I'm back!

Well, I'm back. Ring on finger and head firmly out of the clouds I have come back to reality with a bump!

And you know what; I think I'm here to stay. Just because I'm not still planning a wedding it doesn't mean I don't have to stop. There are plenty of amazing blog sites out there which help you plan your wedding and I won't be competing with that. However I might just be having a go at helping you over the bumpy bits both pre and post 'I do'.

BF (now Dr L as his cover is about to be spectacularly broken) and I had the most incredible day. Here are a few pictures for you to see how we did it.

What do you think? Did I manage to look calm and controlled?

Heck yeah! I had the best day ever. Not only did it not pass in a flash but I remember every last second of it. Proof that embracing your inner Bridezilla and dealing with her calmly makes your day just as awesome as if you pretended you were gliding through everything stress free.

Enjoy and I'll be back with a post next week!




Need a quirky way to display your table names?
Why not use ceramic pens (from Hobbycraft) on plates collected from boot fairs,
decorative wall paper and some excellent 'dad in law' DIY skills making it up?



Marks and Spencer wedding cake with some sugar
craft additions made an awesome, mid budget cake



              

Our theme was our favourite authors. Each table had two books
to show people where to sit. Try Abe books for good second hand deals. 

Dr L and his Best Man Matt looking dashing in their
home made cravats - made inexpertly by moi!



  

Beg, borrow and steal pretty lanterns. Magical at night.
Sweetie tables are a must especially when you can
get custom made bags made up on Ebay from £5 for 50.



The Bridesmaids and Flowergirl with a bit of Autumn colour popping in their bouquets from Daisy Chain!

A rather over enthusiastic confetti shower. My advice....don't give out too much confetti! Bought on Ebay here.

Mr Selfridge's Car from Odd's Car hire. Love love love.

The much debated shoes. Comfortable and well worn on Honeymoon.

 

Wedding Beer festival? 100% success.

It Fits!

Despite nearly being sick in the changing room, I would just like to say that the dress fits! I went out and had a well deserved comfit of duck leg with creamy potatoes, ate half a packet of gluten free chocolate fingers and had a glass or five of wine. But I will be back on it this week.

 Also, I have chosen my shoes and they have wings on them. Now they are a pair of wedding shoes with a difference. Buy them here.

To give or receive?

I have discussed traditions in weddings somewhat in the past few blog entries, but I began getting interested in one particular one when BF asked for something which is distinctly non traditional. 

My colleague (and friend) K has just announced her own engagement which happened while she was away in the mystical orient with her boyfriend. She is defying tradition, not by having a small wedding, but because she will not be changing her name to her partner’s, for both professional and personal reasons.

Which I think is entirely sensible. 

"I hope it's mine"

Names were changed originally not merely to imply ownership of the female partner in the ‘good old days’, but also to ensure continuous heredity through the male line. This has always seemed an impractical way of doing things in my mind. Any woman could pass off a child as a different man’s than her husband, but it takes particular cunning for her to pass off another woman’s child as her own. What with all the carrying and birthing etc. it doesn’t matter who the father was, you can see when a woman is pregnant and watch the birth to ensure you know what line it carries. Paternity tests in the Middle Ages were harder to prove. The Queen doesn’t change her surname for work reasons; why should we ordinary folk have to? 

Mr and Mrs Pratt?

My Aunt and Uncle both have doctorates with different surnames for professional  reasons, and have found it a pain on occasions when they are put in a twin bedroom and even at times, separate rooms because hoteliers assume they are not a couple. I can see why it is practical to take your husband’s name. I hugely respect my Aunt’s and K’s decision to keep their professional surname AND all my friends who have all become Mrs XYZ. What did emancipation and the vote give us after all but the right to a choice in these things?

Another consideration is taking on the new name if you don’t like it. Another friend with her wedding in the pipeline (they are dropping like diamond encrusted flies at the moment into engagements) hates her future surname. I can understand that. I once went out with a man called Mr Pratt and remember thinking before we’d even gone on a first date (pointless worrying, as it was a no go from 3 seconds after meeting him) that he’d have to change his name to mine eventually if it went well. I would never be Mrs Pratt.

BF would like me to take his name. My name sounds rather pretty with his surname and frankly my father’s surname, despite being a very old name, has enough little curly haired tots carrying it on already. I’ll change it for him because he would like me to. I am ambivalent and am happy to keep my own name or change it. Why should it therefore bother me?

And this is when he surprised me. Also, he said, he wanted an engagement ring please. I hadn't even thought a man would WANT an engagement ring. I laughed it off until i realised he was serious. I was surprised (BF isn't the type to wear jewellery in my mind) but it seemed fair enough. I got one after all; why shouldn’t he? 

So I went on Etsy, the only place where I could track down a ring in the metal he wanted. This was Niobium – a super conductive element  named after Niobe of Ancient Greece (famous for boasting about her children in front of the Gods who then killed them all), and which happens to be the metal he wrote part of his Pd.D. thesis on. Did I mention BF is a Dr of Clever Stuff? Lucky I am not one too if I go by my Aunt’s experience.

He also wanted it in purple.

I don’t know what my feelings on this were – well, I know what they were on the purple, but I mean the ring itself. Practically, his ring was comparably cheap compared to mine despite the fact that I had to have it commissioned specially. I had his ring size from our wedding ring file so that was easy. It also turned out that his brother and dad both had engagement rings; I liked this. It was an L family tradition, and one day it might even be something we passed on to our own kids, or our nieces and nephews if the kid thing never happened. Plus it is an intensely personal gift with a lot of happy associations. 

£120 Male Engagement Ring, H Samuel

Male engagement rings. What a lovely, if slightly untraditional, idea to pledge your troth before marriage on both sides – especially if you have a long engagement in front of you. 

£3500 Male
Engagement rings, Beeverbrooks

And more common than you might think. Smooch (the company we eventually bought our wedding rings with) told me that they often sell male engagement rings and that the number of rings they are selling with diamonds and other precious stones in them is on the rise steadily. Now the high street are getting in on it with H Samuel and Beaverbrook to name a few selling male engagement rings. Ascending to a mind blowing £3500 for a platinum diamond ring (although most are around the £300-800 range) they are yet another wedding accoutrement which may soon turn into a ‘must have’ item. I got off lightly with Niobium by the looks of it, although H Samuel has one as low at £75.

£75 Tioro Male Engagement ring, H Samuel 

Also, looking at some of these rings, how will a man wear it? A woman slips her wedding ring on under her engagement ring; both items tend to be fairly slim and dainty. Men’s rings are bigger, heavier and bulkier in the main. A man surely can’t fit all of that metal on his hand? This Daily Mail article (no, I am not a reader but the article is relevant!) by Sara Nelson states that the ring will be transferred to the right hand when the wedding band is placed on the left hand. Most men will therefore go from wearing no jewellery to having it on both hands within a year or so. And if a woman proposes first to her man and buys him a ring, does she get a ring as well after the proposal has been made? Are two rings to be the standard? It’s opened up a mind boggling can of wedding etiquette worms for me.

Another friend and his boyfriend also recently got engaged (not all of my friends are planning weddings you know). They are (obviously both being men) not a heterosexual couple. I asked him how they did the whole ‘ring’ thing. Both saw wedding rings they liked but neither wanted to wear two rings. So R had a wonderful two piece necklace made for his proposal and his BF proposed with the ring that R wanted for his wedding ring. R has bought him an engagement ring in return and they will then use both rings as their wedding rings. Simples.  

Anyway, back to the niobium ring. I had it made and shipped (HMRC you are horrible people charging me so much extra customs charge from the US) and I proposed to BF romantically in the pasty section of M&S Food services on the A34. There was no element of mocking involved. Well, maybe a bit.

Our engagement rings

A few weekends later when he went to Prague for his friend’s Stag Do though, I think I got it. There was a certain, despicable part of me that rather LIKED the fact that BF had a stamp saying ‘taken’. In the main, it was a badge to other women which said he ‘belonged’ to someone just as my ring was my personal ‘taken’ badge to other men.

Is this how men feel when they give us an engagement ring? Do they feel the same smug, odd emotions of possession and belonging that I did when BF put his own ring on?

It’s an interesting post-modern question – why are women who balk at changing their name for philosophical and feminist reasons happy to have this symbol of unity and implicit ownership on their finger? Do men feel the same way about wearing one? Is there an inherent ownership which comes with an engagement ring in the same way as changing your name does, or are these merely the husks of once important, legal and symbolic traditions?

Whatever you think (and here comes what I always say) it’s your choice. And who has the right to judge what you decide to do as a couple? No-one. You do what the heck you want!

For me it is not a stamp of ownership to either of us, but one of pride. I love seeing his ring on his finger and he says he feels the same way. That can’t be bad. So here’s to new traditions, even if they are going to push your budget up even higher!

Bridezilla and how she exists in the first place

BF proposed mariage to me a few days ago. This is highly exciting. 

I could never envisage how he would have done it. BF down on one knee doesn’t seem right somehow. Then on a non descript Thursday, about to go to bed (and after some searching questions about whether he was planning to propose at our cancelled dinner that night) he turned around to me while I was reading and asked “Will you Marry Me’. And I said yes. He put the ring on my finger, we both had a cry and then spent the next fifteen minutes feeling a bit amazed, excited and….well, a bit funny.

This isn't even an unusual proposal. I helped my brother when he proposed to my sister-in-law by driving from Kent to Somerset with a bottle of champagne and a bunch of sunflowers, following them in a trench coat and trilby (I was a bit dramatic at the time) up a long, steep hill then hiding it all in a prominent spot. My sister-in-law saw my brother make a bee-line for the flowers and told him he shouldn't go over there as obviously someone had died on that spot. I was sitting down the hill meanwhile chatting to a couple who were having an affair and meeting secretly. I wonder what happened to them…

Unusual proposals include dressing your newborn in a onesie reading ‘Will You Marry my Daddy?’, carving ‘Will you Marry me’ in a Pumpkin (in BF’s handwriting this would not work), recording ‘Will you Marry me’ in a Build a Bear, shouting it out while sky diving, spelling it out in shells when on a helicopter ride….my god the list is endless. My recently friend actually asked her intended, ‘What are you doing down there you dick head’ before she realized he was proposing.

Women can ask men to marry them, traditionally however this was only meant to happen on a leap year as anyone who lost 90 minutes of their life watching the film ‘Leap Year’ will know.

Debretts (who have a whole website devoted to etiquette when it comes to exchanging vows) state that the “location should be memorable and the timing should be carefully thought through…remember there can be no truly offensive way to ask someone to marry you.”

Oh contraire.  

No-one can doubt that BF are a great couple – of course we have our bickering fits and sometimes I want to kill him. But then we also have moments when we get so overwhelmed with love, we have a little cry. So, it’s not like I am one of those women who expect the wedding without the groom. But it had hit us that we were ENGAGED. Actually, properly engaged. To be married. Going from talking about it to doing it was actually terrifying. We were going to actually plan a wedding.

I never thought I'd get married at all so planning a wedding came as something of a shock.

I was twenty nine when I met BF. It was at our mutual best friend’s wedding. I was a bridesmaid, he was an usher. I had brought another date and then caught the bouquet and wound up snogging both of them on the beach before going back to my room with the date. Luckily BF is very open-minded and didn’t think it horrendously forward when I Facebooked him a week later and the rest is history. I never had proper boyfriends before BF. Lots of ‘nearly boyfriends’ and dates, but nothing that lasted past five months.

I have been a bridesmaid seven times (this was Bridesmaid Wedding No seven). Seven different dresses worn, five hen do’s organised, two speeches given and more champagne than I know what to do with has passed through my urinary tract. So I know weddings. Oh yes. I have had the brides ring me up and screech (and screeched back, mainly truthfully) when they got engaged. I doted over the ring. I have even pretended on a few occasions that I liked the groom (mercifully on retrospect this has not happened when I have been a bridesmaid). I have been happy for a lot of people, which is not quite the same thing as being happy for yourself.

Actually there are a lot of pro’s about being single. Being single is fun. But weddings while single? Don’t even get me started on the whole ‘plus one’ thing (finding one or being told you can’t have one). And having to find the money to get to places, to stay in the hotels, afford a present, afford the HEN DO, let alone the wedding itself….. I used to dread the inevitable ‘four a year’ invites arriving (while being very happy for friends FYI in case I sound really ungrateful). It did not help that at the time I was an aspiring artist and couldn’t afford a new pair of jeans. Let alone two nights in a boutique B&B with sea views and shoes in a specific colour requested by a tired, overwrought bride who is trying to organize her big day while holding down a full time job AND keeping her mother –in-law happy.

You can see why I am feeling a bit funny. Suddenly I have gone from badgering him (and boy, did I badger BF. I am amazed the man has been as patient as he has - I have nicknamed it 'Miss Piggying' after the recent Muppets movie) to having a wonderful ring on my finger. I have fallen in love with diamonds – driving home I get lost in their clear, watery glimmer – never wise on the A34. I am also planning the most political, expensive and potentially offensive event of my life to plan. And now I know. It is as if the scales have fallen from my eyes.

This is why those women went mad! This is why they got that weird glint in their eyes when we went dress shopping! This was why they sounded stressed when I got pissy about the £300 hen do and having to buy a new pair of shoes, and when I was horrifically moody about what monstrous frock they were planning to stuff me in. Holy shoot, now I can see how Bridezilla is made!

She starts out feeling excited and full of good hope in the begin. But bit by bit, she is ground down. She has a full time job, potentially a man who cares too little/much/won’t support her ideas for a twenty foot ice sculpture of the two of them etc. and she starts to fold under the pressure. Bit by bit this sane, calm woman begin to fall away like the outside of a melted Easter Egg. And from the wreckage of her inner peace comes the ‘Zilla. Monstrous to all around her. Maybe even to herself. But driven to do one thing and one thing only. HAVE THE BEST AND MOST WONDERFUL DAY OF HER, I MEAN THEIR, LIFE!!!!!! (count the frenetic exclamation marks there – they are there on purpose my friend). And everything has to be perfect. Everything. Down to the last hair, the last favour, the last flower.

I am here to help myself and you through this tangled, woven path. I don't believe in the art of Zen wedding. I don't think it's a real thing. I think the arguments, the tantrums, the fights and the stress is all part of the wonderful human package you get when you through many different personalities, numerous bank balances, several opinions on what makes a 'good wedding' and the expectations of most of your friends and family.

So here I stand on the brink of planning my wedding. I am scared, I am nervous and I am excited! Most of all though, I am terrified.