Reasons I love my fiancé...

There are many, many reasons that I love Karl. Some of them are more conventional, for example, reason number 3: he may act like the big man, but in reality he is a massive softie. And reason number 14: he gives the most amazing foot massages!
Some of the reasons are a little stranger, and probably don't make much sense to anyone else. For example, reason number 57: we often have entire conversations using just "mmhh" sounds. You know, like the noise you make when someone asks you a question and you have a mouthful of food. We can literally talk for about 10 minutes using just 'mouthful noises', and when we do, I love him a little bit more. That might be weird, but it's true.

Something happened today that has been added to my list of reasons why I love my fiancé.

So, reason number 136: today, Karl turned to me and said "Are you aware that it is almost exactly 9 months until we get married? 9 months on Monday, actually."

I just looked at him for a second. Of course I was aware of that, but I was not aware that he was aware of it! This is the man that has to look at me for confirmation every time anyone asks what our wedding date is. I was impressed that he had remembered our date, and touched that he was actually thinking about the wedding. It might sound like no big deal to you, but as far as I knew, he barely ever thought about the wedding. I love it when he surprises me!

Anyway, only 9 months to go! How exciting!

Open Bar? Erm...no.

So one of my favourite budget wedding sites, The Broke Ass Bride, recently had a post about bars at wedding, and the different options available and it got me thinking. From what I can gather, it is the norm in America for the bride and groom (or whoever is paying) to take care of the bar bill. They have an open bar, and guests don't have to pay for drinks, either all night or for part of the night. A couple of blogs I've come across even seem to imply that it is tacky to expect your guests to pay for drinks at your wedding.

This is most definitely not the case in the UK! At least, as far as I know! I have never heard of weddings in this country having an open bar, and would always expect to pay for my own drinks if I was invited to a wedding. And I definitely do not think that this is tacky! After all, your guests are coming to celebrate your love and marriage with you - the free meal and free booze is just a bonus, surely?

OK, so realistically, I know that some people probably do go to weddings mainly for the free food and booze, but if it that was the case, we are providing a 3 course meal, reception drinks, table wine and a toast drink. Plus our favours are shots! That's plenty of free alcohol in my opinion. I mean, sure, it would be great to be able to buy drinks for our friends and families all night, but we simply would not be able to afford it, especially with the amount I know some of our friends can drink!

And as for it being tacky - there is a great article on Offbeat Bride explaining that there will always be someone who thinks that something about your wedding is tacky. Hell, there will always be someone who thinks that getting married at all is tacky!
I'm sure there will be someone who doesn't like our venue, someone who doesn't like our colour scheme, someone who doesn't agree with our non religious ceremony. But if there is someone at our wedding who complain because they only got 3 or 4 free drinks, then I doubt they will be the sort of person whose opinions I care about.

Anyway, rant over. I was just getting a bit sick of reading (US based) wedding blogs that listed an open bar as one of the most important aspects of a wedding. If we had an open bar, we would probably have to double our budget! We wont be doing it, and I'm sure our guests will still enjoy themselves.

Sorry, I'm rubbish...

Deepest apologies for not blogging as often recently - I know you've been spoilt by twice a day updates, so to go so mnay days with nothing must have been difficult. However, I have a good reason - I started a new job! Yay me!

I wont bore you with the details, but will say that I am loving it so far. Unfortunately it means I have less free time to blog, bit I promise I'll try to update atleast a few times a week.

The other issue is that we are currently at that 'inbetween' stage of our wedding planning, where we have chosen pretty much everything and made all the big decisions, but we are not quite ready to actually buy/make things yet. This means that I don't have too much to blog about at the moment. But no matter, I'm sure I'll change my mind about something, and pretty soon we will be able to actually start doing things! Hurray!

First Dance Song (again!)

Ok, ok, I know that I have changed my mind a few times about what our first dance song will be, but this time I am certain!

You might remember that I originally wanted The Luckiest by Ben Folds, then Karl decided that he preferred If I Had A Million Dollars by Barenaked Ladies. However, we decided that the Barenaked Ladies song might be a bit too fast to do the classic "stand and sway" to, and Karl does not like the idea of dance lessons!

Anyway, I came across this song on YouTube - the original was by Barbara Lewis in the 60's and I had heard it before and liked it, but when I heard this cover by the Arctic Monkeys, I just fell in love! I have literally been playing it on repeat for about 3 days now.



Karl has agreed to it - possibly because he just wants me to stop playing love songs to him and asking for his opinion! Although I did catch him singing along to this song, so it's safe to say he like it! And it's the Arctic Monkeys, so he can say "Oh yeah, we're having our first dance to the Arctic Monkeys" and sound cool, even though it's not even remotely.

It's slow enough for us to do the "stand and sway" to, but has enough of a beat so that if we suddenly decided to learn a dance it would still work (although the chances of that happening are slim!). And its less than 3 minutes long! Hurray!

Cosmetic Bag Discount Code

Just a quick post to let you know that ArtsCow is doing the same offer that I used to get my Bridemaids gifts. You can get 3 cosmetic bags of any size, personalised with any photos, designs or wording, for only $8, with free shipping.

The discount code is 3CBAGSFOR8 and the offer is valid until 24th November.

I was really impressed with the quality of the bags, and they are a massive bargain too. I'm currently collecting various products to put in the bags - I will do a post on them when they're done.

Happy shopping!

Cake topper addition

I recently found Wedzu which is just like Etsy, but only for wedding related items. Whilst browsing through the products, I came across these cake topper banners by the seller Ready Go.

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How cute are these? I think our cake toppers would look really nice under one of these banners, possibly the just married one, because I think couples can sometimes go a bit overboard with sticking their names on everything wedding related!

These are £20 from Wedzu, which is a ridiculous amount of money to pay for a bit of card and some skewers! I reckon I could make one of these fairly easily - just print out the words with a banner clip art, cut it out and stick it on some wooden skewers. Then we can just stick in into the top of the cake, above the bride and groom toppers. Simples.

I'm going to keep an eye on Wedzu, because I think it will probably be a brilliant source of inspiration for DIY projects.

I love you more than....

A while ago, I found the website for the I love you more than blank  project, which is run in New York and based on the belief that you can never really measure something unless it is compared to something else. They ask you to submit an end to the sentence "I love you more than..." and you can see other peoples answers on the website too.

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I spent literally hours on this website, reading through the answers. Some of them are funny, some are really sweet, and some of them are sort of sad.

When I first found this site, I started to think about how the idea could be used at a wedding. I really liked the idea of asking each of your guests to complete an "I love you more than..." heart and stick them into the guest book, or pin them to a notice board, or even string them up like bunting. It would be lovely to read all the comments and it would be a nice, different memento of the day.

We probably wont use this idea for our wedding, just because I don't want to plan too much for our guests to do, what with a photo booth and guest book frame already. However, I might decide to make some sort of display with "I love you more than blank" hearts, just made up of our own answers, possibly just as decoration. Maybe.

Anyway, here's a couple of answers that we came up with ourselves. As you can tell, we were being a bit silly!

• I love you more than chocolate covered pretzels
• I love you more than finally being able to sneeze
• I love you more than a "70% off Shoes" sign
• I love you more than  I love Gibbs
• I love you more than John McCain loves shooting things
• I love you more than I love Coca Cola 
• I love you more than Barney Stinson loves suits
• I love you more than a hot water bottle in bed

Anyway, have a look at www.iloveyoumorethanblank.com to see more hearts.

Pretty Parasols

Many, many months ago, I saw this picture, and I fell in love:

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I love the idea of a paper parasol for the wedding - I burn very easily and was not looking forward to re-applying sun tan lotion every 5 minutes during the wedding! When I saw this picture, I decided that I would have a parasol with a big K painted on it.

Later, I decided that instead of just a K, I would have our monogram painted on it instead:

And not long after that, I saw this parasol, and decided I should have "just married" instead:

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And now, I'm considering a plain, unpainted parasol so that I can use it again after the wedding. As you can tell, I change my mind a lot! My original plan was to buy parasols for the bridesmaids too, although not to walk down the aisle with, just for after. However, the cheapest I can find paper parasols is about £10 each, which would ean spending £50 on parasols alone. I'm not sure it is worht it, especially since there is no guarentee that it will actually be sunny! I did like the bright colours though- I imagined myself with a white parasol and the girls with purple or lime parasols. Possibly with their names or initials painted on.

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I don't want to carry the parasol down the aisle, and I don't want to hold it during the ceremony. It would basially be for the reception drinks after the ceremony and to have photos taken with.

I think I will definitely buy a parasol for myself, but I'm still undecided about what to paint on it. Part of me thinks I should leave it plain so I can use it after the wedding, but another part of me wants to have out monogram so that it ties in with the stationary etc. But is that a bit too matchy? I'm worried it might look a bit daft with our initials plastered all over everything? I love the "just married" parasols too, but that would mean that it would be useless after the wedding.

Here's some more parasol porn for you:

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Source. I love this photo so much!

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If I had lots of money, I would buy enough parasols for all of the female guests - since our wedding is outdoors, I don't want nayone fainting from heat stroke! Unfortunately, I don't have lots of money, so the guests will just have to fend for themselves!

I have to say - it had better be sunny and hot on our wedding day! All of our plans are centred around a sunny, outdoor wedding. If it rains, it wont half bugger up our plans!

Everyone keep your fingers crossed for sun - and please vote for what I should have my parasol decorated with!

What should I have on my parasol?

• Nothing
• Just Married
• Our monogram (initials)
• Other

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Giant Garden Games

So when we first started thinking about things we wanted to have at our wedding, one of my "must haves" was giant garden games, set up outside for the guests to enjoy while we had our photographs done and they waited for the meal to be served.

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I was particularly excited about giant Jenga (I love Jenga!) and I also wanted connect 4, checkers, dominoes and some other games. I wasn't too keen on the idea of Twister - not the most dignified of games at the best of times!

Anyway, I spent weeks searching for companies that hired out giant games in our area, and I found a fair few. The best I found was a pack of 10 games (although not all of them were the ones I wanted) for about £200, including delivery, set up and removal, with a 4 hour time limit. I realised that it would probably end up cheaper to buy the games ourselves, and then we also wouldn't have to worry about a time limit or anything.

I decided that it would be about £100 to £150 for the minimum number of games I wanted, but we'd have to sort out delivery and set up ourselves. I'm sure that the venue would be kind enough to help out with that though. I did get very excited when I saw that you could hire a "buzzer wire" - one of those electronic wires that you have to pass a hoop over without touching? So much fun - but so much money too!

However, now I think I've changed my mind. Over time, I've come to realise that since we get married at 4pm and plan to eat at 6pm, that leaves only about an hour of free time after the ceremony and group photographs. I'm not sure that it's worth getting giant garden games for just an hour, since we will be serving drinks during this time anyway and I'm sure people will be able to pass the time catching up and chatting.

I'm a little bit torn - on one hand, they would be fun and would provide something to keep the kids busy. On the other hand, is it a waste of money since we don't need them, and guests will only have an hour to use them?

Hmmmm. It's a difficult decision, and one I'm going to have to make soon because we will have to start buying up the games if we decide to go for them.

Do we need to have some sort of entertainment? Do guests expect something?

I will say, I am extremely jealous of my sister who says she wants Rock Band set up on the Wii, and a dance machine at her wedding reception - how cool does that sound??

Our precious...

I have been looking at wedding rings quite a lot recently, and I think we have chosen the ones we will get. I can't find an online picture of the actual rings, but they are similar to these:

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His

We haven't bought them yet, so we might still change our minds, but every time we look at rings, these are the type we are drawn too. We both like the quite simple rings, in white gold. At first I wanted just plain bands, no stones at all, but I've decided that I wouldn't mind a little bit of sparkle from a set diamond. Karl likes the flat rings, as opposed to the court shaped and he likes the ones with striped grooves too. I also really like the flat style, but it is difficult to find this style ring that's not too thick. Personally, I wouldn't want my ring to be more than 4mm wide, where as Karl's will probably end up being 6mm.


I remember reading somewhere, shortly after we first got engaged, that you should budget most money for the photography and the rings, because these are the only parts that will last forever.
This makes sense, I suppose, but I'm still going to ignore the advice. I think the most important things that will last forever are your memories, so you should make sure you have good ones. And just because you're going to keep something forever doesn't mean you should spend a small fortune on it! We have got a massive bargain with our photographer and the photos are still going to last forever - and the rings we have chosen are also a huge bargain. To be honest, I don't wear much jewellery, and I certainly don't wear expensive jewellery, so the thought of spending hundreds of pounds on a single ring just doesn't sit right with me. I'd be too scared to wear it - what if I lost it? What it I got it dirty or scratched or ruined? I'm much happier with a simple ring because it's the meaning behind it that counts, surely?


Anyway, while looking for rings, I came across a few more unusual designs that I loved.

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You can get these fingerprint rings from Fabuluster on Etsy, with prices of about £250 for a set of 2 rings. Basically, you choose the metal and are sent an imprint kit in the post. You print your finger and your fiance's finger, send the kit back and get a completely unique, personalised set of rings!
I really love this idea - although I have been watching for too much CSI lately, because my first thought was "ooh, but what if someone stole the rings, made an imprint of our finger prints and then planted them at a crime scene?!".

Another very cool ring i found was this one, called Inner Message, and available from Yoon Jung Yun

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You can get rings with the words "Always" or "Marry Me" printed inside in raised letters, meaning that the words are leave an imprint in your finger. You can also contact the seller to request custom wording. The rings are available in sterling silver from $162 each, or 14k gold for $797 each, so they are not what I would call budget friendly, but they are very cool.

Another unusual wedding ring idea is something my brother told me he wants for his wedding rings.

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Basically, scientists have taken bone cells form couples when they have their wisdom teeth removed, then grown the cells into a ring shape. The bride and groom then swap rings made of each others bones. Is that creepy or sweet? I think it's quite cool personally, but definitely not for everyone. I also imagine that it costs a ridiculous amount. And now i know that I need to stop watching CSI, because my first thought when I saw these rings was "at least you would have a DNA sample to give to the police if your partner went missing"!

You can read the proper article that explains the process here.

At the end of the day, it wouldn't matter if we exchanged bits of string to tie around our ring fingers, because it's what they symbolise that really matters.

If you want to see some more unusual rings, have a look at 15 of the geekiest wedding rings.

Rainbow Cake

Ages and ages ago, I posted a picture of a layered rainbow cake - today I made one!

Now, I am not the best baker in the world, so if my cakes don't collapse or give anyone food poisoning, I'd call them a success.

This cake was much easier to make than I imagined, it just took a long time because I only had one cake tin that was the right size, so I had to make each layer, cook it, clean the tin and then make the next layer, as opposed to cooking all 5 layers at once.

Here is the purple layer (yes that is purple!) about to go into the oven. Karl made fun of me because I couldn't quite get the right mix of food colouring to make purple, so it looks a bit weird.

When each layer was cooked, I turned it out onto the wire rack to cool. And no, the purple mix did not magically turn green. I only remembered to take pictures of some of the layers.

When the layers were cool I spread jam on top and placed them together.

And then I covered the whole thing in vanilla butter cream. I was actually quite scared to cut into in in case it all collapsed, but I am so impressed with how it turned out!

And it tastes amazing!

I really think that this would make a fantastic wedding cake, and I'm not just saying that because I needed a tedious link in order to justify showing off my cake on my wedding blog...

Seriously, I can totally imagine a huge, tiered cake with lovely smooth white icing on the outside, and crazy coloured layers on the inside! If you had big enough cake tins you could probably make it yourself too!

Anyway, I must go, I have a cake to eat!

Aisle Decorations

Recently I have been thinking about ways to decorate our aisle at our ceremony site. I was unsure whether we needed to add something, since we are getting married outdoors and so, in theory, we could let nature provide the decorations.

However, I think it might be nice to add a little colour to the aisle and I really like the look of pomanders handing from the chairs.

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Right now, I'm not sure what the ceremony chairs will be like, but I'm sure we woud be able to hang something from them.

Pomanders made from flowers would work out crazily expensive, even if I used silk flowers, so I think I'd definitely go down the tissue paper route. I found this tutorial on Project Wedding and they sound like they would be time consuming, but fairly simple to make. If I can find the polystrene balls for cheap enough, I think I'll have a go at making these.

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I love how nice and fluffy they look!

Another option that I think is quite cute for lining the aisle is paper lanterns:

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These would be much easier than the pomanders, and give a similar sort of look.
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I also really love this idea, although I doubt we'd be able to have it at our venue:

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How cute is that? And I love hay bales for seats too!

I'm going to keep looking for more inspiration for something to line the aisle - something cheap, simple and pretty. If I can find the balls to make pomanders at a reasonsble price then I think I'll be sold on that idea, but I have ages yet until an actual decision has to be made!

Bribing the groom with cake...

I talked recently about wanting a rice crispie wedding cake , and I'm still trying to convince Karl! He is convinced that we should stick with regular chocolate cake, but I'm working on him.

I have suggested that a rice crispie cake would save us loads of money, and so he could have a groom's cake too. Yes I am aware that that's bribery, but my morals go out the window when rice crispie cakes are involved.

Now a groom's cake is a very American idea (I think it's mainly used in the south? Not sure though) and I've never heard of weddings in the UK having a groom's cake, but if that's what it takes then I'm happy to go along with it - plus more cake can only be a good thing!

From what I can (from lots of googling!) groom's cakes tend to be gifts from the bride to the groom and often reflect the personality or interests of the groom. They also tend to be chocolate, or at least dark, so they look more masculine that the lighter, feminine wedding cakes. Here's a few pictures of groom's cakes:

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As you can see, they range from fairly simple to really amazing!

I've promised Karl that it would be a fairly big cake (not as big as the wedding cake, but big enough!) and it would be a chocolate cake. But I want the actual cake to be a surprise for him.

I want Karl's cake to be something that he loves more than anything else (probably including even me!) so this is what I'd get for him:

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Yes, that is actually a cake! How incredible does that look?

Karl is addicted to coca-cola. It's a very bad thing to be addicted to, but everyone has their vices, right? If I presented Karl with a giant can of coke, that was actually a chocolate cake, I'm fairly certain that he would think he'd died and gone to heaven.

So that's what we'd have if Karl agrees to the rice crispie wedding cake. If he doesn't agree, we'll just stick with our original plan of a chocolate, iced wedding cake. I'll keep you posted!

Envelope Liners. To diy or not to diy?

I think that lined envelopes look really cute for wedding invitations. They are a nice, simple way to jazz up plain, boring envelopes and can help you add your own personality to the invitations.

I really like the look of lined envelopes and I found this really easy tutorial from The Budget Savvy Bride, explaining how to make your own envelope liners.

I think that if I found some pretty wrapping paper in our wedding colours, I could make envelope liners for just a few pounds. My dilemma is that I'm not sure if it is worth all the time and effort.

Sure, they will look pretty, but it's not like anyone will open an unlined envelope and be horrified at the lack of pretty paper stuck to the inside! At the end of the day, the envelopes are going to get thrown in the bin. Do I want to spend hours cutting and sticking things that will just be thrown away as soon as they are opened?

I'm still undecided because even though I know they're going in the bin, I still think they look really nice! For just a few pounds, I'm tempted to make them anyway in the hope that at least one person will open the envelope and think "Ooh, that's cute!"

I think I'll try to find some purple and green patterned paper, or maybe just lime green? I have seen some other options for envelope liners that are also very cool -

Google map envelope liners

Map Envelope is a website that lets you put in your postcode and create an envelope liner made from a Google map. How cool would it be to have a map to your wedding venue lining the envelope?

If you don't want a google map, or the google map of your venue is really dull (like mine!) then you could draw your own map!

Or what about using a photograph? I think this is a little bit OTT to use a photo of the two of you (afterall, your guests know what you look like!) But it's still cute.

 

Another way to use photos as an envelope liner, without it being too cheesy and conceited, is to use someone elses wedding photo. Maybe your parents or grandparents, or someone special that you want to honour? 

One idea that I really like is to line the envelopes with paper covered in words. 

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You could have your names, wedding date and location, or you could have words like "love, trust, passion, friendship" etc repeated over and over again. The great thing about making your own envelope liners is that you could print out whatever you like and stick it in the envelope. 

Speaking of words - I found this recently:

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A nice wedding portrait, right? But if you look closely, the entire picture is made up of words!

How cool is that? They are called Text-o-graphs and you can order them here in poster prints, canvas prints or digital file, using any picture and any words you like! I would love one of us, using our vows, or the lyrics to our first dance. 

At $40 for a digital file, $60 for the cheapest poster print and $230 for the cheapest mounted canvas print, they are not particularly budget friendly but they are very cool!

Wedding Cake Idea

I have a new obsession! Ever since I saw a picture of this wedding cake, I can't stop thinking about it...

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Oh yes! A rice crispie cake!

My friend, Danielle, makes the most amazing rice crispie treats. Seriously good - I would always choose them over regular cake, so when I saw this wedding cake it just seemed like the perfect idea!

And just think about how much money we would save!

Karl isn't convinced. He loves cake, and is sort of set on the idea of a chocolate cake. I think that a rice crispie cake is a little too unusual for him to get his head around. Personally, I think it's brilliant. And since we are not planning on serving our wedding cake as dessert during the meal it should be fine. Our guests will have a 3 course meal, plus bacon sandwiches later, plus wedding cake. Therefore, the cake is just a nice extra so it's not that necessary to have something that everyone will eat - if someone doesn't like rice crispie cake (but really, who doesn't??) then it's not like they will starve or anything!

I have just been discussing this with Danielle, and we think it would be fairly easy to make. It'll just take LOTS of rice crispies and big cake tins.

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I seriously love these cakes! I think it's something a bit different but still really fun - exactly how I hope our wedding will be. I'm going to try and convince Karl that this would be much better than a boring old chocolate cake!