An Ungraceful Beginning to Being a Bride

It's been a while since I've written about The Wedding, and given that it is approaching quite rapidly - less than three months to go - things that have been put off until now are suddenly in need of our prompt attention. Wedding fever, as a friend put it, has started to take hold.

I have just reached the end of two very wedding focused days, and I feel practically brain dead as a result. My ability to make a decision - which is shaky at the best of times - has deserted me completely, and I miss it.

Things started out superbly on Sunday - we took our parents to the venue to try some dishes from a sample menu so that we can find the perfect meal to feed to our guests. Some dishes were a delight to eat... and some were not. These two facts led us to a fairly unanimous decision by the end of the meal, and we were easily able to confirm our choices for the wedding breakfast before we left the building:

Fabulous, dahling. (And trust me, it is - even if you can't read my scrawly attempt at calligraphy).

So, onwards to decision number two - the cake. Yesterday morning, me and Mum went to meet the cake lady - a sensible arrangement given that Fiance has advised that he will be happy with the bakery-based arrangements as long as the cake is made out of cake, and that I am full of ideas about the pattern, the colour, the shape, and ensuring it consists of layers of both sponge and fruit cake.

Despite my preparation, it turned out there were still a couple of important cake-related things I hadn't thought of. Like if we definitely wanted sponge for the bottom layer and fruit cake for the upper layers, we'd have to keep the layers separate using a cake stand - a fact which I had neglected to recognise earlier despite it being pretty obvious that a wimpy sponge wouldn't be able to hold the weight of a hefty fruit cake without the use of steel reinforced marzipan.

The question that threw me the most though was what would be going on top of it - my reaction when I realised I hadn't given this any consideration whatsoever went along the lines of 'arrrgggghhh, I don't know, stop asking me questions I don't have the answer to', which I think I controlled by maintaining an outwards appearance of human-mimicking-rabbit-caught-headlight. The cake designer was obviously used to dealing with easily bewildered brides-to-be, and calmly handed me a bunch of wedding cake magazines for me to peruse at my own leisure so I could go back all inspired with what exactly should sit atop our cake.

Magazines in hand (mistake - they were heavy), we headed into town where I nearly found my ideal bridesmaid dresses during a three hour shopping marathon in Debenhams - waiting for me in the Jane Norman outlet were dresses of the perfect colour, the perfect shape and as for the price... well, at £13.50 a pop they were a fraction of what we've been intending to spend (I feel obliged to point out that they weren't cheap dresses - they had been knocked down to a giveaway price as part of the end-of-sale-price-drop-bonanza). Sadly, however, it turned out they were not to be the perfect dress - I tried two on, both of which had unworkable zips that stuck at a certain point and refused to move any higher. Or any lower, for that matter. 

By the way, the wardrobe malfunction was nothing to do with the size of me, or the size of the dress - the zip got stuck even when it was on the hanger. But just for the record - Jane Norman, there is no way that was a size 10. 

Bearing in mind that I was guessing at whether they would fit my bridesmaids, and the distinct possibility that the zip could give way on the morning of the wedding, a prudent decision to not make the purchase was taken. A prudent decision that I was incapable of making and that came mainly thanks to my mum stepping in with her voice of reason as she realised my brain was stuck on a hamster wheel, going round in circles about what to do.

The potential bridesmaids dresses left behind, we took a break from the shopping to grab a bite to eat and to take some time to look through the cake magazines. It was a painful process - being faced with hundreds of pictures of cakes was somewhat intimidating when I didn't really know what I was looking for, and I felt my head fuddle as I turned each page and found myself faced with yet more options. Once again, Mum came to the rescue with some sensible opinions and gentle questions that helped me to narrow down what I'm after. Eventually, it became a productive browse, and I now have a couple of ideas that I can go back with to seek a professional opinion on which would work better. This is a rather bad impression of what the ideas look like:

And yes, that is a faint image of Winnie the Pooh that can just about be seen on the bottom left of the paper. I've only just noticed him - and he seems to be looking at the bottom image with some excitement. I wonder if he's indicating his preferred design? I'm happy to look to anyone else for an answer - even if that someone else is a cartoon character printed onto notepad paper that completely accidentally happens to looks like it is giving an opinion.

There was only one more decision I was asked to make yesterday, and once again I failed. This time, it was during our trip to pick The Wedding Dress up (wooooooo, I have my dress!) and to try it on before taking it away for alterations. While I was being laced up, I asked if I could try on a veil too, as I hadn't got one sorted yet. They were most obliging, and after I tried on a lovely example, the shop assistant asked if I wanted to order one. My brain had melted by this point, and while I didn't really want to pay them anything else because of the far from ideal customer service I had experienced previously, the convenience of sorting it there and then was rather enticing. I turned to Mum. 'I don't know, what do you think', I said, while my eyes pleaded TELL ME WHAT TO DO! On this occasion, it was the assistant who came to my rescue and said we can always order it at a later date because it only takes three weeks to arrive. I was delighted - I had been handed a get out of jail free card by the establishment itself, which meant I didn't have to feel guilty for testing their stock before going and buying the winning item from another shop.

My conviction for not giving them any further money was entirely confirmed when the dress was presented to us for transportation - no box, no tissue paper, just a wedding dress sized suit protector and a hasty farewell.

I had to wander half a mile from the shop to the car, carrying my prized dress across weary arms that had been burdened with the magazines and a handbag full of junk for most of the day. I did not feel like an elegant bride-to-be by the time I placed the dress as tenderly as I could into the back of the car, and slumped like a sack of jellyfish into the front seat.

 
This wedding planning malarkey is harder work than I gave it credit for.

Back to our venue for a wedding fair

We went back to our beautiful venue on Sunday for a wedding fair that we’d been invited to – the main purpose of which was to chose which of the ‘feature rooms’ we would like to spend our first night as a married couple in.

They’re quite clever little blighters – we’ve opted for a great value fixed price deal which includes one of these ‘feature rooms’ for the newlyweds – but not necessarily one of our own choice. We can express our interest in any particular room, but if some cruel, wedding crushing individual came along and decided to pay for the room we had opted for, our wishes would go straight out of the window. 

Straight out of the window unless we gave them some more money that is. Sneaky - their experience means they know how brides behave and can capitalise on this :

Now, we might have been prepared to take a chance had the rooms been of a similar standard – but some seemed to lack the practicality you would expect of a bridal suite. Like somewhere to hang a wedding dress. It understandably might not have been at the forefront of Fiance’s mind, but I’m sure not spending all that money on a dress only to have it hung up on the floor at the end of the day.

After an hour or so spent fighting our way past the other groups who were also inspecting the various suites, we finally decided on our favourite – complete with a fancy spa bath and adequate hanging space. As soon as we had decided, a switch flicked in my head that told me every single other person present was getting married in our venue, on our day, and had decided they wanted to book our room. The race was on for us to get back to reception through the throng of wedding couples - and past a rather inappropriately placed string quartet - so that we could get our room sorted.

Of course, my Bridezilla inspired paranoia was misplaced, and we managed to get our room booked with no problems whatsoever. And the extra charge just went straight onto the bill, which doesn’t have to be paid for ages – and thanks to the way my brain works, this is as good as free as I will no doubt have forgotten about it by the time it comes round to settling up.

There were also some great table set ups that would go perfectly with our theme, and I got some info about the hair and makeup people who are actually located at the hotel and therefore perfectly placed for the primping and preening that me and my bridesmaids get to enjoy on the morning of the big day. These are another couple of things I was keen to get straight sooner rather than later.

While I still haven’t reached full time stress at the amount of stuff that hasn’t been sorted yet, I am admittedly starting to experience the odd moment where it hits me and I have to stop and take a deep breath. In my (probably) naive way, the fact I now have contact numbers for people who can decorate me, my girls, and the room kind of means those things are now sorted. Even though that is, in all honesty, some distance from the truth.

In other wedding news, I finally got the name of someone at the dress shop who I can trust – after a week spent waiting for a call that I should have known wouldn’t emerge, I called back and spoke to someone who promised they would keep me informed of any progress. She could obviously detect the forced calm in my voice as I explained my situation and to my delight, I got a call last week that confirmed my dress would be arriving in December (woo!). Continuing her good work, I got a call this afternoon to let me know that the sample of fabric had turned up, would be put in the post straight away and would probably be with me tomorrow. I’m so pleased to have finally gotten a decent response from the shop, I probably won’t even go mad if the sample doesn’t arrive for a couple of days.

And for the final piece of news - we have been mega-huge-lucky on the wedding cake front. A few posts ago, I mentioned my mum’s new job and its potential for wielding a discount on the fruity/spongy artistic concoction and my mum has finally done some investigating. Not only can we get a 20% discount – which is most definitely not to be sniffed at – the lady who makes the cakes has just won an award. In fact, she is so good, she beat a rival who is frequently asked to make wedding cakes for the footballers of Manchester. Suck it Manchester footballers, our cake will be better than yours. This is the kind of result that makes me glad of our fairly laid back attitude – if we had panicked and booked at the last wedding fair we went to, we’d have missed this amazing opportunity.

So I guess what I am saying is that our wedding is teaching me that patience is a virtue. And what an inspirational way that is to end a post.

Bridezilla Moves to a New Office - and I go Bridezilla

For the first time since this blog started, I was prepared for what I was going to write about today. I had little pictures drawn, a quip or two planned in my head and the fire in my belly to put pen to paper. Or finger to keypad, more accurately. Basically, I was raring to go.

But then today happened, and everything changed - I had a new tale that I simply couldn't not tell in tonight's post. My preparation work was wasted (for this week, anyway), because I had to talk about a period of about 30 minutes this afternoon when I turned into Bridezilla for the first time.

And by that, I mean I suffered my first bout of wedding stress.

And by wedding stress, I mean wedding anger.

I was busy having a very constructive day at work when my mobile rang. It was a local number, but not one that I had saved to my phone so I was unaware as to the origin of the call. Imagine my excitement when the tinny voice on the end of the phone announced it was the bridal shop that I had ordered my beautiful, wonderful wedding dress from!

My heart was in my mouth. My dress! Surely it can't be here already?

No, it wasn't. In fact, it was very far from being here. The voice on the end of the phone started to ask if I was able to come in for the measurements for my dress. I was confused. Confusion swiftly turned to worry as a noise resembling a nervous giggle emanated from the phone, and the voice went on to confirm that they had actually got my measurements, and they were clearly marked on the piece of paper she was looking at. My worry deepened as the voice explained that the dress hadn't been ordered yet.

I quickly calculated the time that had passed since we had been into the shop and confirmed that we wished to purchase the dress that I had tried on. A wish that we confirmed by actually paying the full amount at the time. A method I had assumed meant the dress would be ordered immediately. The voice sounded uncertain as it tried to ensure my worry didn't turn into anger by politely explaining that the order form had been placed into the binder without anyone having the foresight to speak to the supplier about actually ordering it.

The voice's efforts were in vain. I had transformed from reasonable bride in a good mood to an uncalmable Bridezilla in full rage in a matter of seconds. If I was playing Buzz Word Bingo, the phrase 'bad service' would have been a frequent scorer given the number of times I managed to splutter it out in the angry rant that ensued. "My bridesmaids!" I went on to exclaim. "I can't get their dresses sorted until I have an offcut from the alterations from my dress that I can use to match colours!" Despite this being a fairly recent realisation, it became an incredibly important point for the purposes of this discussion. "I simply cannot afford to wait an additional five weeks to dress my bridesmaids, and now I have to magic the extra time out of nowhere" I continued in a haze of naivety at how Bridezilla-ish I had suddenly become "...all because of your BAD SERVICE", I finished with a satisfying flourish.

To give her credit, the voice at the end of the phone was very apologetic. And probably very embarrassed when she phoned back ten minutes later to confirm that actually, the order had been placed, but the all important piece of paper hadn't been updated to show that it had been done. In order to throw water on an unstable bride's anger, they've also requested a sample of the material from the supplier - due to arrive early next week - that I can use to get my bridesmaids' dresses sorted. I am under strict instructions to contact them if I have not heard anything by Wednesday.

While the shop hasn't shown itself in the best light, I have been reassured that my dress will not be late. However, that doesn't stop my concern about the speed at which I turned from a chilled out bride who is convinced that everything will fall into place, into a manic, furious monster who is convinced the world is crashing down when something doesn't go according to plan. I believe this means the wedding planning has officially begun (even though it has been casually underway for months). I don't think I am ready for the transformation.

I am, however, ready to post the next installment of Bridezilla, who appears to be getting more and more autobiographical as the weeks progress. Today, she is moving office, as I did this week - although fortunately, my transition was much less stressful than that suffered by our comic bride.

However, I would say that the brown lumps in the cup of tea were inspired entirely by real life...