May 2012 Brides (and Grooms) + Diary of a 2012 Bride

Poppleminster

Brilliant bargain! I love the link to the blog site too. My fave for DIY inspiration is stylemepretty with a dot com and look for the diy section. I can't help but indulge in fantasy craft making sessions on a regular basis. I cannot seem to post the exact link as IO am a newbie but it's not spam so I wrote it in full.

Poppleminster

Just seen your link- they will look gorgeous! Huge bargain of the day!!

MsShopper

Aw, that's lovely. I just bought a dress from there for a party, and I thought the fabric was very good quality for the money (and that was full price!).

ruthybabs

Hi ladies, nice to see us on the 1st page again!

welcome poppleminster-your plans sound very romantic and exciting, love the mystery tour idea!

Olokia, your dresses are gorgeous and a total bargain congratulations! Seems the fashion is moving away from very formal very expensive dresses and I for one am all for it. I bet there's not much between the sizes either so they should be easily altered, just cut out the label and she won't even know what size you ordered lol!

Msshopper, congratulations on the photobooth! I hope they're as good as we hope! That's the same company i'm using and the same booth-couldn't see the point of a more expensive one. upto now their customer service has been amazing and they've been happy to take my money weekly, helping me to budget which is great.

Seen my mum today and had decidedly lukewarm responses to anything to do with the wedding (and she wonders why I don't include her?) Have decided to leave her with it and not let it wind me up and was deliberately vague about the whole food thing-still looking at quotes, some sort of buffet etc rather than tell her we're having fish and chips, because she'll just complain. Better to listen to whinging for a few weeks than for months I reckon!

On the plus side-as mean spirited as she can be about these things (last time I got married she was just the same, I think it's because she's not in control of it so she sulks) she is very good with the children. She has taken them off my hands for a week so I have just booked a flight and am heading off to Spain on Sunday for a few days to meet up with H2B where he's working!

Just realised that I sound like a completely selfish !!!!!! I do love my mum and am very grateful for the help I receive, but for some reason she has never approved of anything i do or the way I do it and althouh I am the sibling who has achieved and is most self sufficient etc and also the one who does the most for the (extended) family, I am never quite good enough (1st class degree, qualified teacher, 4 beautiful, confident kids, lovely home.) It's a weird thing, but even my younger sister has noticed and we can't work it out. It's just her way I think. families eh?

Anyway, I'm going to enjoy a few days alone in the sunshine with H2B which is a lovely treat and I don't even mind the little chunk it just knocked off my wedding savings!

Better get the wardrobe open and see what I can find to pack!

Oh yes, am definitely decided on Sunflowers now. Do you think they will be readily available in tesco/m&S at the beginning of May??? Think they were this year but can't remember....maybe I should email them?

Poppleminster

Have a lovely time! Maybe your mum is threatened by you being generally awesome! Sounds daft but it might be true. To try and make you feel inadequate, albeit probably unintentional, might make her feel as good as or better than you are and back in control of you. The joys of family psychology! I have a tiny family, only my sister and father are living blood relatives and i've not spoken to my father in years so our wedding can be nice and small

ruthybabs

Thanks honey! I'm a long way from awesome, but it is frustrating when my sister never finished uni and works part time in bars (nothing wrong with that, although mum was "delighted" when she got a job managing a strip club!) and my brother has serious problems with money and gambling, kids all over the place he doesn't exactly support although sees from time to time and is now expecting another baby with a girl who already has lots of children (so in theory that's 8 :eek: children he'll be bringing to the wedding) not to mention his drugtaking and thieving past which is all glossed over because he's golden b*ll*cks!

Need to learn to stop letting it bother me and accept that families never quite work the way you'd want them to! My sister just keeps out of the way and argues that she doesn't have kids yet so can keep a low profile and my brother is very good at being the best bloke you'd ever meet (when you don't know him). Used to think I imagined it, but other people have noticed and commented on it now.

In my mum's defence, she's never been exactly demonstrative or encouraging although the expectation was always straight As and they were very strict. Her parents were dreadfully disinterested so she's a lot better than they were and if she didn't have it herself I guess that explains why she finds it difficult to do it. She is much better as a grandparent than as a parent and I have actively strived to be much more affectionate and encouraging as a parent than she ever was. In actual fact I kiss and hug her more now than I ever did as a child because she just didn't really encourage it (and I only see her every 2 months or so!)

Anyway, whilst she never tells me, I do know that she loves me and is proud of me and the children and I think she's just a product of her own damaged upbringing. It would just be nice to hear something nice from your mum once in a while!

I'm glad your family is less complicated....well more so by the sound of it, but you're better adjusted to it! I'll try to stop whinging about her, but she will inevitably wind me up many more times between now and May so be prepared for the continuing saga!

On a positive note, I have been reading all your plans and they sound amazing. I'm glad you and your h2b are having everything you want! I would love to be invited to a quirky wedding like yours and as a devoted book fan, it sounds perfect to me (although there's no way my lovely h2b would ever go for anything even vaguely book related!) i love all the little details you're putting in!

Poppleminster

Thank you! I'm not sure what the posting rules are on here but as a devout wedding junkie, I have written some humerous guides (not to be taken seriously) about how to deal with mothers, embarassing guests and random persons that you dislike at weddings. I'll look up the posting rules and see if I can paste them in to make you laugh

My family is awesomely simple. I am marrying into a dream family but I feel very guilty as I will without fail miss birthdays and anniversaries etc purely because I am just not used to so many people. My christmas card list has always been so manageable and suddenly it's huge. I'm sure they think I am anti-social (which I am considering I have a general aversion to people I don't know, basically the whole world). My MIL to be is brilliant and always offers to do things for me but I find it so hard to let her! I'm used to doing everything myself and it's always been me versus the world so to have people want to be included in my little world is all very odd. I feel so guilty if they do the smallest things yet I know they really want to because they are nice people. Doh. With families, you just cannot ever win.

Glad you like the plans so far. I have longed for this wedding for so many years, not the posh stuff but the whole 'being in love' bit and to have it happen when i'd just resigned myself to being a mad old bag / cat lady is just awesome. I'm an ex-goth turned fluffy-bunny. Hilarious

Cleverclogs

Good tip about putting on a plea on freecycle Poppleminster. I'll use that one! And any guides you can post I'm sure will be needed!

Have a lovely break ruthybabs and don't worry, no-one's family is perfect and I'm sure we'll all need to have a rant at some point! May is still a while off yet!!! My relationship with my mother is pretty much non-existent. I've forgiven her for being a terrible mother as I was growing up, but the older I get, the less I understand her motivations for wanting to cause trouble - it's like she feeds off the misery she creates. Unfortunately I have felt I've had to invite her to our wedding just because I don't have the strength to deal with the fall out if I don't. It's sad as I miss the mum I never had but like Poppleminster, I'm marrying into a lovely family and all I can do is hope that I don't perpetuate the distance I had growing up, to my own children when I have them.

See, we all have our own little family hiccups to get over so it'll all be fine!

ruthybabs

You have really made me smile! If I turn out to be like my mum I will probably end up a mad old cat woman too...and not in the sexy pvc way - as my kids are gradually turning out to be very strong willed and independent (not sure where that comes from ;-) ) I'm so pleased you have got your happy ever after, have to confess i was beginning to think they didn't exist! Won't bore you with the details, but i met my h2b when i was 16, fell madly in love with him and we went out for a while but he was in the army and got a tour of Cyprus. As a 19yr old lad in ayia napa with money in his pocket and new girls coming out every 2 weeks we drifted apart and he broke my heart! I met and moved in with DD1&2's dad who was very controlling and eventually violent and after 2 children and a stillbirth I eventually got my sh*t together and left (he'd bullied me down to 5stone.)

I moved town, went to uni and got my degree & teaching quals and eventually met 1st husband-a charming but useless salesman, but by the time I saw through the sales patter the kids were happy and so i settled and married him to have more children (mum had cervical cancer & hysterectomy at 28-clock was ticking & I wanted a big family). He was a nice man, life and soul, very generous etc....but lazy, drunken, unhygienic and refused to do anything in the house unless he had an audience to congratulate him on being the perfect husband/father. It also turned out that credit cards funded his largesse and not his bonuses and he went bankrupt for £120k!!!!!! (Accrued before I met him whilst living with his mum)

Frighteningly he still can't quite work out what went wrong!

Anyway. H2B kept a covert eye on each other through mutual friends over the previous 16 years and when we both found ourselves single again we decided to give it another go! We are both very different people to who we were then, but I have truly never been so happy and never believed this sort of feeling existed outside of books/films. He went out with a 16 yr old girl and has returned to a 30something with 4 mad kids and he's loving it too-even the droopy wobbly bits that never used to be there!

The kids worship him because he's so good with them but extremely strict too, especially regarding respecting me and I think they have finally got the dad they deserve. Quite apart from them-I have been in love with him since I was 16 and I can't wait to grow old with him!! he is my very best friend....you name the cliche, I can probably tick the box lol! But seriously, I have learned what the real thing is the hard way and I really never believed it existed, I'm so lucky to get this 2nd chance! Being in love is amazing!! I'm so glad you're happy too!!!!!

How did you meet your h2b????

ruthybabs

Sorry that was the short version! See what sitting in an empty house does to me!! ;-)