Now onto the real juicy stuff. Wedding planning, probably 70% of the time I love it, the other 30% I want to email everyone I'm working with to plan it and tell them its off and we're going to Gretna Green (only 10 minutes from our house, so convenient!!). So these are some of the 'ugly sides' of wedding planning. I feel like you're really bombarded with posts and magazines that say wedding planning should be savoured and enjoyed in waves of champagne and cake tasting. Sometimes it's like that, sometimes it's shit and stressful and it is ALWAYS expensive.
Generalised Anxiety Disorder.
Woah, straight in with the big guns. I am an anxious person, I have anxiety. This is a big factor in what makes wedding planning feel stressful for me I think! I have tweeted a few times about wedding anxiety dreams Ive had, these started before we had even booked the wedding! I wake up shaking from nightmares that awful things have happened on the wedding day, the most ridiculous being that our venue had ripped us off and booked 3 weddings on the same day then to apologise to us they had booked a motorcycle wall of death as entertainment, yeah. That's not all though it can be really awful things that I worry about such as that people arent going to turn up when they've RSVP'd yes or that they're going to be hospitalised before the wedding and they can't come! All of this obviously could happen and you take it all in your stride on the day I'm sure, GAD just makes it really hard to rationalise that.
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| Our matching flip flops because our shoes cut our feet to shreds. |
A few weeks ago my Mum and I went wedding dress shopping, can I be honest and say my dress is what I was most excited about getting for the day? So that's how giddy we were to go shopping. Our first shop was AMAZING, they made us feel at home, she was lovely and knew what dresses to pull for me from my random jumbled ideas of what I wanted. ("I want to be able to move, I mean I like lace but not too much lace, I just want to be comfortable, but I want to feel like a princess kind of.") So yeah, that's the shop I bought my dress from.
After a large cheese filled meal and a good few cocktails we headed off to the next place and it. was. horrible. It started off nicely, it was a beautiful building, but then as soon as we were shown to our 'private dressing room' I started to have my doubts. It was just a bit shabby. The woman offered us prosecco, of course we said yes, and she brought us what me and my Mum can only ascertain was LAMBRINI! I am still shocked at the audacity to try and pull that off, it's hilarious honestly. The woman looking after us was just a bit rude she kept talking about 'girls of your size' (I'm a 16, the national average) and trying to make me up my already sizeable budget. She didn't help me pick out any dresses to try on, just left us to it, the only advice she gave was to 'avoid that wall over there, they're too expensive for you'.
When I was trying the dresses on she just hoiked me into them in front of my mum and then stood me in front of the mirror with a 'Well?'. It was just such a sharp contrast to the first place where she got me into the dress and brought me through to my mum, dressed me up with a veil and accessories to really see how the dresses looked. That made all the difference because, for me at least, I couldn't really see myself as a bride until I had the veil on and everything.
This is going to be the longest section but this lady also was sooooo pressurising for me to buy a dress I didn't even really like! She was trying to tell me it was being discontinued in a week so I really needed to order today, and I would need some of the shoes they sold here to go with it because then it wouldn't need any alteration. She scoffed and asked how tall Sam was when I said I would be wearing flats. Wow.
That was like some kind of bridal therapy getting all that off my chest!! I feel like I can't name the shop but if anyone is getting married and shopping for dresses in Carlisle, feel free to tweet me or something and I'll tell you the shop then to know where to avoid!
Money!!
We all know that weddings are expensive, I'm not going to moan about that. What I am going to moan about is the perception from certain people that because you're not instantly booking/buying something it's because you can't afford it. So strange! It's not a perception I've come across before but it's happened a few times with shopping. The most notable was when we went looking for wedding rings, it was our first look so were just getting a feel for the rings. I said this to the woman after actually falling in love with a ring, just because I was trying to be sensible and not jump into things! She then said 'oh we offer finance if you don't have the money to buy it today'. It was maybe meant innocently but both Sam and I were shocked by the assumption that we couldn't afford it just because we didn't jump to buy. Very strange.
Hormones, yay!!!
I wasn't going to bother with this section as I know millions of people just put up with hormones and all those lady changes everyday however when you're wedding planning (for certain aspects) it feels like it really heightens things. For example, I went wedding dress shopping, then a few days later I went to order my dress and be measured etc, I was due for a visit from Aunt Flo and the dress I had previously tried on was now a whole size too small!! It's just crazy to me how much the body changes through the month. Another breakdown that I can only blame on hormones involves me counting the weeks and realising that if I became pregnant accidentally THIS EXACT WEEK then my due date would probably be the wedding date. Yeah, cut to me sat on the bathroom floor with a pregnancy test, 3 days before my period was due panicking because OMG we would have to cancel the wedding to have a baby! Nice.
Politics.
The most political thing you will ever do is plan a wedding guest list. It feels like you're negotiating a deal between countries, neither of which you would ever dare to offend. I've had panic attacks about the fact that some people I'm not inviting will probably decide that it's me cut off when they're not invited. I know that some people will be offended that they're only invited to the evening. I almost lost it when I decided to have less bridesmaids than I had originally planned to save money on the budget. (Thankfully before they had been asked!) It's all difficult, thankfully, we are paying for it ourselves so our families kind of don't have pull on the whole 'why aren't you inviting this couple who knew you when you were 2 but are now kind of racist and problematic and you hate talking to them?' that's a bit satisfying to be able to say no, I'm not buying them 4 drinks and a 3 course meal plus hot evening buffet thanks Mum.
I am remembering the most important part, that we will be married after this. We love each other so much that we've decided to get the government involved. I am so excited for this lovely chap to be my husband, and I know we'll have magical day. I just want to show that if you're not particularly enjoying certain aspects of wedding planning, that is totally normal. Now let me get back to browsing Etsy and Not on the High Street for all the fun bits! Thanks for reading my ramble.
