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| Calligraphy and Design for the invitations. |
Due to over whelming tiredness, starting a new job, ambush of hayfever and a sickness and diahorrea bug this has taken much longer than usual to write, and please forgive the lack of eloquence!
I have spilt the wedding into three parts to make the job easier.
This is the first.
The preparation.
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| Abie texted me the made up invitations |
As with all weddings we had a budget. I asked Abie what was most important too her, and what didn't matter, as well as what she had in mind to make more personable and unique to her and Glenn.
She is most defiantly her mother's daughter!
She had her own scrap book, filled with ideas and cuttings of what she wanted and the colours. Being her mother's daughter, she has strong ideas, like her mother, so need less to say we have had some clashes along the way as well.
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| Invitation inside |
For Abie, the dress was at the top of her list of most important items.
I was not surprised by this. Ever since she was little she loved princesses and weddings. I hazard a guess she had dreamt up quite a few! As a teenager she glued herself to reality tv weddings and Hello magazines (urgh). Thankfully, taste wise she has outgrown those now! (phew)
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| Layout for the inside |
After the dress, was the wedding venue. She found an ideal one.It had to be safe and somewhere child friendly, as we have rather a lot of those coming! In all fairness she chose an ideal spot. It was fantastic.
The venue had to be booked over a year in advance!
So was the dress!
At least, budget wise we knew where we stood early on.
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| Painting the butterfly name settings |
Everything else, she sumised we could find on ebay, wedding sites and do ourselves.
Ebay became our new best friend.
It is truly amazing what you can find there!
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| Completed invitations |
Last summer I did all the calligraphy and layouts for her invitations. Wisley, knowing she was about to enter her final, and busiest year of her teaching degree in September she wanted them all out of the way.
It took about three days to do, photocopy, reduce and colour. Abie and her friends spend a very long night or two making them all up.
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| Insides complete |
It was an absoulte honour to do them. I made my own, 26 years ago. It is a lovely feeling when your children actually want you to make something for them again. They loved what I did and they looked unique too.
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| Calligraphy for the order of service |
Next up were the place settings. Purely as I had been on ebay and seen some lovely butterflys. I painted these in two shades of purple and glued on contrasting ribbons last January. They then sat for months untill numebers and final names were decided.
We had ordered Ivory Ballet pumps for the three little flower girls and I began to customise these next. I sewed lace, pearls and bows on them to make then really unique.
The dresses we had ordered from the USA online, after I had scanned 900!! we thought it was a bit of a risk but they were so reduced. As it turned out they arrived and were fantastic.
The other bridesmaids ones were ordered from an ebay seller who makes them to measure in China! again they were a real success!
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| Orders of service |
Then came the last batch of things to do, or rather things to make. Things to do seemed to span on throughout the year really!
Firstly, The Order of Service. This was 'interesting' as it involved a few meetings with the new vicar who turned out to be not as 'liberal' in her views as the old one had been, sadly. Let's just say the meetings were rather prickly to start off with! Eventually a service was decided and I could at last get to work!
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| Starting to sew the maternity bridesmaids dress |
Emma, one of Abie's Maid's of Honour was going to be 37 weeks pregnant with her second baby by the wedding and we could not find a dress to match the others anywhere. In a moment of pure madenss I suggested I make it. materails and pattern (the one and only bridesmaids/evening maternity pattern on the market) I was set. Well at least I thought I was untill the never ending slippiness of the material we had bought came to play! It was the hardest thing I have sewn. I had to sew everything twice as there was a full lining as well.
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| Pinning the bodice |
It became the bane of my life. Not helped by hubby walking past me several times a day, casting me a glance and saying 'I told you so'. The thought of sticking a few pins in him were more than just passing that week I may add.
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| 6am all nighter to complete it |
To get the dratted thing completed I stayed up one night, all night. It was done, my job on earth completed.I could not wait to get rid of it, but then became very protective of it at the same time. I told Emma, in no uncertain terms, if she had the baby BEFORE the wedding she still had to wear it! Thankfully we are still waiting for 'Archie' to arrive on time, as scheduled.
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| Of course it needed sequins as well. |
Oh yes, and there were the sequins as well. Let me just say-fair play to the ladies who hand sewed Kate Middleton's Dress. I have a new appreciation for your patience and handiwork!
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| Dada! finished at last |
Once rid of the dreaded dress it was back to the order's of service to colour in before they were finally printed off. Abie and her friends again did a sterling job making these up at home.
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| Ready to wear, so long as the maid of honour doesn't go into labour |
Now we knew who was coming the butterflies I had painted months before could have their names put on one side and the wedding dates on the reverse. These were then packaged up with the favours Abie had made up and Glenn had ordered and the seating plans.
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| Inside of the order of service |
We went to have a look at the church next for the flowers and take some photos. As I sensed we were not getting very far with the vicar, I made friends with Margaret, one of the church wardens who was lovely and a fantastic help. I the days to follow when questioned by Mrs Prickly I could simply respond 'Margaret says....' worked like a dream.
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| Adding colour |
I realised that the church was actually quite large and flowers very expensive so Mr Google and I spent a few hours together whislt I came up with pew ends. Easy to sew, and make and no flowers involved. Better still they could be untied and re tied at the reception area leading up the staircase. Brainwave!
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| Order of Service |
Pew ends materials ordered along with enough Florist oasis to stink a ship, or rather dry up an ocean, I was ready to go. Of course these things take far longer than you plan, so me and the sewing machine saw some long nights together again.
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| Writing names on place settings |
Still I was pleased with the outcome, given I did not have a clue what I was doing! And they looked great in the church as well. Abie cast a dubious eye.." I thought I had said I wanted the church understated'....erm yes it is, sort of. She was of course pleased when she finally saw them in situ.
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| Starting to sew the pew ends |
Then of course there were the flowers.Unfortunatly there are no two ways about leaving them to the last minaute. Simon had found a flower wholesaler online who bought the same dutch flowers that source all the local shops, only online they are 2/3 cheaper. Needless to say, doing it all ourselves saved us 100's of pounds-litterally.
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| Completed pew ends |
This however was a daunting task.
We have only ever arranged flowers in a jug before.
Now we were facing making up 8 bridesmaids bouquets, 3 flower girls posy balls, 2 large church stands, 10 small church displays, 20 button holes and 8 bird cages.
We happened to have booked to see Coldplay the weekend before.
Stuck in possibly the longest traffic jam of our lives (2 hours to get out of Manchester) we managed to sit in the car and figure out how many flowers we would need to order.
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| Pew ends |
Then we re thought, and cut it a little further.
Then we began to panic we had not ordered enough.
They arrived on Thursday lunchtime. We had planned to make up a demonstration of each one. In reality we were so busy I managed one posy and Simon a button hole (surprisingly difficult to actually get thin enough to fit in the actual button hole of a jacket).
So Friday, the day before the wedding dawned bright and clear. The children were packed off to school and Luke packed off to revise Geography for his Monday exam. Bella conveniently finished her exams the day before so she was on childcare. I made an early morning dash to Lidl (8 ivory roses for £2) and Aldi- who had not yet unpacked their flowers, but as Glenn is assistant manager there, were more than happy to bring me out their entire consignment to look through! I lugged back another £40 of flowers happy with my last minute horde!
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| Wedding flowers have taken over our home. |
Glenn's mum (Karen) and sister (Gemma) arrived soon after and we set about getting the bird cages ready. Simon arrived home from work and started on the church stands, and Abie and Cassie arrived and made headway with the button holes. It was an amazing team effort and I think we all did an amazing job!
By the time of the wedding rehearsal at 4 pm we had broken the back of the flowers nearly.We were able to take the two church stands with us and Karen and Gemma took all the birdcages up to the hotel later that night.
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| Making up the button holes |
Mrs Prickly or shoudl I say Rev Prickly did not appreciate our sense of hummour. It was like being back at school and being told off by the headmistress again! However I think even she was midly impressed at out floral attempts, but less impressed at Anya shaking the stands!
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| Some of the many buckets of flowers |
Once back, with Pizza ordered Cassie and I made headway with the bridemaids bouquets and then finally the church displays. These were all sprayed and placed outside where little babies could not reach!
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| Church stands created by my hubby |
We took a break for tea and to get everyone to bed at a resonable hour, given we all needed to be up at the crack of dawn, and then I had to complete the last two flower girl posies. Never under estimate how hard it is to stick flowers around a circular oasis, and keep them in place. Lets just say a lot of wire and a glue gun were involved!.. and a few swear words!
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| Church stands |
So much for the relaxing evening chilling with my daughter before she gets married.
We nearly came to blows by lunchtime and by tea time were both so busy we barely said a word!
My early night was replaced by making floral displays and tidying up and checking everyone had everything.
I only realised on Friday I had completely forgotten to buy Jono any shoes!!!!
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| Bird cage close up |
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| Top of cages |
We realised in our optimism that getting the flowers anywhere ourselves with all the children and babies was an impossible task so we texted our friend Lara, who had just got off her plane from Switzerland and had a hired car! She had only been to Colwyn Bay a handful of times and got to know the area quite well dashing around the morning of the wedding.
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| Ready to make the bird cages up |
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| Aren't we clever? |
The flowers thankfully all stayed in tack the night before (we had googled how to keep them fresh) and nothing had fallen out by 6 am when we all started to rise.
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| Arrival of the dutch flowers |
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| Flower girl ball poseys |
Doing so much ourselves, was undoubly stressful at times, but also immensely rewarding when we saw the quality of what we managed to produce and the price we had paid for it all was staggeringly different.
Abie got what she had wanted, infact, far more than she had wanted, and we had kept to our budget.
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| Church /eve reception flowers |
The internet id often criticised as the route to all evil, but it can also be an amazing tool.
We learnt so much on there from floristry to pew decorations! and everything inbetween.
Ebay was a life saver! and saved us many hours of trudging around shops wasting time as well.
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| Flower girls posy |
As a teenager, Abie always dreamed of the 'Hello' style weddings. You know the mega bucks ones. However I am sure you will agree, what she got was far nicer. It was put together with love, care and an amazing attention to detail, from all her hard work and research and plans, to all of us working together to achieve the final day pieces. Everyone commented on this.
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| Church flowers |
At the end of the day all the hard work paid off, and a truly personable wedding that reflected Abie and Glenn's personalities was created. It was wonderful to feel so involved rather than to just be a cheque book, to make things that gave my daughter so much pleasure is a far greater treasure than anything money can buy.
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| Bridesmaids bouquets |
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| 8 bridesmaids bouquets |
I am more than ready for the next wedding now, and by the time we reach Anya, daughter no 7 I wil be a real pro!
