Wedding Planning #6 – The 3 Month Countdown

Wedding Planning #6 – The 3 Month Countdown

Since Christmas, just about every day has had some kind of wedding admin, or wedding activity attached to it. I’m really at the point now where my life is being dictated by the wedding, 2 weeks into January I would of told you that I hated that that was the case and getting married is more hassle than what it’s worth, however after some serious list-making, planning and research I’m actually, for the most part, enjoying my wedding chores.

Wedding Invites

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Much to everyone’s delight I finally got the full ‘day’ invites finished off at the end of January, sent off to the printers and dispatched the first week of February. I did little printed notecards in a beautiful sparkly paper. with an RSVP postcard (mainly cause I’d not seen anyone do this before, and partially because I didn’t want to spend another 15p per fancy sparkly envelope for people to return them). They’re also really fun things to get returned through the letterbox!
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Table Centerpieces

I don’t want to go into too much detail on these, in case I have any friends reading as I don’t want to reveal all my secrets before the big day. Finding vases for the centerpieces was the single most stressful experience of wedding planning thus far, I can’t tell you how many have been ordered and I now have a huge amount of vases to fill at all times. At one point I bought one that was so large, it fit over my head and comfortably rested on my shoulders after not correctly estimating in my head just how big 25 centimetres wide would be. After literally 2 months of searching we finally tracked down the perfect size and shape.

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My mum and I are doing the centerpieces ourselves the day before and went to the wholesale florist supplies to gather ideas and information about how far in advance we needed to order, and decided to an impromptu run through. It turned out better than I was expecting if I’m being honest and now feel relieved that we actually did a pretty professional looking job and I now know we’re going to nail it, rather than hoping we would.

Bouquets / Buttonholes / Formal Church arrangements / Anything that has the potential to fall apart is still going to be done by a professional, I don’t have confidence in mine or my mum’s stress levels to handle the task of doing those as well and have arranged my final debrief with the florist.

Wedding Favours

I’m going to do be doing a whole post on this once the wedding has been as I don’t want to reveal what’s happening for guests. But this is a big DIY project we’ve started one as each will be personalised to the guest whilst there’s a lot of ‘bulk tasks’ in the job, it’s going to take some time to make sure that we’ve got everything right. Progress has started and after much deliberation between us both we’ve got a solid plan in place.

Wedding Rings

We now have our Wedding rings… kind of! We went at the end of December on New Years Eve to have a browse and ended up buying them on the second of January. We had them at home for a few weeks and I’ve decided that mine is a little small feeling, so mine is now back at the Jewellers. I ended up with what I thought I wanted after trying lots of sizes, shapes on, a 2mm plain platinum band (engagement ring is also platinum so I knew I wanted to match that) – I don’t have a lot of space between my knuckle and wanted to leave space for an eternity ring so bought the skinniest one possible!

Toilet ‘Help Yourself’ Baskets

If you saw my Boots haul, you’ll already know this is something I’ve been working on. I’m copying the idea from a few friends weddings I’ve been to in the past 3 years where they’ve had baskets of convenience items in the toilet for guests to touch up to make themselves comfortable, such as hair bobbles, blister plasters and deodorant. I’ve managed to get all the bits now for the female basket, I’m now waiting for Ben to buck his ideas up and get the bits for the men’s basket so I can write up a post on what we’ve included in them (so people can give me any final ideas of stuff I may have forgotten).

Wedding Related Nightmares

Not one I wanted to tick off the list but they started just before Christmas. My most recent one has been the worst yet, I dreamt that none of the suppliers turned up on the day (flowers, hairdressers, photographer, makeup artist etc), I was trying to call Ben and couldn’t get hold of him to postpone the wedding for a week, but he was paintballing (naturally hours before getting married). I ended up running around in my wedding dress with unbrushed hair and looking like a total Hot Mess before getting to the church looking bedraggled and Ben asked if I was wearing a ‘joke dress’. I’ve never bolted up in bed before this dream, but holy crap I’m praying that’s the last one as I quite literally didn’t sleep well for a week following it fearing another similar dream. Other similar dreams have been the wedding dress shop calling to say ‘do you want us to order your dress, or what?’.

Hen Party

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My hen party (bachelorette, for my friends over the pond) has now been and gone. We had it a little early as two of my friends are now almost 8 months pregnant and my sister (hen party planner) tried to accommodate them coming. I had know knowledge over what was happening for my hen at all and it was left in the hands of my bridesmaids to plan.

We went to Cambridge which whilst isn’t a massive distance from my house (90 minutes or so) (again to accommodate the pregnant people) was lovely as I don’t go very often. Friday night I had a meal with my sister, mum, future sister in law and mother in law – as well as my eldest friend Jo, we headed back to the hotel for a cuppa tea and an early night as other people were arriving in the morning. Saturday involved a quick breakfast stop at Pret where everyone came, and then 2 team scavenger hunt around Cambridge to all get in phone boxes and find out facts about various buildings in the town, I must admit when my sister said we were doing a scavenger hunt I was thinking “this is such a Becca thing to say” and had no idea what would happen, but it was actually loads of fun and a nice way to see things we wouldn’t have seen. We had Champagne Afternoon tea and then had a little time to shop before getting ready for our evening out. I finally came across a Charlotte Tilbury Counter, and planned to get a CT lipstick for my wedding day (cause I have Rose Gold accessories… natural choice), more on that in a second.#

Saturday we had the most delicious Italian meal (I’m definitely going back to the restaurant again) and partied the night away with a lot of prosecco. Sunday we went to a spa where one of my pregnant friends joined and we had a relaxing treatment, which was the perfect way to end the weekend as I was feeling a little… delicate, shall we say?

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Hen parties are such a bizarre experience when you have all your different groups together who you love but might not have even met before. I had everyone there from my oldest friend that we’ve known each other since pre-school, to friends who I made two years ago in my last job. It’s very weird you being the link between all these different people, some of which I don’t get to see often enough. I kind of actually liked having it a little earlier, it means I get to spread out the time for the people I don’t get to spend a lot of time with over a few months rather than crammed up together within a few weeks and I can not wait to see them all again in a few months.

If my hens are reading this, thank you so much for an absolutely amazing weekend. You da best.

Wedding Lipstick

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So importantly, that wedding lipstick I was talking about. The John Lewis in Cambridge had an AMAZING beauty department, I had considered a Marc Jacobs lipstick (as I really like the mini one I got last year in Sephora… which I am going to be reviewing soon!) as well as a Charlotte Tilbury one. Once I saw the CT counter I knew I was getting one, regardless of whether I found the perfect shade or not, a few weeks ago on Sophie’s blog I spotted a shade called Secret Salma and thought… hmm that could well be the shade, and without even looking at the names in the shop that was the one that jumped out of me when swatched a load. I wanted something rosey rather than brown toned as it’s going to be late spring/early summer and I think this is a completely me shade. It’s described as a matte but it’s not fully matte and I think it will last well on the lips whilst not looking completely dry.


Upcoming this month, we have our Church music evening to decide on what hymns and music we’d like for the ceremony (if you’re reading it the day it goes up it’s actually this evening). My Bridesmaid dresses have arrived in the store, so I’ll be off with them no doubt for their fittings at some point. I still have a lot of DIY projects to be getting on with, which I’m planning series on lots of them when we’re done and dusted, and I have some things I must order this month (such as a veil and evening invites), I’m still on the hunt to find my wedding earrings to match up with the rest of my jewellery (the ones which matched identically were too long for me) and a clutch bag for carrying round my lipstick/anything else I need on the night – I might potentially take my camera with me as I love a selfie with that thing ha!

The list is finally getting shorter, and I hope by the end of month March I may have ticked off a lot more, I’m hoping by the start of May I’ll have very little to do, and can wind down and relax a bit for a few weeks – rather than it being wedding stress up until the last minute.

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Helpless Whilst Drying

Email: helplesswhilstdrying@gmail.com

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24 Comments

  1. March 3, 2017 / 7:51 am

    I’m so excited for you! My SO and I have decided that when we get married, we’ll get a wedding planner to do darn near everything, as planning could be really stressful and I’m not nearly organized enough to pull it off, heh.

    • March 3, 2017 / 9:43 am

      Trouble is I’m such a control freak when it comes to colours and design as it’s what I do for a living, but a more stress free experience sounds ideal! I’m definitely becoming a more organised person as a result of it though!

  2. sophieinwonderlandxo
    March 3, 2017 / 1:29 pm

    yess to secret salma! so glad I persuaded you πŸ˜‰ all looks so exciting!! xxx

      • sophieinwonderlandxo
        March 3, 2017 / 1:34 pm

        Yay so glad you like it xx

  3. March 3, 2017 / 1:31 pm

    OMG I remember my wedding day like yesterday I was soooo stressed out! but you look pretty under control I hope to see more photos πŸ™‚

    • March 3, 2017 / 1:35 pm

      I go through phases of feeling under control and then feeling really out of control and like I have too much to do. I’m hoping to get a load of things ticked off this weekend.
      There will definitely be more photos and hopefully a roundup of everything once we’re done!
      xxx

  4. March 3, 2017 / 2:48 pm

    Tick tock tick tock is all that was going through my head as I’m reading this post.XD
    You know my thoughts on weddings and wedding planning in general. πŸ˜› I certainly don’t think a one day party should induce nightmares – what kind of perverse torture is that?
    Your invites are pretty! Did you design them? πŸ™‚
    Yay for finding your wedding lipstick! Will you be doing a run down of your wedding makeup?

    • March 3, 2017 / 3:12 pm

      Don’t Start, I can’t cope with people telling me it’s soon – I need more people telling me three months is plenty of time ha!
      I suffer with bad dreams a lot anyway, so I’m not surprised I’ve ended up with wedding related ones, it’s all part of the experience. Even my mum and sister have started having them.
      I did design them, I did our save the dates last year so it was based off them. Post wedding I plan to start selling them online on Etsy, as I’ve done a lot for friends and love doing them!
      I will be, I’m going to be carefully making notes on what the MUA uses on my trial on the 1st April, and will have a post ready to go up once I have some pro pictures after the wedding, I’m sure my photographer will help me out with that πŸ˜€

  5. March 3, 2017 / 4:18 pm

    Oh, I hadn’t realized you are getting married. Congratulations, Rachel!!! I can’t wait to read future posts about your wedding πŸ™‚

  6. March 3, 2017 / 4:43 pm

    You’re so good at planning and organising. People always ask if I want to get engaged but I’m happy to hold off for as long as possible so I don’t have to plan a weddingπŸ˜‚ there’s so much to do but you’ve done a great job. I think nightmares are normal as you want everything to be great, which it will be☺ Did you pick a honeymoon destination etc? Xx

    • March 3, 2017 / 5:24 pm

      Thank you I feel like we’re getting there. Yes we did! We’re going to Kuala Lumpur for 4 days then to Bali, spending 6 days in the jungle then 6 days at the beach!

      • March 3, 2017 / 5:34 pm

        Aaw that’s amazing. We looked at going Bali this summer, but I think we’ve left it a bit late to plan. Might be a trip for next year ☺ x

        • March 3, 2017 / 6:10 pm

          Yeah there’s so many different areas in Bali to consider and work out where’s the best area to be, our friends went last year for their honey moon and apart from the day trip they were at the beach the whole time, they said definitely to spend a chunk of time centrally!

  7. March 3, 2017 / 10:11 pm

    I know how you feel about feeling the crunch, since ours is coming up not long after yours. Wedding planning is fun, but I do miss having the free time to do whatever I want that ISN’T wedding related πŸ˜› No nightmares about the wedding yet…fingers crossed!
    Great idea doing the centerpieces yourselves. We were going to do the same thing as well, but the quote our florist gave us was so reasonable that we ended up having him do it so that I wouldn’t have to worry about it the day or two before the wedding.
    Your bachelorette party looks like it was lovely! Glad you had a good time with your girls.
    Looking forward to your wedding makeup look!

  8. March 4, 2017 / 8:02 am

    Three months to go! Yay! I did our centre peices and favours too! It’s a task that’s stressful but definitely paid off! Love your invites too, so gorgeous! I posted mine without 3 months notice and thought my mum was going to have a kitten if I didn’t get them done πŸ˜‚ I designed and did ours tho so wanted to make sure they were perfect! πŸ™ˆπŸ’• can’t wait to hear more! xxx

    • March 4, 2017 / 8:18 am

      Everyday she was asking me if I’d done them because “people want to book holidays” kept saying, they have the save the date mum if they want to ignore it and book a holiday then complain then I don’t want them there anyway haha xxx

      • March 4, 2017 / 8:17 pm

        Haha yeah πŸ˜‚ i think it’s a mum thing! xxx

  9. March 4, 2017 / 5:50 pm

    You busy girl – I have no idea how you manage to work, plan a wedding and blog regularly! The invites are beautiful, I really like the colour scheme and one massive HELL YES to your lipstick πŸ’„ Hope that’s the last of your wedding nightmares lovely, can’t be much fun!

    Kara
    http://www.spreadthesparkle.co.uk
    πŸ’—

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  11. March 4, 2017 / 8:06 pm

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  12. March 11, 2017 / 11:03 pm

    Sounds like you have so much under control! Once you are married there is a sense of relief that its all done, excitement in anticipation to see the photos and every ones reactions to the day in the follow up, and a weird sense of forgetting to do something when you no longer have to plan the wedding! I can’t wait to see how it all comes together xx

  13. May 25, 2017 / 11:09 am

    Your invitations are beautiful – I love the colours and paper you chose. I wish I would have thought if RSVP postcards!

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