Life in a series of little film montages...

Wouldn’t life be great if the bad bits were nothing but a series of film montages? You know the bits in the movies where Rocky is in training really it is condensed into 3 minutes or when Doris Day in Calamity Jane gives her house a makeover in a total of about 2.34 minutes?

I usually approach the difficult stuff in life with the belief that it will pass by like this and then when it doesn’t, I get very disappointed.

Imagine how great it would be if a year of losing weight - all that going to the gym, eating lettuce for dinner and running the roads – could be condensed into 1.5 minutes of film.

Same goes I guess for raising difficult children, making curtains and cleaning the house.

That’s the kind of life I’d love.

Centre stage...

I've been spending way too much time thinking about tablecentres when I should really be making a decision about which dress I am going to order.

Two dresses - one with a top I want the other a bottom. Since that is not at all possible I'm going to have to choose one but really its a win-win situation. And I'm excited.

My maids also tried some dresses yesterday and we found one that made both of them look fabulous! Now I understand why some brides put their maids in naff dresses - I fear they may look better than me!

I've been thinking about dresses so much that last night I dreamt Mr M left me the day I was to order it. He is away to England working this week so I guess that's also factoring in my dreaming.

Anyway this morning all I want to think about it tablecentres. On a day trip to Bangor, Co Down at the beginning of the week I found pretty lanterns I could imagine on my tables. In Ikea that afternoon I picked up 30 tealight holders the same as I have at home, for only 39p each - 39p!

So hey presto with a little lace tape there and a paper flower here I came up with this:

And although it needs a lot of tweaking, tidying up and refining, it's looking like something I could love. That makes me very happy. And what's even better is that this little set up (at a grand total of £36.70 for candles and lanterns on 10 tables - yes that's £3.67 per table) would save us around £300 in flowers.

Pretty wedding buys...

Today I wanted to share with you some things I've been buying for the wedding.

The stationery has been a permanent fixture in my thoughts since the day I got engaged (and a little before!) and I've been designing and redesigning for the last year even though I have no decision yet on colour scheme. I came across this Etsy seller - Swann and Smerlin - from Ireland via Tinkerbelle's blog and fell in love with some of the things she had on sale. And with everything at a good price I couldn't resist.

I've loved the idea of binding my Order of Service (ceremony programme) with twine and so ordered some black and white to have a play with the samples.

I also ordered lace tape which was more beautiful in my hand that I imagined it would be. This was to be put on the front of the envelopes but now I've seen how pretty it is I don't know if I want to part with it.

The parcel, when it arrived, was so pretty and beautifully wrapped that it was an occasion in itself to open it. My family were watching me oooh-ing and ahh-ing with amusement - my Mum even called me a geek! It came with a lovely personal message and I'll happily buy from Odette again.

The next of the purchases was these padded hangers for my wedding dress and the bridesmaids dresses for getting ready photo taking. I read some advice that I should have pretty hangers for the photos or I would regret having plastic hangers in my photos for ever. I'm so happy with these and they only cost £1.50 each, with the 3rd one free when I bought 2. (Found here on ebay.)

And the most exciting of all - the Anthropologie mugs I've been lusting after for longer that I care to admit! At only £6 each I know they aren't overly expensive but every time I went to click on "buy" I told myself it was silly. But after seeing more and more pics on the web of them in other people's weddings I decided to go for it.


This is where they are also popped up and how they will hopefully look:

(Source: Ken Kienow)

(Source: Zofia Waig)

Save the dates...

I hadn't ever really meant to have save the dates for our guests because they might cause some confusion over who was invited and who wasn't. In our family only the aunts and uncles are invited to family weddings because there are so many cousins (my mum has 10 brothers and sisters and I have 30 full cousins on that side alone, never mind their partners and children) and that's the way its always been. However there may be 1 or 2 I want to invite who I am closest to and so save the dates were just going to be too controversial.

However Mr M has quite a few family members in USA who we wanted to invite and they would definitely need more than the standard 6-8 weeks' notice to book flights etc. Of course I was more than happy to design even more stationery so got to work.

This has obviously been anonomised so my apologies for any "feeling" that takes away from it.

They have definitely been inspired by stationery designers such as Wedding Paper Divas and Chocolate Butterbean who are both amazing and inspirational, so I want to make that clear from the start and they are for my personal use only. The bunting is a free template from The Wedding Chicks who have some amazing stationery templates available on their site.

I'd love to know what you think of them.

My "shake" came last night...

The "shake" I needed came last night when I went to visit my granny who is so ill at the moment that we, like her, are hoping she doesnt have to suffer for very much longer.
And it really puts it all in perspective doesn't it?

I've reassured myself that none of my guests will be at my parallel universe weddings and so will never know what they are missing out on. I've decided to be like Pamela Anderson who once said that she didn't like people to expect too much of her so that when they met her they would be suitably impressed by her intellect. I'm going to have to keep hush about all the things I plan in my head so my guests don't expect anything too impressive.

Tomorrow is my last day wedding dress shopping and thereafter a decision will be made and a return visit to one of the lucky shops.
My mum is my granny's full-time carer and these last few appointments have been made for her sake if nothing else, for if she weren't leaving to come with me she wouldn't ever take a break from caring.

I'll be happy when this decision is made so that I can move forward on the little details I love so much which can't be planned until a colour scheme and "feel" has been established.

My mum - who knows me all too well - has warned me that when the dress decision is made, I have forget about all others.

My weddings in my parallel universes...

I’ve always been an over-thinker.
Everything I enjoy gets thought about and thought about until it becomes a bit of a chore. So when I discover something new I research it to death and then it loses all its appeal.
This is what happened with my scrapbooking. I read so many blogs and searched through so many galleries that I lost confidence in what I was doing myself and it just didn’t compare to other people’s work.
Now I’m afraid it is starting with the wedding. I’ve always found it difficult to make decisions (this is where the researching comes in again) and the wedding ones have been the hardest. I’m trying to get the best suppliers I can get and then I’m having to compromise to fit the budget. Then I have regrets about settling. Then I reassure myself that when it is all over I’ll be glad I didn’t spend £2000 on a wedding DVD and then I panic that it would have been the best DVD ever.
I sort of wish I could start from scratch with my bookings.
I’m seeing all my weddings in my parallel universes and they don’t look like the one I’ve booked.
{sigh}
Will someone please give me a shake?

I am having sensory overload from all the wedding blogs at the moment and yet I can’t stop myself looking. I’m afraid I’m going to want to give up planning this wedding and yet I can’t stop myself looking.