think we lasted about half and hour before both of us were charging towards the nearest exit.

On our way out we bumped into one of James’s friends and his fiancé, who in comparison to us looked decidedly smiley, calm and full of the joys of pre-marital bliss.

Dave and Emma were getting married the December after our then August wedding so – December of this year and with 14 months still to go they had nearly everything organised. She had a stunning Caroline Castilagno dress on order, the Bridesmaids and Groomsmen were all going to look fabulously wintery and sumptuous in chocolate brown, they were in raptures about their venue…they even knew what champagne they would be serving guests.

We must have seemed like we just didn’t have a clue ( which wouldn’t at that stage have been far off the mark)

To every question from Emma my answer was “Erm no not yet really….”

“So have you thought about flowers?”


“How about your colour palette?”


“Been looking at rings?”

And then came the most memorable one …… “So what about wedding perfume? Have you decided on that?”

Me ( clearly confused) ” A wedding perfume….what is that exactly?”

( I know I know I must have spent those 8 months living under a large rock)

Emma informed me that as a Bride having a special “wedding day fragrance” was of the utmost importance – apparently along with the “shoe” picture and the “dress” picture the photographer would clearly be expecting me to have “the bottle of perfume perfection” picture….

Oh dear. Don’t know anything about that then.

Spent the journey home and the rest of that evening feeling like complete useless div.

Decided I may as well give up there and then – just elope to Gretna Green in a floral maxi dress and bare feet.

You see I don’t know what it is but it takes me a mighty long time to choose a perfume and when I do I am almost obsessively faithful to it.

My first ever scent was the ultimately fresh and youthful Escape by Calvin Klein, I wore it religiously from the age of fifteen until I left sixth form. Then it was three years of Chanel Allure then another two years of Gucci Rush. Upon meeting James I had a brief flirtation with Viktor and Rolf Flowerbomb and Thierry Mulger’s Alien before falling in love with another one of Mr Klein’s finest – Euphoria. It has been ( and still is) my “go to” perfume – two and a half years and counting.

Obviously I just assumed I would be wafting down the isle in a cloud of my usual favourite but after Emma’s revelation well …I was going to get “perfect wedding” in a bottle – even if it bl*ody well killed me.

James was amused at my determination – or at least he was until we visited every department store in London only for me to return home without a single drop of anything.

In fact believe it or not it was James who found something he loved – and you can’t get more “weddingy” than Vera Wang……for men.

Yup that’s right – it was the Groom who was wearing the Wang on the big day

It was also James who in the end found me the greatest most unique perfume ever…..

On an un-wedding related trip to Selfridges he stumbled on a new collection of perfumes called “Juliette has a gun” and one had the exact mix of feminine, fruity, sophisticated and slightly spicy sexiness that I was after – Lady Vengeance.

Hmmmmmm

Me: “Juliette has a gun – Lady Vengeance…. not very Bridal is it?!”

James: “No but that’s why I like it – it is so cool and different and smells like……..heaven”

Sold.

A little piece of heaven for the bargain price of £50.00.

And let me tell you , it was one of the best things I invested in. I have only worn it a few times since but every time I do James says ” You smell gorgeous – reminds me of our wedding day”

And that is what is so special about perfume – it evokes specific memories and I don’t think you ever lose that. So if ever I fancy being taken back to the best day of my life I just have a quick spritz, take a deep breath and I’m right back there.

Oh and Emma was right. Jordan did take a picture, and it is definitely up there with the best of them.

Just as it was easy for me to pick my beautiful bridesmaids it was also super simple for James to chose his best man. Tom and James had been friends since school and although Tom now lives in London so it’s not as if they see each other every weekend they are still really close.

Tom has a law degree and was headed towards some high flying lawyer type job before he decided to jack it all in and make films – what he had always wanted to do really. Cue applying to film school where there is like 10 places and about 1500 applicants ……..and he got in with a scholorship.

He says it’s because one of the mentor’s is Danny Boyle and they “clicked” over their Mancunian roots. I just think it’s because he is really talented and deserved it.

Anyway I digress ( again) ….so Tom is a film maker/producer and script writer extraordinaire which makes excellent credentials for a fabulous best man speech ( which it was I might add) what it also means of course is that he is a busy busy busy young man – most weekends he would be filming until 2am….which didn’t bode well for lots of shopping trips to chose appropriate wedding attire…..

Pair this with James being so laid back that sometimes he is practically horizontal and with 8 weeks to go neither of them had got anything to wear to the wedding…..

James decided against ushers as such – it was going to be a smallish intimate affair so seemed a bit unnecessary, instead my sister’s boyfriend James ( I know I seem to have an issue with duplicate names!) was a kind of usher/project manager/toastmaster hybrid….(and was worth his weight in gold bless – was A.Mazing on the day) but all the same 8 weeks before the big day because James hadn’t confirmed anything he didn’t have an outfit either….or my Dad. Erm or James’s Dad for that matter.

So at this stage I was I have to admit being a nagging Bridezilla. As everything was coming together so nicely I didn’t want the Groomsmen to be in the shadow of us girls – I wanted them to look ( and feel) a million dollars too.

As I mentioned before I wasn’t a fan of matchy matchy colours or really traditional wedding things so cravats and shiny paisley waistcoats of a single shade were out, in fact both of us decided that actually they didn’t need matching suits even so……how would we avoid them looking like the guests? Hmmmm challenging.

I thought mid-grey suits with white shirts would look best with Ivory, again neutral colours that wouldn’t clash with my muti-coloured flowers. Thing is I also wanted James to look a bit different to the other four and stand out as the groom…

Honestly we didn’t half make things difficult for ourselves .

So after much debate we decided everyone should get a mid-grey suit of their choice and a plain white shirt, the 3 younger lads would wear skinny matt black ties ( they looked almost gunmetal grey) and the two Dad’s wider stripy numbers – again of their choice. I knew the button holes would go a long way into tying them altogether as the “bridal party” and besides as long as they looked smart and felt comfortable I was happy.

Dad came up trumps with a fabulous suit from Hugo Boss, James’s Dad hired a very smart ensemble from a shop near him in Cheshire and usher/project manager/toastmaster James ( number 2!) bought a very cool slim fitting fancy pants two piece from Ted Baker.

Result.

Erm no actually because now with less than 6 weeks to go there was still the question of the best man and the actual groom…..

James had a similar experience to me with his wedding outfit shopping, he looked at all the makes he thought he would like and ended up not actually liking anything at all ( yes I certainly did the “told you we should have looked weeks ago” bit)…

Luckily a few days later frantically looking for practically ANYTHING our local House of Fraser had the perfect suit – a slim fit Kenneth Cole in a lovely shade of grey/blue. We teamed this with a white and pale grey stripe shirt from Dolce and Gabbana and some pointed black textured leather winkle pickers from Office and what do you get? A gorgeous gorgeous groom who would tie in but also “stand out” from everyone else.

I am biased obviously

Of course then there was just the question of Best Man.

Now with just 4 weeks to go James hauled him up to the Midlands to find something suitable. Two laid back boys who don’t “do” shopping hitting the Bull Ring on their own? I crossed my fingers, arms, legs, toes….and hoped for the best.

And what do you know… within a few hours Tom was rocking a lovely ( and really very expensive looking) suit and shirt from non other than Marks and Spencers.

I now officially heart M & S.

I think it would have been easy for me to be a bit more of a dictator and stipulate exactly what they should all wear but actually they all really enjoyed the ( if not a little bit stressful) experience of chosing individually and I certainly wouldn’t have been able to pick better myself…

So in the end they all had suits they loved, could wear again and looked like a very handsome well-dressed bunch indeed.

I had read, heard and experienced from various friend’s weddings the squabbles and arguments caused by other people apart from the Bride and Groom interfering with who should be invited to the Big Day.

James and I had always found this a bit odd actually, and it all honestly didn’t have much difficulty with deciding who would be invited. It was about people we loved, who loved us and who would genuinely want to celebrate our special day.

I come from a pretty small family and am only close to one Auntie and Uncle so they and my Nan were the only family from my side apart from the parents and my sister who were invited, yes I see the other Aunts/Uncles/cousins at Christmas and occasional family celebrations but in reality they don’t even send me a Birthday card so…..why would I want them at my wedding?

James was similar, one Auntie and Uncle, his parents and their respective partners, his sister and one cousin who he remains close to were invited. The remaining guests to make up the 60 we had were friends and a couple of parents friend’s who had been more like family to us than our actual family ( if that makes sense) so they were certainly now friends of ours

Also why do people put some kind of “time frame” you have known people limit on it? As in “oh I have known them for years so they had to be invited…” (although they haven’t actually heard from them in the last five….) or ” Well they are a good friend now but I’ve only known them a year….”

So?

We didn’t care if we had known our friends 12 months or 12 years frankly – we wanted them there, we knew they would want to be there and that we would remain friends with them way into the future…..so we were really quite black and white about it.

Of course our decision didn’t go without any comment at all, my parents were in a slightly awkward position as the previous year they had gone to their friend’s daughters wedding but we were not inviting them to ours – as I explained

” But they are not our friends Mum – they are yours, they are very nice and everything but I would only be inviting them because it is perceived to be the right and proper thing to do in return to the invite you accepted – and that was nothing to do with us, James and I didn’t get an invite to that wedding…..”

My Nan was a bit put out when she realised one of my uncles wasn’t coming and again I just explained ” He doesn’t even know my telephone number, why on earth would I invite him to the biggest celebration of my life?”

Even Nan had to admit I had a point.

The only concern I had was the costs people would incur -being a wedding guest is expensive, especially when ours was so out of the way for everyone, overnight accommodation was pretty much a given.

In particular one of my oldest friends Maria, she has been living in Hong Kong for the past few years and I was now only giving her 4 months to sort coming all the way to the UK just for me, I knew it would be an incredibly expensive trip for her indeed.

Maria has the coolest job of anyone I know – she is the lingerie buyer for a big fancy department store in HK. Basically she is surrounded all day by lovely silky fabulousness from La Perla and Myla and gets to travel to Milan and New York and ……I am so very very jealous.

Maria called me as soon as she received my email explaining our change of date/venue to say that of course she would be there and wouldn’t miss it for the world and she would make sure she bought a gorgeous new outfit because I only deserved the best on my “Day as Princess Bunny Bride”

( We met working at Rackhams in Birmingham when I was 17 and Maria 20 and ALL the girls had nicknames – I was Bunny and she was Naughty…..because she was totally ill behaved – and hilarious with it)

I heart her. And I love her all the more for the effort she made to be there for me when it was really important.

Oh and the girl rocked the wedding attire – green silk Lanvin dress and YSL stiletto lace up shoe boots, she has been my style icon since I was 
still in school uniform and she still is to this day.

Everyone made a real effort to make our special day amazing, so much laughter, dancing all night …made it a really wonderful memorable occasion for us – the best day of our lives.

Because as much as the flowers are beautiful and the venue is breathtaking…. as I’ve said before and I’ll say it again ( sorry to harp on…) the most important parts are you, your future husband and the people who are there to share it all with you.

So……invite the ones you really love.

Ok so I have already mentioned several times that I am a self-confessed cosmetics junkie so you would think “putting my face on” for the big day would be an easy task….

Nope.

Quite the opposite actually.

I think as I’ve got so many beauty products ( the vast quantity is actually verging on the embarrassingly ridiculous) and I LOVE them – applying them, applying them on other people…..the packaging…the smell….. it was more of a case of which out of the many hundreds of products I own do I actually wear…. It would be my biggest make-up moment and I didn’t want to wear too much or not enough – put on too much bronzer and look tangoed or not put enough bronzer on and look well…. like Casper ( I achieve this look often when failing to remember blush application) or wear too much lip goo and get it all over James during the “Kiss the Bride” moment…. or have the whole lot slide off half way through the day ….

So much to consider!

Now I am lucky lucky lucky in the fact that my little sister is an aspiring make-up artist and knows a thing or two about what to wear and for what occasion so she was on hand for lots of tips and advice both in the months of preparation prior and on the morning of the Big Day.

She could have easily done a fantastic job of my face I know but I didn’t want her to be stressed with the pressure of that as well as everything else she had to help me with on the morning. And I was determined to do a stellar job myself – I had had enough practice over the years after all

Oh and an insider tip ( I love these!) my sister was assisting Arianne Poole at the 10 years younger show a few weeks back and was doing the models back stage when she got chatting to Myleene Klass – who is even more BEAUTIFUL in the flesh than on screen apparently. Anyway my sister said Myleene uses only MAC in her kit and her skin is totally flawless – she uses their “face and body” foundation …..

Get thee to the nearest MAC counter pronto.

Not surprisingly after much exploration of various beauty counters I did treat myself to a few new items – I have quite fair skin with really very yellow undertones so to avoid looking like a) a corpse or b) like I have jaundice ……I have to make sure I add plenty of pinky hued lip colour and pink pink pink blush ( while trying to prevent any resemblance to Aunt Sally)

So a new pinky beige lipstick and a pop of bright pink cheek enhancer were invested in for W day.

Oh and a lovely silky light reflecting primer.

Hmmmm and some “Don’t move or you’re dead” long-lasting setting powder…..

Ah yes and some “touch your eyebrows with your lashes” it is that A.Mazing mascara…….

Yup you got me.

I basically bought a whole new make-up bag.

I did of course still keep quite a few of my old faithful favourites and made sure I tried everything numerous times before the actual day to avoid any potentially disastrous allergic reactions – I suffer from eczema and can often wake up with a big puffy moon head and dinosaur eye ( red scaly and swollen – NOT in any way attractive) having trowelled on the glittery bits for a night out.

So the Charlotte O’Shea make-up kit was as follows:

Stila Illuminating Powder foundation in 30 AND 40 watts

Have used this for years – I have tried others but they just tend to “sit” on top of my fine skin. 30 watts is my skin colour but I added a bit of the 40 on top as a more natural bronzer.

Chanel illuminating make-up base

Makes you all glowy and the rest of the base last longer

Christian Dior setting powder

This is totally imperceptible and seems to airbrush away pores and fine lines…

Christian Dior skin flash

For under the eyes. I love this stuff. I would bathe in it if I could.

MAC “well dressed” blusher

My go to blusher – quite a pale pink and natural looking, it also has tiny shiny ( not sparkly) bits in to stop it from looking flat

MAC “Pink Swoon” blusher

For a “pop” of colour just on the apples of the cheeks – makes you look fresh and “just been out for a walk on the hills”

( erm… for clarity I don’t regularly walk up any hills – I just like to look like I did )

MAC “rice paper” eyeshadow

For an all over champagne hued silky wash of natural colour all over the lid.

MAC “Nylon” eyeshadow

A slightly irridesent pale gold for inner corners of the eye and underneath the bottom lash line – to really open them up.

Lancome “brown” artliner

Officially the best liquid eyeliner on the planet.

Period.

And the folks at Lancome decided to……discontinue it.

It is a travesty.

I have to buy mine off of ebay.

Maybelline “peach” superstay lipcolour

I have no idea why this is called peach – it is clearly pink. And it clearly rocks. Doesn’t budge. I don’t use the weird waxy stick that comes with it over the top I just use my lipstick – then gloss.

Max Factor “False Lash” mascara

I defy anyone who doesn’t believe this is nothing short of miracle for making ” look out Bambi” lashes in a few swipes of the big beefy wand..

MAC “way to love” lipcolour

My HG ( holy grail) lipstick, it was limited edition so I stockpiled. The perfect pink shade for fair blonde brides like moi.

MAC “Babied” lip varnish

A beautiful shiny gloss, if you blot gently it doesn’t smear all over your loved one’s face but still retains a little bit of lustre.

And of course some lovely application brushes – blush, face, fine liner, smudger and this amazing fan like thing from MAC that you literally comb through your lashes to make them all separate and fluttery.

Et Voila – le maquillage of choice after much deliberation.

So my advice would be just have a look and a try of all the things you fancy until you find products that makes you go “wow”, if you don’t normally wear a lot of make-up then keep it quite “au naturel” or for those that love a red lip and full on falsies then…. go for it.

Your Husband to Be is marrying you for what is underneath all the paint and polish after all