Wedding Stress!

I am not that stressed about our wedding. Things are going reasonably well. We've got a lot already organised, but there are many things still to do. We need to order materials to make our invitations and orders of service, and then arrange a little "party" of friends and family to help us actually make them! I still need to sort out the flowers. My fiance still needs to sort out his suit. The bridal and bridesmaid accessories and shoes need to be sorted out. And the decorations for the reception venue, the menu for the dinner, and the drinks for the day also need to be organised. Oh, and the music for the reception. And favours need to be sorted. So there is still plenty to do. But look back over that list, figure out what we must have done already, and I don't think we're doing too badly. We have time to arrange these further details, and in many ways that's what they are: details.

The time I get stressed is when I make the mistake of comparing our wedding plans with those of other people's. A girl I knew from church at university got engaged just before Christmas. She and her fiance are getting married a month and a half after us. They, admittedly, will have had less time than us to organise things by the time it gets to their wedding. However, the frightening level of things already done has scared me somewhat. Thanks to the joy that is Facebook, and the regular updates, I have learnt just how much has been sorted - that, and she has a blog detailing it all. They've sorted out the bridesmaids' accessories already, I mean ARGH!!! Two of my best friends are also getting married this year. One the end of this month, and the other in mid-May. Thankfully, their wedding "stress" has been more on par with mine. One friend has managed to get an incredible amount done in time for the end of January - but then she had to! Another friend is on roughly a similar wavelength to me, we've got about similar amounts sorted, so I feel calmer when I chat to her. The girl I knew from university isn't a close friend, but we have a lot of mutual friends, and as I mentioned Facebook and blogs, you are able to hear a lot through the grapevine! I am happy for her and her fiance, and good for them having a short engagement. Ours is beginning to feel like a lifetime! - although there are very good reasons for that, which I shall detail in a further blog post. It's just, I can't deal with the uber organisation of another person when I am so disorganised myself!

The other frightening things, that send a chill down my spine, are bridal magazines. I had declared that I wouldn't read any - I mean, they're virtually a fiver each, and mostly full of adverts, and weddings are quite expensive enough thank you very much! But my mum's god-daughter, who is getting married at the beginning of May, gave her a load to give to me, which someone had previously given her. I wasn't horrified at now having bridal magazines in my possession, as I wanted some ideas for hairstyles, particularly for the bridesmaids, and all of these magazines seem to have hair specials! That, and they are all from 2004-2007, so I could ignore a lot of the articles. However, I have ended up reading some of the articles, partly out of curiosity, and they have just done more to scare me. According to the mags I should have started my bridal beauty regime 18 months before - uh-oh, we won't have even been engaged for that long! The list of things I should have done, and we should include, and what I should look like goes on and on... I should have stuck to my guns, and only looked at the pictures instead - the hair pictures have been helpful, and I'm grateful to my mum's god-daughter for giving me the magazines for that reason. Also, some of the real-life wedding stories have been inspirational, and can be quite a fun read. It's the advice pages that scare me out of my wits!

So, I have to be more realistic about things. About us. About our style. And how we're on the right track. We're doing things at our pace. We thrive on doing things at the last minute. It's how we both work. And it's how both achieved our highest marks at university - leaving it until the night and morning before! I'm not saying that we'll leave key wedding details until then - there is no way either sets of parents would allow it! But there are some things we'll probably only manage to finalise about two weeks before. But those things will be all the better for it. Because that's us, and that's how we do things. I know that the wedding we went to in June last year, our friends had left a few things that society would consider to be a little bit late in the day. But their wedding was fantastic so what difference did it make? In fact, it was probably better for being left to the last minute :D Then there is the wedding of some friends from university that I went to in Wales in August 2008. Arriving the Friday before with three of my good friends, we relaxed and enjoyed some food, and then suddenly we were whirled into the kitchen to stick the orders of service together, the NIGHT BEFORE! But they all came together - it helped us to bond with some of the other guests, who had also been called in to help, and on the day itself there was no way anyone could tell that the orders of service had only been matter of hours earlier.

The wedding industry is like some giant churning machine that threatens to crush you if you dare have one white frill out of place. I don't like it, and there are various things I have deliberately avoided because of it. For example, I have ordered my dress online. It will be custom made to fit my body specifications. I could not bear the thought of trawling round bridal shops trying on wedding dresses. As a result the designer of my dress is an incredibly personable woman, who has been very helpful and very enthusiastic, which is a great encouragement. The other thing that is helping us is that we're getting married at our church, so we know the rector well and we're friends of members of the band. This has helped immensely, because the whole thing is a lot more personal. The company in charge of our reception venue and catering are very professional, and they are used to doing weddings - perhaps they are the closest we've come to the 'wedding machine', but thankfully, as they are a local company who know the community well, they have a good idea of the kinds of things people like (like serving the local brew at the bar, and ensuring that local produce is on the menu), and they are very flexible. So really I haven't needed to become a victim of the wedding industry, because we have been developing clear ideas of what we want all along.

My fiance is still fine about it all. What I need to do is take a step back, stop comparing our wedding plans to other people's, and to enjoy this process. It's the marriage itself that we are most looking forward to, we just want a great party to seal our union. We'll be doing it our way, and that's the way to do it. The wedding industry can back off, because although we have to dip and dive into it for a few necessities, we can generally ignore it and its pushy ideas.

Here's not to wedding stress, but to wedding joy, for all the right reasons!

The Little Things

Unfortunately the snow and ice did put paid to my aforementioned plans for the weekend. Also, I was ill. I've had a cold since just after New Year's Day, one of those annoying ones that takes it's time about leaving, and makes you feel more unwell than a cold really ought to. Add to this snow and freezing temperatures, and I felt pretty shite. So, in a way, it was for the best that I had to stay at home yesterday.

Last night I felt particularly rough, but I woke up this morning feeling quite a bit better and a lot less bunged up. I wanted muffins for breakfast. We live right by a petrol station that has a 24hr shop, and so my fiance went over there to buy some muffins. I went back to bed. I woke some time later. The petrol station didn't have any muffins. But my fiance had made some himself. A hundred times better, and just the ticket for making me feel well enough to get out of bed and with a smile on my face.

My weekend hasn't gone as planned, and I am rubbish at being unwell, but the little things, like delicious home-made muffins by the man you love, go a long way to making you feel so much better :D

Snow Days

We've had a lot of snow in the UK recently. In February last year it started snowing on the first Sunday afternoon of the month, and didn't stop until about the same time the next day. My boyfriend and I walked slowly to the train station in the morning and we weren't surprised to find there were no trains running to London whatsoever. So we enjoyed a warm drink in the station cafe, and then slowly made our way home via the Priory ruins where we ran around in the snow where no one else had yet trod. It was so much fun. We climbed up The Mound and had a fantastic panoramic view of the Downs beyond, and the castle rising out of the white covered roofs of the town. It was breathtakingly beautiful, and picture postcard perfect. It was the most snow I had seen in my life, and enjoying the freedom of our Snow Day we excitedly made our way back home with the hope of buying a sledge.

As we walked through the town centre we saw a queue of about 20 or so people forming outside the sport shop, and they only had 2 sledges for sale! Sensing a scramble would occur we tried Argos, who had foolishly brought out their Spring/Summer catalogue, and therefore had nothing useful for the wintry weather whatsoever. So then it was onto Homebase where we purchased the largest bakest trays we could find...

Then it was back home for hot chocolate with marshmallows and cream, mmm! Our housemates were both at home too. Housemate 1 unfortunately had to work from home, but that didn't stop him from coming upstairs, giggling like crazy, and joining me in small room at the top of the house where we had an excellent view of our back yard (I call it a yard because it is completely paved, and so doesn't really count as a garden). Meanwhile my boyfriend had lured Housemate 2 into the yard, and Housemate 1 and I sent a massive snowball down the roof, which narrowly missed his head, but caused enough of a mess to start a huge snowball fight between us and them. Both my boyfriend and Housemate 2 had impressive aims and got quite a lot of snow inside the house as a result!

After that my boyfriend, Housemate 2, and I trudged up the hill to get to a suitable sledging spot. And this is where the baking trays came into use! Sledging down them was so much fun, and they worked surprisingly well! We did get covered in a lot of snow, but it was worth it. We then wandered for a while, enjoying the incredible views, and then we headed home, just before which we had another brief snowball fight, this time with some mechanics from a local car garage, who had made it into work but had nothing to do. They had built a huge wall of snow to shield themselves, and they began pelting snowballs at us (all meant in good fun). The baking trays became very useful shields however! Then it was back into the warmth for soup and crusty bread, and a chilled afternoon of gaming.

This December just gone, and now this January too we have experienced a fair amount of snow. In our area we've not had has much as we had in February, but the conditions have been far more treacherous this time, with the pavements becoming sheets of ice. It has made simple walks to church, work, and the shops become major expeditions, and a lesson has been learnt in making sure we leave the house in plenty of time.

I haven't been able to enjoy the December and January snow like I did last February, as I don't get Snow Days. That's because as I live in the same town as my office I have no excuse. I have had some challenging walks up the hill but I've been one of the few people who has made it in. So the snow, whilst it still looks beautiful, just hasn't been anywhere near as exciting as it was in February. I am worried that my plans for this weekend will be squashed by further snowfall and icy conditions, which will quite probably bring the trains to a standstill. It will be a shame if I have to miss my friend's hen party in Reading, and I'm also meant to be meeting another friend in London beforehand. It may will be that I can get there, but will I be able to get home again afterwards? I'm just looking to the skies, and keeping an eye on the weather forecast!

Although the snow is a nuisance and it drives a lot of people crazy, and yes it does change various plans, I still love it. Yesterday I was off work ill, and it was lovely sitting wrapped up bed under the quilts, watching the snow fall outside. The Downs are directly opposite, and there is a sheer hill face that is covered in trees. Watching the snow fall on that does wonders for the imagination of a daydreamer. The views towards the Downs from my office are stunning too - it's a beautiful view whatever the time of year, but today when more snow began to fall, we all stopped just to watch the amazing scene before us. So even if my weekend plans fall through, and even though I still have to work when so many other people are out building snowmen, I will still sit back and enjoy the snow, and let it work it's magic on me...

To finish, here are some photos from February 2009's Snow Day:

Welcome to 2010!

Happy New Year!

Guess what my one and only New Year's resolution is this year? Keep my blog regularly updated! Actually, I hope to write far more frequently, not just on here, but also in my own personal diary, in my God book, and to keep churning out that fiction with the hope of turning into a long-term career in the future.

2009 was a great year. There was lots going on, and lots of exciting stuff happened. There were multiple engagements - these included ours :D There were 3 weddings - we attended the church service of one in January, the evening reception of one in August, and then we attended the whole day of one in June (see my blog entry on that one). Plenty of other stuff happened - my youngest brother started university, both my fiance and I got new jobs - he starts his this coming Monday. Quite a lot of difficult stuff happened in 2009 too, and the year didn't exactly go swimmingly in a lot of ways. Even so, there are plenty of happy memories to look back on, and there is lots of excitement for 2010.

I am looking forward to various things this year, an event in particular I am sure you can imagine :D For now, however, I am fighting that 'back to school' feeling with the impending return to work on Monday, by focusing on the things I have to look forward to this month. January is usually very tough for me, but I am attending a hen party next weekend, then in a couple of weeks I'll be staying with my uncle and auntie in Kent for a weekend, and then it's one of the upcoming weddings on the last Saturday of the month! There will be plenty of other things to enjoy as well, which will help me get through the tougher days. Also my fiance bought me a SAD lamp for Christmas, something which is helping with the lack of sunlight.

I wish you all a very bright and blessed 2010!