August 2013 Bride and Groom Chat

IloveaScotsman

EmsLdn wrote: »

Hello all,

I'm getting married on Friday 09 August this year - AGHHHHHHH!!!

There's so much to do and it must all be done on a tight budget!

I've recently found a free online budgeting tool (Google docs apps type of spreadsheet thing) and have found that to be incredibly useful. As well as having more lists than I know what to do with!

My question for today is on the subject of wedding dresses - I have seen many threads on the subject of affordable/budget/ebay/Chinese made wedding dresses. I have searched a few of the sites and have found generally mixed reviews.
Does anyone here have any recent first hand experience of dealing with the budget end of the wedding dress market? And by budget, I mean £150 or less... I have found that bridal dress shops don't tend to stock very much (if anything) in the price range I'm looking at and the highstreet shops that do bridal dresses aren't stocking dresses that (IMHO) suit my physique.

Advice, guidance or words of inspiration welcome!

Ems

Hi Ems,I ordered my wedding dress from ebay and really cant express how amazed I am with the quality and standard of the dress.

I tried on loads of dresses in bridal shops until I found the perfect dress and then got in touch with the seller (ASAPBAY) and sent them the make and dress code and asked them if they could make it.

In total, I paid £253 for a copy of an Ellla dress for me and a copy of a Dessy bridesmaid dress for my daughter. This included postage!

I would definately recommend this seller to anyone, I know this sounds like an advert but I am genuine!

sam_in_the_city

Hello Everyone

Getting Married on August 31st
Feel really impressed with how much we have done, set the date on 31st december 2012, giving us 8 months to prepare
since then
Wedding ceremony is booked and paid for
Reception venue is booked and deposit is down
wedding shoes are bought
Cars are booked (free) courtesy of OH work
Photographer booked (free) through a friend
Flowers (artificial) are to be bought but being put together by florist friend
Cake - Im a baker so will do that myself
Favours - friend is chocolatier and will do them for us (free)
table decorations - bought
Favour boxes - bought
Guest book - bought
invitations - bought
Hair on the day - sister in law is hairdresser (free)
Make up on the day - friend is beautician (free)

Dress shopping next tues, make up trial with friend in Body shop on wed, flower picking tomo

Ring shopping next month
Suits for OH and BM to be bought in June
I think in 8 weeks ive pretty much covered most of it :O

Cant believe how incredibly organized i am considering most of the time im a scatterbrain - Calamity Jane being one of the nicer names friends and fam call me lol!

We have been engaged for over 3 years - will be getting married 4 years to the day that he propsed, my only sticking point is my ring. I cant decide what i want, my engagment ring is a trilogy ring with the diamonds set high and for xmas last year he bought me an eternity ring (bit backwards we know lol) is a knot ring and my finger feels pretty full up. Im also considering using Light in the Box, for my wedding dress, but will def be trying some on first before i order anything (im 6ft and worried about length)

Also started off this year as a size 26, have lost 20lb so far and im into a size 22/24 so my other worry is WHEN to get dress ordered as if i keep losing weight the way i have been (nice steady pace) then it will def need altered, the question is, by how much!

This year is flying in - but then i kinda am 100mph most of the time so i tend to see time flying away
ARRGHH not long till august ladies!

sdr2211

Yea - geh201 - a date twin! Best of luck ..

Ok - so, we have finally decided that we are going to have to separate the civil and religious elements of our marriage as the Tribunal haven't yet heard my petition for a nulity and time is running out. Had a seriously down day/week after that decision - we put our wedding back a year to try to accommodate them but still nothing and it doesn't appear that writing to the Bishop has improved things either. We have sorted the Registrar and booked an appointment to give notice as a result. We are seeing the venue to confirm a few details later this month and meeting the lady who is making the cake to agree the roses for the decoration. I have booked and paid deposits for my MUA and my hairdresser, have ordered and paid a deposit for the two youngest bridesmaids dresses, have commissioned my invitations too, using a picture my H2B took that we are also using for the table settings. I have sorted children's activity packs for the day, the bridesmaids gift bags are all done, the groom's gift is sorted and paid for and I have started to put together an additional information leaflet.
We have also had the panic moment when my H2B saw the budget and forgot about how we had agreed we were going to fund the wedding which caused palpitations and the requirement for a stiff drink.
I am also trying to book in my beauty treatments, I am allowing three days for hair colour and cut, leg/bikini/ underarm wax and manicure pedicure to be done - shellac or ordinary varnish? Any opinions on that one?
I need to finalise the men's suits.
I need to lose at least a stone - my dress fitting wasn't too good last month and I don't really want to have to resort to Spanx to suck it all in on the day... Not a good look with the very expensive underwear I have purchased for Mr H's eye's only.... Ha ha...

sdr2211

Sorry - well done Sam in the City on the weight loss...

Not at all long to go at all - according to the event timer countdown on my phone I have 163 days and 2 hours...

AAGGGGHHHHHHH....

Love_A_Bargain

Hello and congrats in advance to all my fellow August 2013 brides and grooms to be. :beer:

My wedding date hopefully would be August 18th, 2013.

Haven't done much yet and I can clearly see the time is fast approaching.

So far I have booked the church, organist, pianist and Pastor to conduct the ceremony.

Chosen bridesmaid, groomsmen, flower girls, maid of honour and best man (all notified and excited to be apart of it).

Got a photographer, would be meeting up with him next week to see samples of his work and discuss price.

At the moment am trying my hardest to secure a venue and its taking so much time. Most venues that I've encountered so far for that date is already booked out. Once I get that out the way everything else I hope, would fall in line quickly.

Love_A_Bargain

How is everyone getting on?

yorkshirebride2013

Love_A_Bargain wrote: »

How is everyone getting on?

Just over 4 months to go - seems ages away but also not long! So far we have:

Booked ceremony and reception venue
Flowers
Photographer
Cake
Favours
Hairdresser
Wedding dress and shoes

Still to do:
Invitations
Suits
Bridesmaids dresses
Flowergirl dresses (nearer the time as they are only small!)
Transport
Rings
Table decorations

I have probably missed some things...

We really need to sort out the invitations I think. Saw some that we like but £200 (50 invitations) - going to have more of a look round before deciding. I am not sure how much people usually spend on invitations (?) so if anyone would share then that would be great.

Hope everyone's planning is going well - time is sure to start slipping away soon!

freightexec2009

yorkshirebride2013 wrote: »

Just over 4 months to go - seems ages away but also not long! So far we have:

Booked ceremony and reception venue
Flowers
Photographer
Cake
Favours
Hairdresser
Wedding dress and shoes

Still to do:
Invitations
Suits
Bridesmaids dresses
Flowergirl dresses (nearer the time as they are only small!)
Transport
Rings
Table decorations

I have probably missed some things...

We really need to sort out the invitations I think. Saw some that we like but £200 (50 invitations) - going to have more of a look round before deciding. I am not sure how much people usually spend on invitations (?) so if anyone would share then that would be great.

Hope everyone's planning is going well - time is sure to start slipping away soon!

Morning! I've just got all my invitations together (getting married 24/08) and plan to send them out next week...


Being as fussy as I am I have gone through lots of different options sourcing my invitations..but in the end I used a lovely lady on Etsy; Upon A Time Designs. She created an entire suite for me which included day & eve invite, RSVP card and gift list for £30. We did have the expenditure of buying the card, and the printer but in the long run all of it will be well used for table numbers, table plan etc.


All in all, including the cost of the printer itself, the inks, card, envelopes and the suite itself it has cost me approximately 1.06p per invitation bundle.If you include a stamp the most it works out as is £1.56. We are inviting approximately 200 people. About 80 people in the day for sit down but extending on a much larger scale in the evening.


So for me this was a much cheaper option, but obviously time consuming at the same time, as I had to print and guillotine every single one!


Has anyone else also had the issue of how to word politely "no children"? I have not put the wording on the invite itself as I didn't think it would be the correct etiquette but was looking at ways of wrapping a piece of paper around the invites to people with children...there are a few nice sayings online


Also has anyone else yet experienced what I can only call "the mini melt down?!" which includes panic & tears... or is it just me so far?!


XXXXXXX

Love_A_Bargain

Time is fast approaching. Finally found a venue and now am onto invites. I would really like to send them out end of next month.

yorkshirebride2013, your plans are coming along nicely.:) Am searching high and low online to find a reasonable deal for my invitations. I've got 160 guests (maybe be lower) and I was thinking DIY, but with a toddler all over me, I don't think its possible.

freightexec2009 I haven't reach the "mini melt down" stage yet, but I can surely feel it and its not that far away:D.

sdr2211

Afternoon ladies, the first batch of my invitations have gone out - I used a colleague who is a designer to do mine which are very individual - for 40 invites, the OoS, table plan and the design consultancy she has charged me £80 which I think is pretty reasonable. I am in awe of people who can do it themselves, I had the overall idea, but I have neither the time nor the patience to do it myself and at the price, it wasn't worth it to be honest!
The second lot will be going out on Thursday - these are to the people who won't be staying in the hotel with us (it only has 22 rooms and I want family there) although I suspect that there will be a couple of people who don't want to stay for the two nights the hotel has in their terms for weekends so this could still be a moveable feast...

We are going to give notice on Tuesday - very exciting!

I am about to have a mini melt down about - of all things - table cloths and the difference in colours which the hotel, their laundry and the lady doing our chair covers are panicing about. It's a table cloth!!! I don't care as long as they are clean and the right size and in a vaguely similar colour palette...

144 days to go...
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