Mel has made some exciting decisions, choosing the dress and getting her craft on. I am head over heels for the sweet place names she has made, they are going to look gorgeous :-) Thanks Mel. Do pop a comment in the box below to have a chat with Mel about your wedding plans XOXO Lou

 

 

Afternoon everyone, I hope you’re all keeping well! I’ve had to ask Rob not to read the first part of this post because I want to talk about my dress. Like most of our wedding planning, I put off dress shopping for months and months and was only spurred into it by our imminent departure from the UK. Luckily by then I had a good knowledge of what designs and designers I liked. I adore Jenny Packham and Temperley bridal collections but wasn’t sure my frame would suit their styles. I tried on a few beautifully soft and ethereal dresses at the London boutique of Katya Katya Shehurina, which were gorgeous. But I couldn’t stop thinking about Claire Pettibone, which brought me to Blackburn Bridal Couture last September where I found the dress for me. It was a lot of fun to trying on some different styles too, I felt seriously glam in some Cymbeline dresses. But in my one I just felt like me, I didn’t feel like I was playing dress up and I was very comfortable in it, so it was a winner!

 

In what seemed like a good idea to squeeze in as much as possible when in the UK, I decided to book my first dress fitting for two days after Glastonbury festival. I would not recommend; not only was I extremely physically broken still – one knee wouldn’t bend enough to lift it out of the dress lol – a sudden attack of nerves (think extreme sweating) made me feel even worse. Despite madly pinning images of it on my secret boards on Pinterest, I’ve forgotten what it felt like to wear, what the details were and most importantly what it looked like on me. Jan the seamstress was so absolutely lovely though and once I had it back on, I could relax again, it was still all good! It’s not a big showstopper and it doesn’t have masses of wow factor but I love that it’s a bit understated, soft and delicate, that’s much more my style.

 

Once I sorted the dress, I could move onto the details, namely place cards. I was really excited about these because it meant I would be able to use my new toy from Amazon, my box of alphabet stamps!

 

 

Isn’t it just the cutest box ever! It now boasts pride of place on my desk. Anyway, in keeping with our rustic look I’d ordered some brown scalloped gift tags from Etsy and was planning to hand stamp everyone’s names onto these. Rob thought I was insane, but a mere three hours later and a small bit of finger cramp aside I was done and I’m pretty chuffed with the results!

 

 

Then because I was feeling pretty stamp happy, I used the stamp we’d ordered from The English Stamp Company of our little logo to brand the reverse side.

 

 

In the meantime, Rob started getting excited and decided to ‘test out’ the bunting by stringing it all through the flat. He was very proud of his handiwork…

 

 

Neither our church or venue allow confetti unfortunately, but I think I’ve figured out a way to still get one of those lovely confetti shots. After the ceremony we’re taking our bridal party away to have a few group photos, I’m not sure where yet exactly but hopefully somewhere we can throw a little bit around without anybody minding! So I bought a litre of ‘Kaleidoscope’ from Shropshire Petals, who I met ages ago at the National Wedding Show in Birmingham. This should be enough for a few handfuls and I love the mix of colours.

 

 

There’s still lots to do but it’s definitely started to feel real now I’m sat here with a bunch of confetti in my hand. Have you guys done anything in your planning recently that made you sit back and think, ‘oh man I’m getting married!’?

 

Take care everyone!

Love Mel