*November 2011 Brides and Grooms* Time to Chat!

Bluespirit

LosingPatience - wow you sound so organised! We've done venue, photographer, flowers, DJ&band, cake, but think that's about it. We're not planning on doing the stationery until April/May time once we've agreed timings with our venue. I definitely don't think its too early to buy bridesmaid dresses though - especially if you're getting a bargain! I'll be getting mine as soon as I've sorted out my own dress.

Chrissy - do you need to have the 2 cars the same? We've booked three cars from the same company - one is a big fancy merc for me, one is slightly smaller and the other is essentially a fancy people carrier. They're the same colour and will both be done with the same ribbons, but having the people carrier meant it was a lot cheaper, and because it fits 7 people in it means that more people can make use of it (I have 3 bridesmaids, a flower girl and 2 page boys!). Also, we managed to get an out of town company at a lower than normal price because it is a November wedding and we were taking three cars. We ended up getting it for less than what other places charged for two cars, so definitely shop around and haggle!

Enchantica

Welcome Chrissy and Losingpatience Btw Losingpatience you are now in a wedding trio of me, Bluespirit and yourself all getting married 12th November

Bluespirit - that's exciting that you have appointments to try on wedding dresses, let us know which style you go for

Chrissy - you are getting on fine, don't worry. We still have a good long time til our weddings. So as long as you get the main things booked (venue, minister/celebrant) then you can work on the rest at your own pace. What kinds of dresses are you looking at?

Losingpatience - sounds like you are getting organised And that's fab about the discount. The casino sounds like a lot of fun but shame about the expense. Hopefully you will find something cheaper elsewhere. I don't think it's too early to buy bridesmaids dresses unless you have someone who's weight fluctuates often or if there is a possibility of pregnancy. I'm pretty sure I am going to be pregnant for my friend's wedding (if all goes to plan) in 2012 but haven't told her. She is getting us to choose our own (non-matching) outfits though so shouldn't be too bad. I can't face telling her though because she's the type who could take it badly... Just going to tell her when we tell everyone else!

Chrissy1981

Thanks Bluespirit. I think my main problem was my expectations!! I just assumed that both cars needed to be the same otherwise they wouldn't match. However, I've rung a couple of local companies that have both said to use the best car for the bride (RR Silver Cloud III) and a similar but not as nice car for the bridesmaids (Daimler passenger Limo). They're coming in just a teeny bit over budget so going to go to the garage first of all and make sure I like them! Then I'll see if I can get a little bit off.

Enchantica, I've finally started to get excited about the dress shopping! Have booked a date with my mum, 2 bridesmaids (my sister and a good friend) and my maid of honour and have started looking at magazines. Am thinking strapless bodice with quite a big skirt? I'm sure I'll change my mind a hundred times before we go though!

crackerbread

hi everyone sorry to of vanished off here lol, only just realised i had replies, so my apologys, in response to who asked where the love heart personalised favors are from

lovehearts.com/wedding/personalised-just-married-love-hearts-x200

but if you fill in at questionaire which you can find at the bottem of the page

you get 10% off so drops price from 95 to 85.50

we are so excited now for the wedding, the missus has bought her dress outright, she got dress, tiara,veil and hoop(i still dont know what that is lol) bridesmaids dress for 800 from leeds bridal village,

we also found wedding invites at a local card factory shop 10 pack for 1.49 which was the best bargain, as the wedding invites are from us not the usual brides mother etc, so we got 4packs of day and 4 packs of night,

things are moving forewards for us now, trying to get the little things paid off and then chop away at the venue money,

my mum is helping us a lot,paying for our flowers and cake which is a massive help, and there secretly plotting to pay forour honeymoon just a week away somewhere such as gran caneria etc, we have 4 kids so would hate to be 1000's ofmiles away from them,

i love this forum for us november brides or grooms like me lol

keep it going everybody,times ticking on,

scott

Bluespirit

Chrissy - you sound like you're looking for a similar dress to me. I wonder what we'll both end up with. Saturday and my first two wedding shops are fast approaching! Good luck with going to the car garage - I hope you manage to get them within budget.

Losingpatience - that's a brilliant price for the dress. Do you have a picture of it so we can all see? The casino and chocolate fountain sound brilliant - really good fun. Good luck with your chat with your bridesmaid - these things are always difficult. Could she be an usherette instead, and that way she could wear something that she felt more comfortable in but would still be a part of your wedding?

Crackerbread - I love the love heart favours, and I'm now really considering them too. Do you know how big the tubes are? It sounds like you've been getting lots of bargains too, which is brilliant! That is very generous of your mum, and Gran Canaria would be lovely in November as you should still get some nice weather. We were there last summer and had a great holiday.

We've just had an interfering mother in law to deal with recently. I mentioned it a while ago that future MIL wasn't happy with our decision not to go crazy on flowers in the church, and to reuse some of the flowers in the reception, and she's not let it go. Yesterday H2B caught her at church asking the church flower woman about putting extra flowers into the church (which wouldn't match the ones we're getting from the florist), as she can't seem to accept that we can't afford, and don't want, to do any more. H2B and her ended up having a bit of an argument about it at church, but fortunately FIL2B backed him up, and she has promised to stop interfering (though I'm not convinced!)

Enchantica

Losingpatience - your dress is GORGEOUS! That is so beautiful. So you will be a Maggie bride then Fabulous. I hope all goes well with your bridesmaid. As you say, if you approach it in a diplomatic way it will be fine I'm sure. It's possible that she isn't too sure about being a bridesmaid so will appreciate you asking her thoughts on things. Or she can give you some ideas of what she was thinking. I'm sure you will come to some agreement though. Would she be more comfortable in a feminine looking suit perhaps? There are some lovely options out there. Up to you though Also with the honeymoon you could look at Turkey? There are some lovely parts and it's not usually too expensive. If you book well in advance you can often get a good all inclusive deal.

Crackerbread - your favours are awesome! What a great idea. Sounds like your lady got a really good deal on her dress and bridesmaids dresses, well done her! That's good that you are getting help from your mum as well with the flowers and cake. Weddings end up so expensive even when you are careful to not to go overboard, there are so many little things that add up. Sounds like you are getting nice and organised, well done Also, I LOVE the Gran Canaria. My parents took me quite a few times when I was a bit younger (I'm 26, so about 10 years ago or so) and it was lovely. Travel Supermarket have some good deals for there as well.

Bluespirit - I'm sorry to hear about your interfering MIL. Sometimes I wonder if they like to interfere because they didn't have the kinds of weddings that we can have nowadays. There wasn't the whole 'going all out' for the wedding back in the day unless you were really well off. Maybe she's kind of doing the flowers that she wished she had? Or maybe she just wants you to have lots of flowers and for it to look nice but doesn't quite realise what she's doing. But hopefully she knows now that she has overstepped the mark and needs to calm it with the flowers. Hopefully!

Well, me and OH have decided to have a ceilidh band do 2 x 45min sets around 9ish at our reception. So between our 2 sets of ipod music. Well, we are having 1 set of ipod music (pop and rock etc), then the ceilidh band, then more pop and rock then our 'Power Hour' of metal from midnight until 1am. I love a bit of Scottish dancing and it will appeal to a range of people at the reception hopefully. The band we are getting have a caller who shows how to do the steps in the dance before they start the song so hopefully lots of people will join in.

We also did our cake tasting at the weekend which was AWESOME. The lady had 8 little cheesecakes for us to eat. I mean 'test' haha. 4 chocolate ones with a bourbon biscuit base and 4 strawberry and cranberry cheesecakes. Nom nom nom! We have now let her know what we would like and she is going to come back to us with a quote. We are 99% sure that we will go with her because the cakes were fab. We have said that we would like 100 mini cheesecakes (cupcake size) with 50 being swirled through with toffee and topped with a caramel glaze, and the other 50 will be normal baked cheesecake topped with berries and frosted sugar (to look wintery). There will be a 10inch sponge cake at the top decorated with snowflakes which will be the cake we cut I've pretty much given her free reign with the design, just said to keep to the winter theme with blues, silvers and white. So it will be a surprise to see how it looks on the day. Kinda laid back like that

Bluespirit

Losingpatience - That's a lovely dress!

Enchantica - Those cakes sound absolutely delicious! The ceilidh band sounds good too - we're having one as well, as I think they go down pretty well with lots of people at receptions.

I was wedding dress shopping at the weekend, and have found one that I love - http://www.maggiesottero.com/dress.aspx?keywordText=victoriana&keywordType=any&page=0&pageSize=15&style=J1082 Funnily enough it was one that I didn't think would suit me at all, but the woman in the shop convinced me to try it on, and I was so surprised! I've still got another couple of appointments before making the decision, but I really love this one and can't stop thinking about it!

Chrissy1981

Hi everyone, I have an appointment to view the wedding cars tonight! Hope to book them and then I can tick something else off the (ever-growing) list.

We had our engagement party at the weekend (OMG stress!) and had a cake from a local cake maker. It was a 14" square sponge with jam and cream and normal icing. It was lovely sponge but where the jam and cream was, it sort of fell apart, if you know what I mean? This was sort of a dummy-rum for ordering our wedding cake and I wondered if this is normal? As you cut it and served it, the jam and cream made it squidgy so the halves came apart and it was quite tricky to serve. Does that make sense?!

The DJ was also on a dummy run for the wedding and although he was okay, I wasn't that impressed. So I've had to start a new search for that!

In other news, the appointment for suit hire and ring shopping has been put back a week as boyfriend (sorry fiance) is going to work overtime. Mustn't complain! Does anyone else feel like they want everything to be booked NOW in time for our November weddings??

Chrissy1981

P.S Also booked honeymoon - 2 weeks in Cuba!

losingpatience

Evening all!

Well I had the chat with my bridesmaid, said that I would love her to be my bridesmaid but at the same time know it's not her kind of thing so if she didn't want to I would understand and wouldn't be upset or annoyed but she's assured me she wants to do it, even asking when we would be going bridesmaid dress shopping! Which brings me on to my next news, I've ordered all my bridesmaid dresses today! I had seen them in Debenhams a few weeks ago and my sister ( chief bridesmaid ) was with me at the time so tried one on and loved it and it looked lovely on her so I'd pretty much decided I wanted those ones if possible. I rang and spoke to my other bridesmaid who told me when she was shopping she saw these lovely dresses which happened to be the same ones I'd looked at!

So the only person thats actually tried them on is my sister. But the 20% off ended today so I thought I'd order them as it's a £20 per dress saving and if they don't like them I can take them back, or if they need a different size they can exchange. I just knew I'd end up kicking myself if I ended up going for them in a few weeks time and have to pay full price. The way I see it the money I've saved is going to pay for my flower girls dress.

Enchantica - The band sounds great, and I love the idea of your metal hour at 12. We also like rock and metal so have been trying to include music that we like into the wedding, not just music to please everyone else. So far for music for the ceremony we have come up with Apocalyptica - Fade to black, Pantera - Planet Caravan and for our first dance it's probably going to be Extreme - more than words but then I'm also going to have Beyonce - Halo as it has alot of sentiment for me. You cake sounds gorgeous as well!

Bluespirit - That dress is stunning! I'm sure I said as well that the dress I ended up getting is nothing like I thought I would want, funny how that happens isn't it! It definitely sounds as though you've found "the one" though

Chrissy1981 - I've never made wedding cakes but I do bake alot and it sounds to me as though it could be one of two things. Either their wasn't enough filling to sandwich the cakes together so they didn't stick together when you cut the cake or the filling was too moist so it's soaked into the cake and made it a bit too soft. I'm no expert though, that's just my opinion. Just as well you "tried" the dj out now rather than being disappointed on your wedding. I'm definitely with you in wanting to get things sorted now, I'm booking my photographer this week and I'm going to make an appointment to get the suits sorted next week as my fabric sample has just come today for my dress so I can try to match things if I want to.

On the note of booking a photographer I was after a bit of advice. We saw someone on Friday who we both loved and her photos were fantastic. It's a husband and wife team, both of which are professional photographers and they are both with us for the entire day. We get a mini website for before the wedding where we can put up info about the wedding, local hotels, menus etc and we get all photos they take on the day on dvd with copyright ( she said there'll be between 500 - 1000, all of which will be edited ), 100 6x9 photos and 15 8x12 photos, though they aren't in an album. They charge a service fee of £999 for this

Someone I work with's husband is also a professional photographer and he has agreed to provide the same as above for the same price but also include a wedding album with it. The main difference obviously is we'd only have one photographer. In theory of course I know that this is the better option, but we just didn't like his photos anywhere near as much. The lady actually works with this person sometimes so does know him. Do you think I should see if there's any way she would give us some form of discount? I know she was offering 20% off for bookings made up to the end of December but is no longer offering that discount. I just don't know whether this is a bit cheeky, especially as she clearly states how much they charge on their website