Bride Blog

if you are a bride-to-be who would like to share your planning ideas and photos, then please start a bride blog with us or link us to your existing bride blog. Alternatively, if you're already married why not re-live your special day (we know you want to!) and create a bride blog with your precious memories and photos to show others how it should be done! To create a new bride blog please email us at blog@planningyourwedding.co.uk and we will help you get started.

---

Clare Abraham's wedding blog posts

Follow Clare's journey as she shares with you the run up to her big day from
the day of the proposal:

 

3rd June 2010

Not Long now.......

Only 10 weeks until the wedding...

Only 5 weeks until the baby comes...

Did I mention we are moving?

You'll be please to know that I have almost finished sorting things out. I know, leave it till the last minute Clare.......
ANYWAY........ I have sent out some of the invitations. Paid the deposit for a really cool Vintage bus to take the guests to Crowborough and back to Groombridge. I've sorted out the reception. We are going to have ' High Tea' on the Spar Valley Train and hopefully there will be Morris Dancers to entertain the guests on the platform before we chug along to Tunbridge Wells station.
 
Today I ordered Shannon's and his Best Man, Phil's suits for the wedding. I found this really cool website called www.hireweardirect.co.uk where you can hire everything from the suits and shoes right down to the cuff links. (Which they give you as a gift. Don't let Phil know though as this will be his Special 'Bestmans' prezzie!!).
 
We've chosen Lounge suits for a relaxed look, with silver waistcoat, tie and hankie. I will give the boys a big pink flower for their lapels to match my posy. We chose two suits, two waistcoats, two hankies, two pairs of shoes, two ties, two shirts and two sets of cuff links and delivery for a bargain price of £178. (When I say we, you know what I mean...)

I've included a few photos so you can get a better idea of the pink I'm going for and what the bus and train look like:

     

 

27th April 2010

It's much more fun looking at wedding magazines than actually trying to put a wedding together!

Okay, I've bought my dress.
I went with my mum and sister to try on different styles, but couldn't really decide what suited me, short cream ones made my legs look fat, long cream ones made me look to wide, so I thought I'd look at getting a dress that was a different colour, silver I thought would look stylish and modern. So my mum picked a blue one from Coast, well I came away with nothing. Then one day I just happened to be in Laura Ashley at Lakeside, browsing the aisle as one does and there was a shining beacon of light calling to me....  there it was, in both my sizes, the dress I knew was for me and it fit like a dream. So I bought it for a bargain price of ..... £40.... I KNOW! Funny thing is, it looks like a longer version of one I'd picked out of a Wedding magazine that was priced at £1,700. I love a bargain.
 
Well you can imagine, as I was at Lakeside I popped into a few other shops, as you do. I went into Monsoon and came out with two dresses for my 12 year old daughter to choose from, both half price. They are made of silk with a silver back ground and beautiful greens, blues and pinks all around.
(I've gone for the bold colours of the Peacock with a hint of bright pink in the flowers). I then popped into a very cheap shop and bought two peacock feather hair slides for both my girls hair.
 
Here are some photo's of the things I am actually, really going to have.

 

   

I did ask Shannon what he thought of the colour scheme etc....... His response was 'Honey, do you really want my input? I don't mind what colours we have, I just want to marry you.'
 
Now for give me, but is that a cop out or what?

 

14th April 2010

Had a massive panic today as I've just realised I actually have nothing done.......... yes, yes, I know I said I'd sorted everything, but, have you seen those list they put in the Wedding magazines telling you what you need to do and when?
Hire a wedding planner, book a videographer, book entertainment, take care of your hair! (is something going to happen to it then?) begin fitness regime...... What fitness regime? EEK

I have managed to put a scrapbook together of pretty things though. Like a cute vintage Italian Ice cream van, yep need that. A Vintage Double Decker London bus to take guests to venues, yep need that. Light up dance floor.... defiantly need that.
Not only do I have a very incomplete tick list, we sold the pub & tea rooms and Im pregnant.
Which means no venue, no chef and a baby due 4 weeks before we get married.
 
Only 4 months to go..........

 

31st July 2009

OMG, it's finally happened, Shannon asked me to marry him, the day after his sisters wedding, the old romantic!
We have a £5000 budget, and we're hoping to go for an old fashioned garden party/vintage style wedding with lots of bunting, vintage china, relaxed atmosphere and plenty of sunshine. The date is set for 14th August 2010.

Being the super organised person i am, by the end of that following week i had everything organised, yep, really i had. I'd found The venue (Our pub garden and tea room for the Vintage look i wanted) – the food (our chef) – the transport (A friend who owns a Morris minor for the transport for me and the bridesmaids and a vintage coach for the guest to get to Crowborough registry office and back to Groombridge. Plus The Spa Valley Railway for the mini reception) AND when i went to visit Crowborough reg office I found my photographer too, Andrew Newson. Being a wedding photographer myself, i wanted someone who could take photo's like i did, capture the emotions of the day, sort of photo journalism really. Fortunately for me he was free that day. (That's what happens when you are OCD, i mean super organised!)

 

 

---

Clare Grant's wedding blog posts

Here Clare shares with you the run up to her big day:

Six weeks before
Today I was digging through my wedding folder looking for a receipt (The Groom is a diligent budgeter; I'm not, so I spend half my life hunting for misfiled receipts). I came across a piece of paper dated three days after he proposed. It's a list of what we expected from our wedding day.
My column was all: "Have my hair done specially by a hairdresser" and "Walk down the aisle to Mendelssohn NOT Wagner" and "Pretty shoes" (with three exclamation marks. And some hearts.)
There were three items on The Grooms column. "New suit" and "Give speech and say how lovely my wife is" And: "I am going to lift your veil and you are going to look beautiful" The veil! How could I have forgotten the veil? We'd talked about it but then I hadn't actually done anything about it.
I called my mother. Yes, the veil worn by her and my grandmother was waiting for me, safe in the camphor wood chest. And she'd been wondering when I would ask about it.
I'm so glad we made that list all those months ago. I moved it to the front of the folder. And added a few more hearts and exclamation marks.


Five weeks before
Why is The Bride standing in the kitchen with tears pouring down her face? The Groom is mystified. "Darling girl, whats the matter?"
I point to the radio, which is playing Vaughn Williams Linden Lea. "Oh," he says. "Thats on the music list, isnt it."
The wedding is going to be a tearful occasion for me. It'll be adrenalin and sadness and happiness all mixed into this great up-welling of emotion. At first, it seemed too awful to think about crying in front of all those people and messing up my vows. "You're going to be mainlining Rescue Remedy on the day," predicted my bridesmaid gloomily.
But now, with a month to go, I can accept I will stumble over my vows, and that mascara isnt going to work for me ("Oh, dont you worry about that," said my beautician. "I can tint your eyelashes for you.")
More than mascara, it's about honesty. Honesty is one of the values that underpins a marriage, and if I try to stop myself from feeling what I'm feeling while we're actually making our marriage, what does that say about my intentions?
And all those people watching: they're fond of us, and they're not going to mock anyone's tears.


Four weeks before
I got the call yesterday. The dress is done. "Come at ten," says the dressmaker.
I hurry over to her house with the padded hanger I've been saving for this, and a dress bag. I cant stop grinning.
The dress is hanging in her living room. "Try it on?' I'm so excited that I'm undressing before she's even shut the curtains. I'm wearing my wedding undies for the very first time.
I drop the dress over my head. It rustles and swooshes. She zips it up and it fits perfectly. I pick up the hem and admire the tiny stitches. "All by hand," she says. "It's a beautiful dress. And lovely fabric. You made a good choice."
I hand over the wad of notes, and we count them.
"Thank you. Make sure you send me a photograph. I want to see how it looks on the day."
I walk back through town, clasping my dress bag. Im still smiling. I want to tell complete strangers: "I've got my wedding dress right here and I'm getting married."


Three weeks before
I found my shoes today. I was on my way to a networking event, and I took a short cut through the shopping centre. I was early, so I grabbed the opportunity to check out a few shops. And there they were: my wedding shoes in our wedding colours, and well under budget.
At the meeting, I tucked my shopping bag under the table. The format was a show and tell: one guy had just finished a new iPhone app; someone talked about the best format for business cards; another had some stunning photos on his laptop. "Anyone else?"
The shoe box pressed against my knee, and I wanted to pipe up: "My shoes. Ive got my wedding shoes. Look at my beautiful wedding shoes, everyone. Look." But I didnt, because I was afraid of being referred to as "The Shoe Woman" for the rest of my life.


Two weeks before
On the day we meet the photographer, the sky and the air are clear after a wet night.
She insisted on meeting us at 1pm, the time of the wedding. "I want to see where the suns going to be."
We walk round the back to the garden, and are surprised by the autumn colours – we've only seen the venue by night because we hadn't much thought about outdoor pictures. I just assumed, with it being a winter wedding, that it would pour with rain and get dark in the middle of the afternoon. The photographer smiles. "We might have some of these leaves left."
She has thought of at least a dozen things that never occurred to me: "Have you got a pair of flat shoes for crossing the lawn? And what about a pretty umbrella?"
It's been the same with all the other suppliers: each one had their own tips. The florist tactfully directed me away from a difficult colour choice. The hairdresser helped us to timetable the morning. As the Groom says, "It's amazing how much more confident you feel when you've got someone who's done it all before holding your hand."

 

Planning Your Wedding in Surrey, East Sussex, Kent, West Sussex and Essex