Oh-so-cliché

I’ve been having nightmares for a few weeks now, often more than one a night. The dreams are always me and Rob arguing to the point of screaming at each other until one of us – usually me, runs away. In my dreams we never get the chance to resolve the fight. I’ve woken up in tears on more than one occasion and had to fight the urge to call him to check we are still on speaking terms. Ironically if I did wake him at 3am we’d probably end up in a tiff!

I’ve always had incredibly vivid dreams that often can’t be untangled from memory and affect my mood all day. Although after these current episodes I can wake in a tizz, they don’t hang around. I believe because I know they are stemming from anxieties of which I’m fully aware – wedding organisation for one. Which is most annoying as it makes me such a cliché bride-to-be.

We’re actually on top of most ‘big’ things to do with the wedding. Church, venue, photographer, florist are booked. My dress is ordered and pretty much everyone we want to take an active part in the celebrations has been asked and happily agreed. However, the fact is as I'm not in full time work (though you might not know it to look at my diary) I’ve been doing a lot of the organising on my own and simply catch Rob up with the progress every so often and that’s where some of my anxiety is rooted.

We want our wedding to be about us as individuals and as a couple but as, if not more importantly rooted firmly in our Christian faith.  Although there is no such thing as a truly new idea anymore, we want to make sure our faith and personalities are reflected in the celebrations, especially as the sacrament of marriage is very important to us. We view our day as being an opportunity for worship as well as the legal and fun bits. 

Recently, I have felt I’ve rushed a few details and plumped for easy, convenient choices rather than spending time ensuring meaning in many of the arrangements. This has made me uncomfortable in a few ways as I used to envisage a very personal wedding experience. I dreamed of an eco-friendly wedding with lots of homemade elements and tiny details embelishing the day alongside well thought out spiritual content. I won't say how Rob saw his wedding day but we're different in many ways!  

I have blamed my simplified 'just-get-it-done' process I've fallen into on our budget being (rightly) small but moreover  on our time limited. However, I’ve come to realise that these are just excuses  after all 7 months is plenty of time and it is possible to make the day what we want it to be if we organise it together.

For a couple who on the face of it have very little in common, we do an awful lot of activities and serve together and having me lead on organisation, purely checking in with Rob is alien. So we’ve scheduled a wedding catch up to think again about some of the decisions that have been made to see what we can do about tweaking them to ensure we’re both comfortable with how our day will match our goals.

Jesus started his ministry at a wedding, performing His first miracle at one, turning water in wine*. Our guests may not notice much difference from any other wedding they’ve been to –and that’s fine, I want them comfortable and relaxed and to enjoy the day.  But our hope is maybe they do notice it a little.

Of course, ask me again in late October when I’m studying as well as arranging this and I’ll probably not give two hoots and just want everything to go off with only one Hitch. Old joke, but it works!

*anytime You want to do that one again – fine by us J

Mixed bag

This week has been a mixed bag; I’ve not been very well with a weird fever/light headed/exhausted thing which seems really bad in the mornings. I’ve been snowed under with all sorts of things and busy every evening albeit in very nice ways. I’ve been Swishing at Church, attending the Marriage Course, organising Brownies & Disciple Group and had a grand evening eating home-cooked curry and cheesecake (not at the same time) with friends.

Wedding planning continues and yet more prayers have been answered. On top of the miraculous help I mentioned in my last post, we’ve saved loads on potential decorations having sourced exactly what we wanted to spruce up the venue locally and for free!

We found a lovely budget cottage for a few days away directly after the wedding. No, I’m not saying where but I was dead chuffed at the price we got for a short break so close to Christmas.

I made us a strict calendar of what we need to do and when so that we don’t end up getting in money trouble in any given month. More importantly, I have to be fixed on what we want to buy or we’ll buy things we will end up not using because we change our minds/find better offers and that is the way the cost of a wedding can creep up.  But I also know when to slide off the calendar and take advantage of a bargain! So this week my shoes arrived and a few pieces of jewellery have been bought, all for much less than I had budgeted having shopped online and taking advantage of sales and offers.

I found loads of great tips on Cheap Wedding Success and found comrades in arms who don’t believe you have to spend a fortune, to have a lovely, memorable day.

Also, something good may be happening on the income front. I am going to see a company next week who specialise in family portraits to see if they’d like me to do some paid, ad hoc, part time work manning their stalls at supermarkets/shopping centres/events. If it goes well could be a nice, flexible way to bring in some pennies while allowing me to continue being available for the church and foodbank.

So if you see me smiling and trying to hand you a leaflet in the near future, be sweet and take one!

God is Good

No fancy title and pictures and no ridiculously long blog this time.  Just to say I had a wig out about the wedding/life this week. It coincided nicely with the countdown clock on our new wedding website letting me know its 188 days until the wedding. *eek*

My freak out was about money – I’m still not seriously looking for work, we are a bit rubbish at budgeting and big chunks of money are disappearing into the wedding. It made me wobble. We’re doing the sensible things – starting a proper budget, spreading costs but as explained in previous blogs, this is an area that makes me very uneasy.

So in church this morning I prayed for some help  and I got my response....”I told you I would look after you and I will. Keep serving me first and let me take care of the rest.”

And this evening, totally unprompted and unaware of my concerns, I’ve had a friend offer the equivalent of about £300 worth of stuff for the wedding.

Thank you friend. Thank you Lord.

I lost a fight with the Bishop

That is to say I totally caved so as not to get myself excommunicated for arm wrestling the clergy for my preferred wedding date. I wanted the 26^th November, one day after our two year anniversary and more importantly not in the hectic month of December. But Bish got there first so our wedding will now be on 10/12/11. Truthfully the exact date wasn’t too much of an issue besides my explanation below.  The venue is booked for an evening do, save the date notifications have gone out to almost everyone and even the dress is ordered! Sound like it has been easy? Yes and no.

The venue narrowing process was reasonably easy. We visited a few which were obvious no goers -  I didn’t want the kids in a room three corridors and fourteen sets of doors away from the main room. We didn’t want to pay £175 a head for a three course meal no matter how yummy the food and gorgeous the grounds. We won’t be going in them, it will be winter. We couldn’t reduce the list of folks invited to the sit down meal to less than sixty without losing some dearest and nearest.  We narrowed it down to one venue and then the bun-fight with the church diary began.  We went back to the second choice venue which we knew could give us the earlier date, but we thought would be out of our price range until they came back with a quote that made our jaws drop.

So the debate began – do we go for the more expensive place we loved, on a date possibly more problematic for people with kids in Christmas carol concerts, work seasonal parties etc or go for the cheaper option we sort of liked, on the date everyone could probably do. We then threw into the mix the up until that point unspoken of, yet unsettling and ethically troubling thought of spending a fair whack of money on what is essentially a big party.  Yes, a party celebrating something incredibly special, but this is a time when generosity and sacrificial giving is something very much on our hearts.  

I know it is somewhat uncouth to discuss these things, but that’s what my blog is for – the nitty gritty of our lives, especially any ethical/faith orientated debates.  I’d love to say it was a long, prayerful, considered debate. But it wasn’t...we went for the later date at the higher cost! We loved the place, we loved that we could fit in (almost) everyone we wanted and the times we wanted them. We do have a strict, limited budget, of course we do, and the reception costs will come in under that in the end.  The day for both Rob and I is about faith, love and people and that’s what we are going to concentrate on. I can’t theologically justify the decision to spend more on the party rather than go for the lower quote, so I won’t try. It just felt right.

Next was choosing the dress, which had to be a reasonable quick decision because these things take months to make! The one I have gone for won’t be ready for fitting until late September. Other places quoted November which would have made me too nervous!

I’m not a girly girl, as outlined in previous blogs I don’t wear dresses other than at big occasions and even then I struggle. I don’t know how to “do” my hair, I have basic make up application skills and although I surfed around looking at wedding dresses, I walked into the first dress boutique and underwhelmed the assistant by not having a clue what I was looking for. That said, she was very sweet and helpful and I’d highly recommend The Bridal House in Aston Clinton.  I took Mum and the lovely Stacey who was incredibly helpful in many ways including as buffer material for me and Mum!

Mum, bless her, isn’t very good at constructive criticism, or keeping looks of dislike off her face. She knew I was worried about that – but the intended amusing yet semi-serious suggestion I made of giving her flash cards with scores out of 5 on it went down like a lead balloon. In the end, although she did struggle to articulate how she felt about any particular dress, her mainly non-verbal reactions, were truthful and therefore helpful. Unlike the woman in unnamed shop 2, who told me my waist was the skinniest she’d seen on a girl as tall as me, but that I had a bum like J-Lo. That combination does not sound good and so I took neither as a compliment. This was compounded as I was sharing a box filled dressing room with Miss Hertfordshire trying on her gala frock. Self esteem nose dive.

So all hail Brides of Portsmouth, an unpretentious, does-what-it-says-on-the-tin, bridal shop down the road from my sister. Another lovely assistant helped me pick ‘the’ dress even as she chased her toddler nephew round the store, trying to prevent him dropping his trousers to show us his nappy! I had Mum, my sister, the lovely Adele and my 5 year old niece to help this time. Sophie helpfully gave me the thumbs up or thumbs down to articulate her impression of the dress. The one we picked got a thumbs up so that’s alright then. No details on said dress will be released!

I had expected incredibly emotional moments when I was dress shopping and that when I put ‘the dress' on, I’d have that moment of pure joy. I should have known better – I’m just not that kind of girl! The only time I welled up was on my 14^th dress in the not-very-nice shop when I was just so tired and feeling pear-shaped, with massive man-feet that didn’t fit into any of their shoes, next to Miss World or whatever -  that I thought anything will do, the next one to look sort of nice gets my vote.

My learning point here was don’t do more than one fitting a day, don’t try on too many dresses and listen to your mum – whether she is grimacing or smiling. I was also glad I had another appointment in the diary or I may have panic-bought a dress and regretted it. As it was, I really enjoyed the later appointment – where I had lower expectations of the experience, and therefore they were surpassed rather than missed.

So finalising the photographer this week, organising invitations with our incredibly talented friend Tessa at Cornercube, then I might try and relax for a few weeks and concentrate on real work which is getting off the ground at church and the charity. Which I’m loving. And hopefully keeping up with my Open University short course I’m doing in photography at the moment. A few pics from that below...