How’s the wedding planning going? There is a phrase on the lips of anyone I meet up with, whom I haven’t seen or a little while, at the moment. After the “how are you?” is out of the way, they cut straight to the chase, and with an excited look in their eye they ask, “So…. how’s the wedding planning going?” Their interest is well-intentioned but I’ve come to feel increasingly guilty at inflicting disappointment on people when I offer up a half-hearted; “Well, we haven’t really done anything since we last spoke…”
Image sources clockwise from top left: Wedding hair, Flowers, Mason jars, Pastel bridesmaids
We have been engaged for six months now, and get married in ten. We ticked off the big ticket items within weeks of getting engaged – the venue, the photographer (which was the most important element for me – a child who did not dream of dresses but was instead enthralled by Daddy’s darkroom), and last month, the caterers. The rest feels like the smaller details to me and will be tackled over the coming months. All we have decided for the wedding is that we want it to be very ‘us’ – I want it to be full of things that we like, and things that reflect our personalities, with nothing included because we ‘think we have to’ or because ‘it’s what people do’. Maybe I’m being naïve, but I feel strongly that at the heart of our day there should be a clear sense of ‘Tom and Rosie’ – a room that you would walk into and know that it was our marriage being celebrated.
When we arrived home after getting engaged, one of the first things we did was write out a huge list of things we’d love to have as part of our day. Living in the New Forest, we liked the idea of a rustic, woodland theme, with wildflowers, long wooden tables, jam jars and lanterns. We also wanted to get married in the Autumn as it’s our favourite time of year in the forest, however September/October of this year we felt might be too soon to get everything booked and save up enough money, and Autumn 2015 seemed too far away. In the end we settled for the Spring, and I’m happy now that we made that decision – I love the symbolism of Spring, of birth, growth and new beginnings, and Spring flowers like lilac, iris, tulips, peonies and rock roses will be a beautiful addition to bouquets or arrangements.
Image sources clockwise from top left: Wedding dress inspiration, Dessert table, Table centrepieces
In keeping with the rustic theme, we like the idea of higgledy piggledy arrangements – pastel bottles and jam jars with hessian labels, stripey straws, paper lanterns, fairy lights and driftwood. I know it all sounds a little bit ‘Pinterest’, but that’s the sort of things we have in our home, and I want our personalities and styles to be eminent throughout our day. We didn’t want a really formal sit-down dinner (I can’t get my head around the term wedding breakfast so I’m consciously avoiding it!) so we’ve decided to have a big barbecue with lots of different meats, yummy salads and breads. We hope that the dinner (lunch? linner? dunch?) will be really informal with lots of people chatting and digging into delicious food. We’re cheekily asking some friends and family to contribute to a sort of ‘bake-off’ dessert table by cooking their favourite cake or pudding, though we will also be getting a tower of cupcakes as a ‘wedding cake’.
I know that I haven’t mentioned the dress yet, I’m such a rubbish girl, right? My idea for the dress is that I’d like it to echo the sort of styles I regularly wear (I never understand when brides pick a dress they would never ever normally wear, wear their hair differently and do completely different style of make-up – I kind of just want to look like ‘me’ on my wedding day!) and so I’d really like a tea-length dress, almost a 50s, skater dress style. I have an appointment with my Mum in London next week to see some similar style dresses – there is one I have my eye on but I’ve got to keep some things secret, right? Tom will probably just wear a white shirt, chinos and some Converse; same with the Best Man and his Ushers. We want them all to be comfortable and quite casual. I only have two bridesmaids but I’m thinking of a similar style dress to me, maybe in pastel shades – what do you think?
Image sources clockwise from top left: Table keys, Wearing Converse, Paper Lanterns, Table centrepieces, Wedding barbecue
So what else? I think the only think I haven’t mentioned is that above anything we want the day to be fun – people stuffing their faces with burgers, drinking champagne out of jam jars, dancing to folk music (and a heavy dose of 90s pop) and eating pasties (that’s what we’ve got lined up as an evening snack in a nod to my Cornish heritage!). I can’t imagine a more perfect way to celebrate marrying the love of my life.
Rosie x
Rosie is a member of our team of blogging brides, aka, ‘The Lovettes’ and writes her own beautiful blog over at ‘A Rosie Outlook‘
