A tattooed bride and lime green? - The Planning.

(x-posted)

Hi! It's been a while since I've been here and planning has taken a different turn to how it was in the beginning so I figured I'd start a planning thread! First, the introductions.


I'm a 22 year old female. I was born in Edinburgh, Scotland and lived here until I was eight years old. Then, I moved to London. At 15, I moved to Durham. At 16, I moved to Sunderland. At 18, I moved to Northern Ireland. At 19, I moved to Edinburgh and then back to Northern Ireland. At 20, I made my final move back home to Edinburgh. My family are all very close and the majority of my best friends are family members. Growing up, we were always struggling for money. At one point, my mum held down five jobs. As a result, a lot of my childhood was spent with my grandparents. My grandad was my hero. My best friend. My father figure. When he passed away, that spot moved onto my brother. Even now, at 22, he acts like your typical over protective father. He'll be walking me down the aisle.

I met my own father for the first time at nineteen and for a little while, all was well. And then I saw his true side; the one my mother warned me about and now we have no contact at all. I don't even plan on telling him I'm engaged.

It's only been within the past two or so years that I've formed a decent relationship with my mum and since then, we've grown incredibly close. She's my rock. And now here we are! I live with my beautiful fiance (Colin!) in our small but cosy 1 bedroom flat and I'm a full time student doing what I love most: Photography. I absolutely love tattoos, horror movies, serial killers, 90s nickelodeon and cartoons.
November 15th, C and I were sitting on the couch not long after putting up our Christmas tree (don't laugh! I wanted to put it up weeks ago). I was on the laptop, he was watching TV. He pulled me into a hug, so he was hugging me from behind and we snuggled for a bit and then I thought he was scratching but next thing I know, he pulled out a ring and asked me to marry him! Of course I said yes. I was super embarrassed, haha. We kissed and he slid it on my finger. It wasn't much of a surprise; we'd talked about it for months and it was already unofficial. We just made plans not to make it "official" until we had the ring. God knows how many times I drunkenly asked Katie to be my bridesmaid "but shhhhhh! Don't tell anyone!"

We originally wanted a very small ceremony. Small being just C, me, Katie (bridesmaid) and Lee (one of my best friends who's got really close to Colin and is going to be his best man). We weren't going to tell another soul until the deed was done! But then when it got "official" and we really thought about it, we wanted people to know. We wanted our families there.

Anyway, my ring!:


It's absolutely stunning and it's exactly what I wanted, including being super cheap (no way I could wear expensive jewellery. I want to enjoy it, not be paranoid to lose it!). Because of this, I don't know if it's worth getting it resized (it's ONE size too big). Or should I just get another one? I do really love this ring but since getting it and looking further into planning, I'm going to struggle to get an equally cheap wedding ring to sit right on my finger with it. We'll see.

The first person we told was my mum. I was a little scared of speaking to her because I wasn't sure how she was going to react because of our ages but she was fine. She said she was happy for us, reminded me that she was married with a child at my age and offered to pay for half of the venue which is amazing of her. Money is still tight, after all.

After that was C's parents. Like me, he was a little frightened of what his mum would say but she was also very happy for us and ordered us to send her a recent photo of us together that she can hang in the hallway! I've actually yet to meet his parents (I know, I know) so it's nice that she wants a photo of us.

Because we'd already been talking about it for a few months, we already had a pretty good idea of what we wanted and the very first "definite!" I found was my bridesmaids dresses. I'm having a maid of honour (my sister) and two brides... people? Katie and a really good friend, Ryan. Of course this won't apply to Ryan! Although he has shown a rather deep interest in the dress ;P We'll get to him later! Something that would flatter all body shapes, sizes and heights was a must! And this is what I found.


For MY DRESS (!!!) I instantly knew I didn't want the "typical" dress and I've yet to find one I'm madly in love with but I have found this one. It's the length I want, the right amount of "poofiness" and it's pretty and bridal but not overly so. The only problem I have with it? It's strapless. I just will not feel comfortable. I'm thinking maybe I could buy pretty ribbon and my mum could make some straps? I was also thinking of having a coloured petticoat but have since decided against it.


Since my wedding dress is going to be as bridal as I can face, I want some pretty amazing shoes. Plus, they're going to be visible. It's not like they're going to be hiding under the dress and I do love me some epic shoes. They're how I'm going to get my personality into what I'm wearing. The kicker? They HAVE to be flat. I do NOT want to be towering over FH on our wedding day. I'm having real trouble finding something I like enough. Our colours are lime green and hot pink but finding even simple ballet pumps in these colours is proving damn impossible!

We've also got lots of little details picked out. Like we want a sweetheart table rather than a top table and we want to decorate with things like bunting and bubbles and the like.

But you know what the most important thing to me is? Other than, of course, getting married to my lovely. What is more important than the shoes and the dress and whether we have victoria sponge or chocolate? Getting my damn chest piece tattoo covered! Watch this space; plans are being made and drawings are being drawn

Okay so brides.. person, Ryan, is doing our wedding photos. Awesome! We have a very similar style of photography so I know he'll be more than perfect for our day.

But... I kind of want a photobooth at the reception. With lots of stupid, fun props. But I don't want to pay hundreds of pounds so I was thinking... I have a few vintage film cameras, a couple of lomo plastic cameras and plan on buying more. So say I had a suitcase of props and a bunch of film cameras set up on a table with a background for the photos next to it. And people can choose which camera they want and take their own photos. Then I can develop the photos myself in the darkroom. We'll find some way to block off a wee corner of the room and I can borrow studio lights from college.

I'm also thinking of making something like this. We'll be making our own props, too.

The men things!

we were originally going to have the boys (including FH) in white suits with accessories our colours. But then I realised they only really look kick ass on the tall, gangly guys. So back to the drawing board.

All the men will be in this suit:

All with white shirts.

FH will be in this bow tie:


And these shoes:

With bright orange socks!

The best man will be in the same suit and shirt but with this tie to match FH:


Ryan, our bridesman, will be in the same suit and shirt again but, to match the girls, his tie will be this:


Our colours are BRIGHT. The two key colours being pink and green. My bridesmaids are in hot pink so I reckon our (mine, FH and best man) accessories should be in lime green. The overall theme is carnival meets candy shop meets retro meets shabby chic meets... huge ass party.

My bouquetttttttttttt! I am SO excited about this! I was originally going to make it myself but then another bride on another forum I was on offered to make them for me for a very reasonable price. So here we are! These are just examples. Mine will be different! But they are similar. Mine is going to have little ladybird buttons etc






Colin, Lee and Ryan will have buttonholes similar to these:




And the bridesmaids will have corsages
How epic?! I'm putting a wee deposit down ASAP after Christmas and she's going to send progress updates!

Since a lot of the things we seem to be looking at and liking are somehow related to candy, like colours, cupcakes, sweeeeeets etc, we've decided we want an EPIC sweetie table for our reception. If you're not sure/haven't heard of it, it'll be something like this:


I drew up a quick table plan for ours a few nights ago and it helped me figure out what sort of jars and sweets we want.


We're having cupcakes, giant strawberries, foam hearts, hundreds and millions, strawberry bon bons, cherries, kola kubes, cherry cola bottles and lollies.

We'll be decorating it with vintage bunting, a light pink cloth and lots of little nicknacks.

Now for our CAKE!
We're going to go for something like this, I think. Maybe.


We like the top and bottom tiers and the colours are great so the only major thing we'd have different is the middle tier. We're also turning it into 4 tiers with a GIANT cupcake on top!

This is also super adorable.


And we'd really love the inside to look like this:

FAVOURS!

I seem to have placed the level of awesome of my favours pretty high.. there are a lot of things that are super cool but just not awesome enough. I love pretty bottles and jars and glass and wanted to do something with that. But we also wanted to make something. We both love pink lemonade sooooo...
Bottles.


Filled with this yummy stuff (pink lemonade) that we'll make ourselves!


And then we'll get some "paint pens" and write something awesome on the bottles. A wee personalised message for each person with our names and the date maybe. Or maybe we could do something like this:


Here's another idea!
Getting empty jam jars and painting the lids like this:


Filled with paper stars


With polka dot ribbon wrapped around the jar and a cancer research pin attached to the ribbon.

ANOTHER idea!
A mix CD!


And the final idea (so far!):
DIY teddies

Venue: We're not too fussed about what this looks like. TBH, the more plain the better then we'll be able to have more of our own decorations. My mum told us about the amazing deal the Holiday Inn hotels have and there's a pretty great looking one (it's actually really pretty haha!) so we're probably going to go for there. My mum has offered to pay half!

Date: We originally wanted a Halloween wedding but Halloween isn't on a weekend so then we thought how cool would 12/12/12 be?! Then we realised that isn't on a weekend either... we wanted a pretty cool date so my mum mentioned November 10th next year. That will be 10/11/12. Hopefully it will still be available! We haven't set our hearts on it, just in case.

There will be a few little kiddies running about on the day and when it comes to time for the speeches, I know they're going to be bored so we want to provide them with a little fun pack including things like an activity book, colouring pages, pencils, bubbles etc. There are ones you can buy but we'd quite like to make our own. Like, for the colouring pages we'd like to convert photos of us and them etc.

Readings!

I Carry Your Heart - EE Cummings
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young - Mary Schmich
Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '97:

Wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.

Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone.

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's.

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.

Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.

Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.

Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.



We've picked one speaker so far but I'm not sure if he'll be okay with that.. he's a very shy, very "vulnerable" guy so we'll see. We need one other and a back up just in case.

Invitiations! etc
We want to make our own, as cheaply as possible! But we want them to be different and fun, too. I came across this idea a while back and we both absolutely love it. It's perfect! We just need to source the materials needed to see if it's an amount we're willing to pay! Plus the fact that my future sister in law will hit the roof at the mess in her living room makes me laugh :P




Pretty epic, no?!

We love the idea of these envelopes if we were to go down the paper route rather than that above.

Centre piece ideas

we love all of these but we'd be making them ourselves so we can tweak them and make them a bit more "us" etc.
I just think this is really pretty... if we were going for something like this, it'd need to be tweaked a bit.


If these weren't so expensive, we'd go for these and a few wee extra piece on each table. But they are expensive so we think we're going to have the centre pieces on the other tables and then one of these on our sweetheart table.




The ball tree thing is super cool. It'd look pretty epic in our colours and would be SUPER cheap to make.




The top is made out of ribbons so we'd need to tweak it. I had an idea to replace the top with a big polystyrene ball, painting that and then poking lollies through it. Something like this:


I really like this idea. Gerbera's are my fav flowers (:


We'd also like an i-spy type thing on the tables and a wee note for everyone along with the favours.

Other wee decorations
We'd like this to put on the sweetie table


And we want this to sit on our sweetheart table


These are random wee things we've found and loved and would like to include in the decoration somewhere, ceremony or reception. I doubt we'll be able to afford EVERYTHING but it hasn't come time to knock things off the list yet so I haven't xD

Totally my family!




How cool would one or two of these wee guys look on the sweetie table?! They'd also look EPIC in the table centre piece if we go for the lolly tree!


This is the kind of bunting we want for the sweetie table.




To hang up by the photobooth!
http://www.iloveretro.co.uk/product.asp?productId=188

I love these candles. They'd fit our theme so well also.
http://www.cathkidston.co.uk/p-17094...r-candles.aspx





These possibly for the guest book..




We could probably make this quite easily ourselves.