Going on an adventure

I've been reading loads of wedding related material lately and whilst I'm getting loads of inspiration its also made me realise... I have no idea what I want. I suppose its the same for many bride-to-bes, but even then they must have some sort of inkling as to what their tastes are. I don't. The one thing that both Ryan and I agree on is that our Wedding should be a reflection of who we are and the love that we share. I just don't know what that is. I don't feel like we have enough life experience to make ourselves the centre of such a big day. For instance, the flowers, I'd love them to be symbolic of a moment or experience that we've shared and for that to be so we need to have actually shared a significant moment or experience. Not that we haven't already, but most of our days are lost sat in front of the computer or TV. We'd have to have daffodils as our wedding flowers because they grew in the front garden once.


For those reasons I want the next few years in the run up to our Wedding to be an adventure. Then, when the day actually rolls around, we can share everything that we've discovered with all the people we love. Now that's my dream wedding day.

Another great thing about the wedding day being so far in the future is that it gives me plenty of time to get into shape. As well as limited life experience, an expanded waistline is also a side effect of nights spent glued to the box. I need to completely overhaul my relationship to food and exercise if I'm going to look good for my big day. I'm uncomfortable being the centre of attention as it is and I avoid going out because I'm uncomfortable with the weight I've gained in the past few years. The proposal almost didn't happen because I felt too insecure to travel all the way to London and be around so many people. Obviously I really need to change that in time for the Wedding because I don't want to have a meltdown the night before! So, to try and push myself to lose weight I'm going to start a separate blog for my weight-loss so I don't end up filling my wedding planning blog with posts about detox and exercise. I want this blog to be something I can look back on and show friends and family.

I'll come back in a few days and post the link to my weight loss blog.

Where to start?

Now that the initial blissful haze of getting engaged has lifted slightly I've suddenly realised "Oh crap! We have to organise a day-long party, wear the most expensive outfits we've ever owned and invite a whole bunch of people that we hope love us enough to turn up!" Dearie-me! Of course I know we don't have to do it that way but.... we want to do it that way. I think we're both imagining a beautiful day surrounded by close family and friends that we'll remember for the rest of our lives. I'm grinning just writing about it... Ok, ok, feet on the ground! We've made a few little decisions about the Wedding so first things first;

The Date

Now then. Ryan and I are by no means poor, we live comfortably, but extra cash is a bit hard to come by, any that we do come by we use to pay off debts, and its because of this that we've decided to have a long-ish engagement. We're currently working with late August/early September 2014. We want our wedding to be a big occasion with all the frills and trimmings and we've had to be honest with ourselves. We just can't achieve that on a shoestring budget. In order to live your fantasy you have to be realistic, and our reality here is we need to save up for a long time and we figured three and a half years ought to do it, but we're prepared to wait longer to get what we want.

Budget

We haven't the foggiest how much we're going to be able to spend. I really should pull my finger out and work out how much we're going to need to save up but I'm not quite ready to drag my head out of the clouds just yet! I have, however, been looking for ways that we can reduce the costs. For instance, I could make the cake myself. In fact I probably should because I want more than the bland tier cakes that fall into my price range. For the same reasons we'll design our own invites and menus and we're considering collecting vases and china from ebay or car boots instead of hiring them. I want the only major spendage to be on the biggies: venues, food, clothes, etc.

Some small details

I have to have a photobooth at the Wedding. Like a photobooth were you get you passport pictures from. It'll be so much fun! But I want to keep the pictures, well copies at least. Also, we both like the idea of giving disposable cameras to guests to take candids with. I love photos, lots of photos.

I've also seen advertised a stamp for a wax seal, custom-made with your initials. I love, love, love the idea of wax sealing our invites and Ryan seemed to like it too.

I've had loads more inspiration, I could write several epic blog posts about all of it but I think I'll leave off with those little titbits.