Vintage Crockery

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Returned from our trip to see the wedding venue and catching up with old friends with a local wedding magazine. I had picked it up earlier in the weekend with a thought that it might provide some useful local contacts and I am glad that I did, for in it I found these beautiful vintage crockery photographs and the company, The English Tea Party, which hires them.

A quick peek at the website and the idea is settling in my mind: vintage country crockery to be mixed in with the more modern classic crockery we were thinking of hiring. The prices are similar. Or, I could spend the next year collecting vintage crockery at fairs, fetes, charity shops and eBay and do it myself. Sorry, that should be the next 9 months - time is running by at an alarming speed.

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Images from http://www.theenglishteaparty.co.uk/

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Don't the patterns just look so pretty together? A real mish-mash of colours and styles but somehow so gorgeous. I will obviously have to check with my boy though: he likes our Tiffany blue vintage crockery that we use everyday but he might not be so keen on vintage floral on the day. I do so hope he likes the idea though.

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Up or Down?

{Image from Stylemepretty}

Hair up or hair down? Not something I have given a huge amount of thought but at the weekend I met another bride-to-be, and as one does, got chatting. We were joined by my sister-in-law-to-be (what a mouthful) who has long blonde hair. "I love your hair" said the bride-to-be to her, "I wish mine could be that long for my wedding" and they proceeded to discuss hairstyles as her with the long blonde hair had got married only a few months prior. And then they both turned to me.

"How are you wearing yours?" they asked? "Well, I hadn't given it much thought" I replied. And then I was told that I simply must "wear it up, you look so elegant with it up. You have to". So that's me told...

Perhaps a simple bun (image above) or perhaps a pleat (below) but it will depend I think on what sort of veil I wear - birdcage ideas progressing but rather slowly, that net is a little tricky to bunch into a shape which doesn't make one's head look like it is caught in a shrimping net - and whether I choose to keep the veil on for the reception as well.

{Image from Stylemepretty}

The one thing I think I am clear on though is that I shall be doing my hair on the morning. I might go to the hairdressers before the wedding for a cut and colour but in general I do not find hairdressers relaxing or peaceful and I usually avoid them unless absolutely necessary. The fact that they also charge an eye-watering amount of money doesn't help, nor did my run in with one before a ball last year (I booked one thing, they offered something subtly different on the day, to which I agreed and then tried to charge me twice as much. I refused - their comment "we don't know what the customer has booked when she sits in the chair". My response - "good job I wasn't expecting it to be coloured then"). So the chosen style must be simple enough for me to do myself. I don't think either of the above styles will prove too much of a challenge although curls might just tip me over the edge into hair style insanity.

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Began filling in the Archbishop's Licence form last night which reminded me of countless job application forms: you are so paranoid about putting the wrong response in the essay box that you forget how to spell your own name. Thankfully filling in almost 100 applications has left me in good stead that Rachel is spelt with only one 'a'. I have yet to write the essay which will convince Dr Williams why M and I should marry in our university chapel but once I have done that it has to be sent to the Chaplain who must also write his own essay, including providing evidence that he is happy that both our families consent to the marriage. Then we must part with £145 (I wonder which fund this benefits: are marriage licences paying for the roof of Westminster Abbey?) and then a further £5 for the swearing of an affidavit if good old Dr Williams is convinced by our arguments. Still, I suppose we shall marry in the explicit knowledge that the Archbishop of Canterbury personally thinks our marriage is a decent prospect...

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Off to visit the proposed venue on Sunday. We last saw it in glorious sunshine on possibly the best day of the year so I suppose it would be best if it was 'issing' (word taken from a mother's account of her daughter's wedding 2 weeks ago) with rain so we can see what to expect should the weather be inclement on our 'big day'. Mentioned to our proposed caterer that we were planning the trip and would pay him his deposit once the venue deposit had been paid - no good having a caterer but no venue - and he wondered if we would like to meet him at the same time. Was very impressed by his service and it will be good to meet him before we agree to the catering and he can double check the venue is suitable for him. Obviously a visit to the venue means a return to our university town for the weekend and a chance to party nostalgically at my favourite night club with a few friends who never made it home from the place which I moved to 8 years ago this coming month. How time flies.

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Inspiration Returns?

No sooner had I posted my insecure ramblings about my feeling squashed by wedding planning than my RSS feed popped up to say that Cara from Peonies & Polaroids had finally published something since she got married 2 weeks ago! I mean, even in a cafe with wifi access when checking the weather forecast I dropped onto her blog to see if she'd had a good day. So I was sad to read that something had happened to spoil or at least mean her day was less than perfect. But like all good blog writers she doesn't elaborate and we shall have to return over and over again to see what it was... Still, I wish her many congratulations and hope that it wasn't too traumatic and also to thank her for posting a link to some other blogs to lift my inspirations.

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Back Home...

...after a lovely week off the coast of Southern Brittany with Mum, Dad and my youngest sister. Was slightly strange thought that it would be my last family holiday as a 'single' woman. M did not join us so it really was a family trip except for the fact that my other sister currently lives in Australia and did not join us. We spent a lovely week pottering around the harbours, marinas, islands and beaches in the Bay of Quiberon, sunbathing, sailing, reading, reminiscing. Dad kept remembering occasions when I had done something funny aged 2 or 3 and he kept regaling them to shrieks of laughter and pleaded requests not to use them in his speech next summer. At each one he merely smiled and remarked "I think it will go down rather well, actually".

So I flew back to England last Sunday and despite a gorgeous sunny flight over the solent and the south of England with a patchwork of fields ready for harvest, the sun has not showed its warmth or light since. It has been hard to muster the energy to get involved with wedding planning again, I have to say. We received an engagement present and despite opening it 3 days ago the nearest I have come to writing the thank you card is to dig out the box of notelets.

I feel rather bogged down in all the details. On Sunday we are visiting the venue again and shall take the photographs to show to Mum & Dad to enable us all to decide on which lawn we should place the marquee. The licence application form has arrived from the Archbishops Office which must be completed and then forwarded to the Chaplain for him to add his pleadings. Quite why the Archbishop of Canterbury should care why we wish to hold our wedding in a chapel and then have some kind of ability to prevent this is beyond my grasp but as it is a 'non parish church' it is permission we must have. That and part with £145 for his blessing. I mean, the chapel holds services every Sunday in term time - it's not as if we want to get married in a fire station.

Final decisions need to be made on the guest list so we can send the save the date cards. Save the date cards have not yet been made. Bookings will have to be finalised before the cards can be made as I am not re-writing 120 cards. I can so see why people have wedding planners...

Back presently with something more interesting and inspirational soon I hope.

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BirdCage Veil Ideas

Still experimenting with ideas for a diy birdcage veil. I think the shape of this is nice but too bulky and needs more than a pin to hold the edges together and disguise the netting a little bit. I hope to use feathers and flowers together on mine. But we shall see...

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I think the netting needs to come down a little further over the face as it is essentially a hairpiece not a veil but doesn't the white netting look fab against her dark hair.

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All images from stylemepretty.com (I cannot work out who took them)

Marriage Service

Received an e-mail from the Rev'd who is conducting our service with definite confirmation of the time and date and location of the service. I started reading the marriage service on the Church of England website and felt myself becoming slightly emotional. It all seems a bit more real now and I am looking forward to it so much. I cannot wait for our forever to start officially.

We now have to choose hymns and readings and prayers and organ music. We have asked a very good friend of ours from university to play her 'cello during the signing of the register and co-incidentally she e-mailed me about an hour after the chaplain to suggest a piece that she could play.

I rather like this reading from Song of Solomon 2.10-13; 8.6,7:-

"My beloved speaks and says to me: 'Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtle dove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth its figs,and the vines are in blossom;they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.

'Set me as a seal upon your heart,as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire,a raging flame. Many waters cannot quench love,neither can floods drown it. If one offered for love all the wealth of one's house, it would be utterly scorned."

but I have no idea whether M likes it or not. We are also allowed to have a non-biblical reading I believe. I very much like this passage from Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway:-

"At night, there was the feeling that we had come home, feeling no longer alone, waking in the night to find the other one there, and not gone away; all other things were unreal. We slept when we were tired and if we woke the other one woke too so one was not alone. Often a man wishes to be alone and a woman wishes to be alone too and if they love each other they are jealous of that in each other, but I can truly say we never felt that. We could feel alone when we were together, alone against the others. We were never lonely and never afraid when we were together."

But there is plenty more time to fall in love with some other readings...

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Back Soon

It has not been a good week. I think I have caught a virus from a client; I have been shivery and tired and unable to make any decisions. I hope that the two week break in communication from our wedding vendors is not going to be a problem. But I just can't face trying to work out how many chairs we shall need. Hopefully once I return from my hols at the end of August I shall feel rejuvenated.

In other news, my usual round of facebook wedding stalking did not offer up things for the don't list. Except, well, price. Some of the weddings I viewed this week were a little out of my price range. £30,000 minimum spend on venue hire is a little more than I hope to pay for the entire wedding...

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