There are a lot of girls I know who have dreamed about their wedding day since they knew what a wedding was. I was honestly never one of those girls.
Don’t get me wrong, I always had aspirations to be Cinderella/Sleeping Beauty/Princess and the Pea…. ( delete as appropriate) but it was the finding Prince Charming and living happily ever after part of the fairytale that filled my dreams.
The last couple of years we had been to our fair share of weddings, all with their own aspects of fabulousness.
The problem with having been to so many though (I’m being honest) is that I couldn’t help but be conscious of not doing something the same or even similar really, I just wanted something a little bit different.
So I started planning with fierce determination – I was going to organise a lovely special wedding that was elegant, intimate and above all filled with love, laughter and a day that we would remember forever.
Hmmmmm, where to start then?…. ah yes with that big pile of magazines.
And there it began, a whole new world of chair covers, cala lillies, chignons, favours, matching your men’s cravats to your bridesmaids dresses to your flowers to your ribbons to your ……….. I have never been so confused in all my life.
I totally lost sight of what I had set out to do and pretty much spent 8 months battling with what I wanted and what I thought I should be doing.
We booked a venue because it ticked most of our requirement boxes, not because when I thought of it it took my breath away. A friend had got married there and it had been perfectly nice and well organised so…. it just seemed the sensible thing to do.
I didn’t like any bridesmaids dresses or cravats or anything matching so thought there must be something wrong with me – but what is my colour theme???? I must have a colour theme or everything is going to look un-co-ordinated and a total mess and……
Before I knew it it was November and our wedding was booked for August 30th Bank holiday Sunday.
And I had absolutley no clue what I was doing.
I had scoured the dress shops with my lovely (and very patient) Mum. I loved the look of Jenny Packham but they just didn’t love me, I am slim/petite but with boobs and a shelf like behind, they just made me look a funny shape and squished everything in the wrong place so I felt frumpy and gnome like.
Then there was Alan Hannah and ben de Lisi and Stewart Parvin and Suzanne Neville and Stephanie Allin and ….the list goes on. All beautiful dresses, just none of them the one for me.
I did find a few I really liked, a chiffon number by Jesus Peiro and an exquisite lace dress by Lusan Mandongas ( who I adore by the way – if you are reading this and are still un-decided on “the one” please give Lusan’s range a try, I don’t think they are that well known but the material and cut were some the best I’ve seen – and they were reasonably priced)
In the end my Mum and I both decided that the chiffon Jesus was although really stunning maybe a bit too evening and then James announced that……he didn’t like lace.
So what to do…..
I had two last designers in mind, le spose di gio and Amanda Wakeley, more than what I set out to spend but at this stage I was willing to try anything. ANYTHING!
So I booked the AW appointment ( seriously I should have bought a Virgin train Birmingham International to London Euston rail card I did that journey that many times) and kept my fingers firmly crossed.
