August/September Update
So here I am, writing the last wedding journal as Wendy Quesnel as in 3 weeks time I will be Wendy Berry! It is the strangest feeling, especially when my new passport arrived this week with my new name and signature on. Eddie said it didn’t look like I’d been practising my signature much and looked a little put out! I didn’t realise when applying for my passport in my married name that I had to sign the bottom of the form in my new name. It just didn’t occur to me, as it’s not my name until July 31st! So, lo and behold, I was made to resubmit my application. Just thought I’d mention it in case anyone else goes to do the same!
I’m feeling pretty relaxed now and excited. Virtually all the tasks we needed to do are now complete so just the last finishing touches are left to be done.
Since the last edition we’ve been collating our RSVPs, deciding our seating plan, choosing songs for the wedding DVD and we’ve been on our hen and stag do’s! I had a week in Turkey with the girls and Eddie had 5 days in Ibiza (clinging on to forgotten youth!). Although it was probably a bit ambitious budget wise, I found it really helped me to chill out and relax. I’ve definitely come back feeling much calmer than when I went! Eddie came back feeling ill and never wanting to drink again!
We’ve had a venue visit and practise shoot with our photographer, which was part of the package and was actually really useful. Firstly she was able to see where would be good for shots on the day so time isn’t wasted looking around. The shots she took were really good and showed us lots of different styles and techniques. There were some styles we preferred over others and this enabled us to show her which ones we preferred so she knows for the day itself.
Tonight we’ve met our videographer and he told us he’d done several weddings at St George’s and Thornton Manor marquee so that’s one thing less to worry about. He’ll know where he’s going and where he needs to set up in church etc. We weren’t originally going to have a wedding video but I’m so glad we are now. The run up to the wedding is literally speeding by and I can only imagine how quickly the day will pass. We will get to see so much more of what happens during the day this way and it will be lovely to watch our vows again in years to come. He has asked us to make sure we don’t look at him during the day. How difficult is that going to be! I will feel so ignorant!
We now need to think about our honeymoon, what type of currency will we need, what clothes are we taking, what adaptor plugs should we take etc. We haven’t given the honeymoon a second thought really as we’ve been too busy with arranging the wedding. It’s probably time I made a new action plan! What will I do when I have nothing left to organise? Maybe this is how people end up arranging their CD collection in alphabetical order!
I will be back in the next edition to let you know how the big day went. I’ll hopefully be able to share with you the things that were really special and worked really well and the things I’d maybe have planned differently so it helps anyone else who is planning their wedding.
Bye for now, wish us luck and lots of sunny weather!
Wendy Quesnel
June/July Update
Just two and a half months to go now until the big day! Invitations have been sent and RSVPs are starting to be returned. I finally received the wedding invitations I’d ordered, 4 months after putting the order in! They are really lovely but to say I was getting a little concerned was an understatement. I have, perhaps a little foolishly, entrusted the same lady to do the rest of the stationery, such as orders of service, table plan etc so no doubt there’s more stress to follow! We had a bit of a nightmare finding out addresses of everyone in Eddie’s family and extended family so I’d recommend doing this well in advance of writing the invitations as it only means the whole experience becomes a bit chaotic otherwise. Make sure you keep a list of all the addresses too so they’re all at hand for when you send your thank you cards after the wedding.
We’ve met with Rev Hambly several times now and he’s run through the meaning of the vows, the content of the service and where some of the traditions originated. We’ve booked our wedding rehearsal for the day before the wedding too and have sent details of our song choices through to Accord. Both my mum and Eddie’s brother have their readings at the ready so we’re all set for the ceremony.
I’ve met with the caterers this week to finalise details such as what the vegetarian option will be for the wedding breakfast, what the children’s menu will be and what food we want to have at the evening reception. We’ve had a bit of a radical turnaround and changed the evening finger buffet to bacon barms, sausage barms (including veggie sausage ones) and cones of chips! We’re having the full silver service for the wedding breakfast and canapés beforehand, so it will be a nice change for those who’ve been there all day. And if Julia Roberts can have hot dogs at her wedding reception then bacon and sausage barms are good enough for us!
I’ve recently been with my mum to help her pick her Mother of the Bride outfit. She has recently dropped 3 dress sizes so she looked amazing in it. She’s probably as excited about wearing her new outfit as I am about wearing my dress! So with everyone’s outfit now ordered or purchased, there’s just the dress fittings and suit fittings to be done. I for one have failed miserably on trying to diet, as have both my adult bridesmaids. There seems to have been more special occasions to attend than ever in the run up to our wedding! Stress also has the opposite effect on me to most people, I actually eat more rather than less! Oh well, there’s still a bit of time! I’m sure we’ll get there in the end.
I’ll be back in the next edition; the wedding will be literally a couple of weeks away so let’s hope everything has gone to plan! Next steps are to have the practice shoot with the photographer, keep on top of the RSVPs, decide the table plan arrangements, oh, and our hen and stag parties! Slightly dreading mine in view of what I may be forced to wear but will try to put that to the back of my mind until it happens!
Wendy Quesnel
April/May Update
Only 4 months to go now until our wedding day, I can’t believe how quickly it has come around since we booked it 2 years ago!
Eddie and I have recently met up with Rev Richard Hambly who will be marrying us at St Georges. We will be meeting with him again next week and on another occasion prior to the wedding and rehearsal. At our next meeting with him we’ll be discussing the vows and what they really mean, something he says will pass by in a flash on the day, not giving you much time to think about what they mean. It’s good to focus on the real meaning of the marriage as so much of your time is taken up with the practicalities in the run up to the wedding.
On Saturday I had my hair and make-up trial, along with my bridesmaids and my mum. I loved the end result and it will be reassuring that she will be there on the day to take the pressure off. My mum, who hasn’t worn make up for many years, looked amazing. She has recently dropped several dress sizes and it was great to see her in her new clothes looking all glam!
I’ve had a few concerns regarding our wedding invitations as it has been 2 months since we ordered them. I’ve been assured that we will receive them this week. They are all hand made and there is a lot of them to do so I do understand, glad I ordered them well in advance though! We now need to have another look at the guest list to make sure we haven’t missed anyone off. We’ve then got the huge task of finding out everyone’s addresses, think there will be a fair amount of ringing round required! I think I’ll have to ask Eddie to write the invitations out as my writing is not the neatest. It’s time he had a task allocated to him!
As we’re paying corkage and buying our own wine for the wedding breakfast, I’ve been waiting for some decent offers to become available online. I’ve now ordered and received all the wine, bucks fizz and cava for the welcome drinks and meal. I’m no wine buff but I went for a sauvignon blanc and a cabernet sauvignon that had good reviews from others on the website, hope they’re ok! I managed to time it so they were both on offer, at the same time as the bucks fizz and the prestige cava so although it felt like I was spending a fortune, it could have been worse! Although it’s a bit more hassle to buy your own, it is going to save us a few hundred pounds.
This month, we’ve also bought the candles for the candelabras and the organza sashes for the chairs at the reception. Although the chairs are nice and I didn’t want to cover them, I felt we needed to inject some of our gold colour scheme into the room. Apart from the ribbon on the favour boxes and the ribbon on the cake, there were no other gold accessories so chair sashes it is! I have bought these off E-bay and will re-sell them after the wedding, hopefully making most of the money back on them. I decided this was more cost effective than hiring them, although I’m going to need to tie them all on myself the day before!
I’ll be back for an update in the next edition. By then I’ll no doubt be in panic mode but hopefully will be the correct dress size and have grown my nails, 2 things that I just can’t seem to complete on my action plan!
Wendy Quesnel
December/January Update
Less than 9 months to go now until our wedding day! Since the last article it’s been pretty quiet but we’ve completed a few bits and bobs!
We’ve decided on our religious reading as “Love one another as I have loved you” (John 15: 8-12) which is a lovely reading that fits well with our non-religious reading, “the Art of Marriage” whilst still having a different message. We’ve also confirmed who will be doing the readings and who will be signing the register. We’d already previously agreed our hymns and music at one of the St George’s wedding fairs so I’ve been able to draft up an order of service with the help of David Stewart (thanks David!). I can now tick another task off the trusty action plan!
We’ve collected our marriage authority from the registry office ready to put into the safe at St Georges to ensure it isn’t forgotten on the day! I’m glad to say we passed the mini interview and are legally allowed to be married!
As our reception venue doesn’t provide catering we have the option of having the welcome drinks, wine and champagne supplied by the external caterers, or paying corkage for them to serve it and providing our own. It’s a lot cheaper to buy our own so I’ve been researching what wine is a good choice for the majority I’ve narrowed it down to a sauvignon blanc and a merlot and I’m just going to buy a good cava for the toast (no-one will know!). I’ve already twisted Dad’s arm to let me store numerous boxes in his garage. Being a non-drinker it will be safe there!
After much research into wedding cakes, I’ve found a lady who works from home who is very reasonable and will make any design you want. She’s really enthusiastic and spent a lot of time showing me loads of different ideas even though I pretty much knew what I wanted. She does it more as a hobby as she works full time doing something else so she was half the price of anywhere else, including delivery and set up at the venue. I’m really pleased at finding her as it’s saved us hundreds and the pictures of her cakes look great.
On a little window-shopping visit into town I saw some lovely shoes in the sale for my bridesmaids. Thanks to modern technology I texted them both a picture and they both replied straight away to say they loved them. I have now completed the outfits and accessories for the bridesmaids so another thing has been ticked off the list!
We still haven’t gone through our guest list with Eddie’s mum but have done now with my mum and dad so I’ll be nagging Eddie to do the same this week! Hopefully we haven’t missed anyone off as we’re already at 100 for the daytime, and that’s without cousins! Extended families have a lot to answer for!
I’ll be back in January with the next installment and will hopefully be doing well with my New Years Resolution to stop biting my nails! Eddie insists he won’t marry me I don’t stop. He is joking but I really do need to stop in time for the wedding! My nails are actually too short to stick false ones on. Now I’ve said it out loud I’ll have to make a start or I will look weak! In the meantime, I hope everyone has a lovely Christmas and a wonderful New Year.
Wendy Quesnel
October/November Update
Only 10 months to go now until the big day! Since we passed the year mark, time is flying by! We’re both starting to feel really excited about it and have started taking more action in our preparations.
I’ve put together an action plan much to Eddie’s disbelief! It’s just a spreadsheet of actions needed with dates and owners. To me it’s essential to make sure we don’t forget anything and it enables me to flag what can be done now to take the pressure off nearer the time. For example, tomorrow we have a meeting at the registry office to obtain our marriage licence. I was surprised at how far in advance they are booked up so if your wedding is approaching I’d suggest calling them sooner rather than later!
I’ve abandoned the idea of making my own wedding stationery, mainly due to lack of creativity on my part but also because I’ve found someone online who is such good value for money and her stationery is beautiful. The price she’s quoted me to do day invitations, evening invitations (all complete with RSVP and guest info), orders of service, table plan, table numbers, menus and place names is much cheaper than the prices most companies were quoting just for the invitations. And she’s giving us 10% discount if we order all our stationery from her. She’s making up a sample invitation in our colours and with our wording to check we are happy with how it looks before we order. She’s been really helpful and when I first contacted her, instead of just quoting me for the style I’d asked for, she suggested a way of making up an invitation, still with the RSVP and guest info, but in a less expensive way. She’s also making us labels for our guest book and wedding post box to match everything else. If anyone would like her website details let me know.
We’ve picked our non-religious reading for the ceremony “The Art of Marriage” by Alfred Pedersen. I love the way it talks about marriage not only being about finding the right partner but about being the right partner, something I think is very true about relationships. Despite a lot of searching, I haven’t found a bible reading yet so my mum is on the case! I love 1 Corinthians 13 but I’d like something that is a little different as it is read at most weddings and don’t want anyone to switch off! Also, the content is very similar to the non-religious reading we’ve picked.
The honeymoon has been booked! It’s a compromise between Eddie’s love of culture and my love of relaxing beach holidays! We’re going on a twin centre to Hong Kong for 4 nights and Mauritius for 11 nights. We’ve booked through an independent travel agent I met at a wedding fair and this has enabled us to book the hotel and flight combination that works best for us at a more reasonable price than brochures were stating. She really did do a lot of research for us and provided us with loads of different quotes for different hotel/flight combinations so we had a lot of choice. She was also able to give us a lot of first hand information about different hotels in Mauritius to help us make our decision. We’ve booked it in my married name so I’ve been to the post office for a form to apply for a new passport. I could wait until we return to do this but we both like the idea of travelling as Mr and Mrs!
Eddie’s been to pick out the suits for him, the best man and the ushers. He’s gone for traditional morning suit, pale gold waistcoats and scrunch ties for the best man and ushers (to match the bridesmaid dresses) and ivory waistcoat and scrunch tie for himself (to match my dress). Luckily, he picked everything I was hoping he’d pick!
Finally, I bought the wedding shoes I was trying to resist until the sales! However, in my defence, I found them a third cheaper than anywhere else so they were still a bargain!
Next steps will be discussing the guest list with Eddie’s mum (they have a huge family!) and discussing who will do the readings and sign the register. I need to draft an order of service and I plan to order all the stationery soon, leaving just the table plan and place names until nearer the time. That should keep us busy until the next edition!
Wendy Quesnel
August/September Update
I seem to have spoken too soon last month when I said “not a month goes by when there isn’t something to do in relation to our wedding planning”! Since the last edition, there has been a definite lull in activity!
As I had nothing more exciting to do, I forced myself to sit down and calculate exactly where we are in relation to our wedding savings target rather than bury my head in the sand until the last minute. As you may have guessed, below the figure where we should be at this point! No matter how much you plan and budget, something always comes up each month that you hadn’t accounted for, whether it’s an occasion or something essential breaks. With the credit crunch, overtime is no longer available for me, which makes it all a whole lot harder. Well, I like a challenge! It’s important to check regularly where you are up to if you are saving for your wedding as you need to have the odd shock now and then to rein in your spending! I’ve even stopped myself (so far!) from buying the wedding shoes that I know are perfect as I’m hoping they’ll be on sale by next year.
Next Steps
We are looking to book our honeymoon next month, possibly to Mauritius so will be meeting with the travel agent soon. As we’ve done without a holiday this year (much to Eddie’s horror!) it will be nice to have that to look forward to.
We’ve got a friend’s wedding at the end of August to attend so I’m sure that will reinvigorate us and inspire us into doing a bit more. Her dad has recently printed and sent out lovely invitations for her but forgot to put the date on them! She was understandably upset but all is sorted now! I’d really like to try making our own invitations as it would save us a fortune but despite buying lots of bits & bobs from a craft shop I just have no inspiration for how to do them. I am a complete perfectionist and if they won’t look great I just couldn’t send them out! I’ll have to give it some more thought and look at ideas on the internet.
Its funny how a piece of paper can be so important but as the wedding is so important to us, I don’t want to let it down by my less than talented artwork!
That’s all for now, will be back in the next edition, hopefully having done something in the meantime! Hopefully I won’t have bought those shoes!
Wendy Quesnel