When you get engaged all anyone wants to talk to you about from that moment until the moment you get married is weddings. And for me it soon became apparent that all I wanted to talk about from that moment on was weddings too, so much so that when I meet new people for the first time I have to try really, really hard not to blurt out our engagement story while shaking their hand.
Before Stu proposed we had had a few vague fantasy discussions about a ‘secret’ wedding. The notion of an extremely simple and perfectly undone occasion where we’d invite all of our friends and family for a weekend away somewhere remote in Scotland and simply surprise them by saying our ‘I-do’s’ while out for a walk one afternoon, or by the campfire one night.
Of course, now nine months into the madness that is preparing for a wedding, the idea that we could have planned even an ounce of what we have, firstly without telling a soul and secondly without the help of everyone around us, is completely preposterous. But even before we knew all that, minutes after getting engaged and in that early glow of wedding euphoria where it seemed nothing could possibly go wrong, we knew this dream would just never work as a reality because we were just too damn excited.
When Stu proposed on a Thursday morning, it took all my willpower to wait until my Dad had come home from work that evening, and convince him and my Mum to partake in a skype call, to keep me from screaming it from the rooftops. And why not? While I’ve stressed and moaned with the best of them, I also know that getting engaged, planning a wedding and getting married on that day in November will be one of the biggest occasions in my life and incredibly special to me for ever more, so why not relish sharing that with everyone around me?
And so the secret was out, shouted from the rooftops, talked about to everyone from the postie delivering engagement cards to the shop assistant selling us a wall planner, and celebrated in the most lovely of fashions for months. But, while the wedding itself might no longer be a secret, the idea of having a few surprises on the day for guests, to keep them guessing on details and to make it a fun day for all involved felt important to us, and as such very few people know our venue choice, our plans for the day or what type of food we will be eating.
So, in this, my first official wedding update post as a Lovette – all I can really tell you about our wedding is that it’s personal.
Now before you click away from the page in disgust – a Lovette who’s been charged with blogging about her wedding yet doesn’t want to tell us anything? –I don’t mean that in a ‘sod off’ kind of way, I mean that in a very literal way. While many aspects of our day are still to be finalised, revealed or decided upon, there is one thing that I know with absolute certainty; our wedding will be personal. Personal to us, personal to our relationship, personal to our friends and family and everyone who has collected a jam jar or carved a sign, and personal to everyone who attends and becomes part of our overall story.
My bespoke engagement ring being made – photo courtesy of Stephen Einhorn.
I guess like all good wedding love stories it started with the proposal – when Stu opted to forgo a ring and propose to me with a pair of silver trainers, I knew straight away that our wedding journey wouldn’t follow any tradition other than our own. From that point we’ve gone on to design my engagement ring (with help from the lovely team at Stephen Einhorn), source a truly unique wedding venue (why pay for a hotel when Scotland’s beautiful landscape is open to us for free?), plan our own unconventional order for the day (does anyone really enjoy stopping the party for dinner anyway?), collect props from every car boot sale in the land (our flat is currently a wedding shaped bombsite), embark on a list of DIY projects longer than our guest list (tis’ true), teach ourselves new skills (I’ve been learning calligraphy with the fab folks at Quill London so I can confidently address those envelopes myself) choose the unusual over the traditional everywhere we can (outdoor wedding… in Scotland… in Winter… ok go on then) and do everything in our power to make sure our personality is positively bursting from the seams of our wedding day.
When the 21st November rolls around, it will be a truly homemade affair. A mish mash of everything that means something to us, having come together through the combined efforts of everyone who means something to us. In fact, there is very little we have outsourced. Aside from the venue, the food (to an extent) and the photographer, everything else- from the music, to the cake, to the flowers – is going to be the result of a lot of hard work from us and our family and friends.
Of course a homemade wedding doesn’t come without it perils, and there have been times along the way that I’ll admit things have got the better of me. I’ve spent the last six months painstakingly drying rose petals every week for our own confetti for example – a job which warrants a lot of ‘you do know you can buy that on Amazon?’ responses. Yes, but, like every task – from drying confetti to choosing to design my own wedding dress – the easiest option hasn’t always been my preferred option. Because let’s face it, a homemade DIY wedding is not necessarily the simplest or the least stressful or even the least expensive option but yet it is the option that so many of us choose nowadays. And that’s because we want to feel like we’ve done everything in our power, relinquished every last bit of energy, blood sweat and tears we have, added little pieces of our hearts along the way, to make our wedding the best day we possibly can make it. Because we wouldn’t be happy with ourselves otherwise (perfectionist – moi?).
However when you’re so passionate about something, it’s virtually impossible for it not to stress you and strain you. Everyone tells you to not worry and to enjoy the process. Those ‘words of wedded wisdom’ almost always focus on not sweating the small stuff and appreciating all of the moments along the way, but when you’re in the midst of a particularly stressful wave of wedding planning, this is always easier said than done. Much like a rollercoaster, wedding planning has its ups and downs and no matter how many downs, and no matter whether anyone prepared you for them, you simply have to ride them out until that final day of your journey is within reach.
I truly believe every bride will have at least one (if not more) points during their own journey where they hit a wedding wall – whether caused by family drama, dress drama, supplier drama or any other drama – there will be a meltdown and there will be those dreams which see you waking up in a cold sweat. In my experience those meltdowns have come over the silliest of things – the colour of a ribbon, or the wrong size of envelopes arriving – but I’ve let them happen, released the stress, shouted at a wall and taken it out at my box fit classes. Then I’ve let them wash over me and carried on. Because I also truly believe that every single bride that has ever graced the posts of Love My Dress simply cannot be lying when they say that it will all come together, it will be amazing, it will be the best day of your life and it will not matter what colour those ribbons are or whether the invites fit perfectly into their envelopes.
So yup, it’s personal folks. It’s personal to every one of us bride –to-be’s and groom –to-be’s because it means so much to us. So those around us please remember, we’re stressed because we’re passionate, we’re crying because we care, we argue with you over table decor because we’ve lost sleep over that table decor for the last goodness knows how long, and we worry about every last detail of every last aspect because those details are the only things we currently have any control over. But yes we do appreciate it, yes we are grateful and when the wedding rolls around we’ll be thanking you all in bucket loads for helping us make our day so, well… personal.
So with less than five months to go, I’m savouring every last minute of this big ball of stress and frustration and passion and love and grabbing it with both arms. 142 days to go and I intend to enjoy every single one of them, however stressful. Because while our wedding certainly won’t be perfect, while it might be rough around the edges, and falling away in places – it will be ours, it will be personal and it will mean the world to us.
Jac x
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Jaclyn Craig is marrying Stuart Watt on 21st November 2015.
Amy Shore will be taking their wedding photographs.
You can find Jaclyn via her blog and on Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest.
You can also read her other Lovettes features here.
