Julia's winter wedding diary - 8 months to go!
Meet our latest bride-to-be, Julia, who's at the start of her planning journey...
Hi fellow brides-to-be! I'm Julia, a journalist from London and I'll be sharing my planning diary for my wedding in December.
So, first things first, how did we meet? Well, I actually met my husband-to-be, Dan, when I was on a date with another guy! Dan delights in the fact in that I fell for him over a guy who happened to be a Hugo Boss model, and five years younger. Unfortunately he also had a really bad chin twitch and was nearly an hour late.
Dan works in PR, so as a journalist I was in contact with him regularly on email, but we'd never met. I'd heard from a colleague that he was giving away tickets to a gig and thought it would be a perfect place to take my date, or lose him, if that was the case.
Dan and I were deep in conversation by the time my date actually turned up. We then spent the rest of the evening as a threesome and I never saw Hugo Boss model again. A month later, another gig that we both happened to be at, I did some subtle digging - was he single? “Did I want to go to the Tate?,” he asked (I'd mentioned I'd never been), “Yes please!” I replied. And there we were - a couple.
Nine months later I'd moved into Dan's bachelor pad, which he bought a month before meeting me - poor guy. The lack of wardrobe space meant that a year or so later we decided to up sticks and buy a place together. I think that if you can get through the stress of selling and buying, planning a wedding should be a piece of cake! (We shall see!)
Three and a half years together and we were on one of our walking days out in the country, except this time Dan wanted us to stay over at a hotel and make a weekend of it. I presumed it was because I'd recently started a new job that he wanted to treat me, but little did I know that he'd already bought the ring six weeks earlier and was waiting for a free weekend to pop the question!
As we walked, Dan seemed to get quieter and quieter and there was lots of hand rubbing and deep intakes of breath! Then as we sat down on the grass to have our tea he brought out a foil-wrapped packet, which looked suspiciously like a box.
Feeling the tension in the air even more at this point I started to get a bit suspicious, but wasn't entirely convinced. In the past week he'd been soppier than usual, but was I imagining it? I opened up the foil slowly and peeked inside - three cookies. I moved them around a bit, nope nothing in there.
Silly me, what was I getting all excited for? I sat there eating the biscuits, but then he seemed to get more nervous. He had a very cheeky look on his face. 'What are you up to eh?' I asked him as we sat in the woods with nothing but the sound of the wind in the trees and the birds tweeting. 'Nothing! What do you take me for?' Then silence. Crunch crunch, slurp slurp.
'You really need to clear your lugholes out!' were the last words I said to my poor other half as I peered inside his ears. Later on he said I very nearly ruined the moment with that declaration. I was asked to shut my eyes and hold my hands out to receive a little treat. 'Ooh so you did get me a creme egg after all, excellent!'
I opened my eyes and saw a blue tiffany box... not a creme egg then! He'd bought me a beautiful platinum sparkler and chose it all on his own, ah. Tears, giggles and kisses later, we went back to the hotel to be greeted with pink champers and were straight on the phone to close family, text to the rest. Gotta love 2009, it's all about text and Facebook announcements now!
We decided pretty early on that we didn't want to hang around and talk about it for months and months. So the plan is to get married before the end of the year, a winter wedding in December, just nine months after the proposal! Next time I'll fill you in on the venue we've chosen and how we get on giving notice.
Julia x
So, first things first, how did we meet? Well, I actually met my husband-to-be, Dan, when I was on a date with another guy! Dan delights in the fact in that I fell for him over a guy who happened to be a Hugo Boss model, and five years younger. Unfortunately he also had a really bad chin twitch and was nearly an hour late.
Dan works in PR, so as a journalist I was in contact with him regularly on email, but we'd never met. I'd heard from a colleague that he was giving away tickets to a gig and thought it would be a perfect place to take my date, or lose him, if that was the case.
Dan and I were deep in conversation by the time my date actually turned up. We then spent the rest of the evening as a threesome and I never saw Hugo Boss model again. A month later, another gig that we both happened to be at, I did some subtle digging - was he single? “Did I want to go to the Tate?,” he asked (I'd mentioned I'd never been), “Yes please!” I replied. And there we were - a couple.
Nine months later I'd moved into Dan's bachelor pad, which he bought a month before meeting me - poor guy. The lack of wardrobe space meant that a year or so later we decided to up sticks and buy a place together. I think that if you can get through the stress of selling and buying, planning a wedding should be a piece of cake! (We shall see!)
Three and a half years together and we were on one of our walking days out in the country, except this time Dan wanted us to stay over at a hotel and make a weekend of it. I presumed it was because I'd recently started a new job that he wanted to treat me, but little did I know that he'd already bought the ring six weeks earlier and was waiting for a free weekend to pop the question!
As we walked, Dan seemed to get quieter and quieter and there was lots of hand rubbing and deep intakes of breath! Then as we sat down on the grass to have our tea he brought out a foil-wrapped packet, which looked suspiciously like a box.
Feeling the tension in the air even more at this point I started to get a bit suspicious, but wasn't entirely convinced. In the past week he'd been soppier than usual, but was I imagining it? I opened up the foil slowly and peeked inside - three cookies. I moved them around a bit, nope nothing in there.
Silly me, what was I getting all excited for? I sat there eating the biscuits, but then he seemed to get more nervous. He had a very cheeky look on his face. 'What are you up to eh?' I asked him as we sat in the woods with nothing but the sound of the wind in the trees and the birds tweeting. 'Nothing! What do you take me for?' Then silence. Crunch crunch, slurp slurp.
'You really need to clear your lugholes out!' were the last words I said to my poor other half as I peered inside his ears. Later on he said I very nearly ruined the moment with that declaration. I was asked to shut my eyes and hold my hands out to receive a little treat. 'Ooh so you did get me a creme egg after all, excellent!'
I opened my eyes and saw a blue tiffany box... not a creme egg then! He'd bought me a beautiful platinum sparkler and chose it all on his own, ah. Tears, giggles and kisses later, we went back to the hotel to be greeted with pink champers and were straight on the phone to close family, text to the rest. Gotta love 2009, it's all about text and Facebook announcements now!
We decided pretty early on that we didn't want to hang around and talk about it for months and months. So the plan is to get married before the end of the year, a winter wedding in December, just nine months after the proposal! Next time I'll fill you in on the venue we've chosen and how we get on giving notice.
Julia x
