Welcome
Welcome to Butterfly Bride. I am going to be keeping this blog throughout my wedding preparations and will document ever smile, tear and savvy saving idea. I hope that other brides-to-be will enjoy reading as they go through the same things.
Congratulations to all those other betrothed couples out there, please comment on my posts.
- Image by Dot
Add a comment October 13, 2008
Tags: bride, butterfly, Wedding
Mascara and tiaras
Thanks for helping me decide what to do with regards to wedding favours. Sweets it is!
I’m now trying to work out what to do with regards to makeup. In my last post I said that I would just invest in some fab new kit and do it myself or get a friend to do it for me.
I’m definitely still thinking of doing that, especially as my friend Jenna is such an expert when it comes to all things beauty (she’s already given me some great tips). However I’m also looking into how much it would cost to get a professional to do it for me on the day, mainly because I’m worried that it’s going to be such a mad day that it might be better to have someone doing it for me.
The answer is that it costs a lot. A lady who works near the castle is charging me £50 just for a trial! That seems like crazy to me.
So if any ladies out there can recommend any beauty products I’d really appreciate it, both for prep in the months running up to W Day, and for the day itself. I’m so clueless when it comes to these things, and rarely experiment with makeup. The most important thing to me is that I still look like myself, I don’t want to be made up to look like someone I’m not, as has happened to be in past makeovers.
Oh the dilemma!
Image by Bifford The Youngest
2 comments February 16, 2009
Tags: hair, makeup, Wedding
Do me a favour
Image by Sifu Renka
Our wedding is now less than six months away and I feel pretty organised, especially after I went to a wedding fair a few weeks ago and found that I didn’t need to visit many of the stands at all.
On my ‘to do’ list this month are favours and decorations for the reception and ceremony, choosing readings and music, changing my passport, and putting our gift list together.
I find favours the hardest thing to decide on actually. I don’t know whether I should be giving my guests something to take away, or whether everything I could give them would be naff anyway, and to just stick to sweets. Any advice would be appreciated.
As for hair and make-up, I started to look into how much it would cost to hire someone to do it for me, and found that it was so expensive that I’d rather spend money on some good quality make-up that I can keep, and just get someone to do my hair.
I’ve started buying my bridesmaid dresses too, one down, three to go. I’m not revealing the design though so don’t ask!
I can’t believe I’ll be a Mrs in six months! Will keep you posted on the developments.
Add a comment February 12, 2009
Tags: favours, hair, makeup, music, passport, readings, Wedding
The year of wedding
I’m finding it so hard to believe that it’s almost a year since The Boy proposed, and even harder to believe that it’s just over six months until we walk down the aisle.
I’m feeling surprisingly in control though. Most of the big things are organised now. The honeymoon’s booked, dress is ordered, venue’s booked, menu’s decided, the florist, photograph and DJ are sorted, and we’ve got lovely family members lined up to sort out our cake and invitations.
The next big thing on my list is bridesmaid dresses, and my maid of honour and I went shopping for those on Saturday. I’m not putting all of my (four) bridesmaids in the same dress, so I need another session with another bridesmaid to decide which ones I’m going to go for, but I’m pretty much decided on one of them.
Next we have to tackle little things like reception decoration, stationery (menus, order of service, table plan, etc) and hen and stag parties, although I’ve got a pretty good idea of what I’m going to do.
Sorry for being a bit slack on the blogging front. I’m back in the zone now and will be until W day.
Thanks for reading.
- The bridesmaids’ dresses are nearly sorted
Add a comment January 19, 2009
Tags: bridesmaids, dress, flowers, honeymoon, Wedding
Snap and sparkle
We’ve progressed quite well in the last week. I have now tried on about 50 dresses, which I am quite proud of given that I only started visiting dress shops ten days ago.
Thankfully all that work has paid off because I have now chosen my dress. I’m keeping the details secret but needless to say it’s beautiful, white and I want to wear it now. It’s such a shame that I only get to wear it for one day that still seems ages away. I think I’ll have to wear it to do the cleaning after The Big Day.
We have also booked our photographer. I spent hours trawling photographers’ websites, and emailing them for pricing information, but in the end we chose to meet three. We ended up booking the third, Rebecca Faith, as she is really friendly, a great photographer and very fair and flexible with the packages she offers.
I’m really relieved to have made decisions about those two vital elements of The Day. I now just have to convince The Boy that he needs to decide on his attire for the day. Oh and book a florist. And the honeymoon. And buy bridesmaids’ dresses. Stressed? Me? Never.
Add a comment October 26, 2008
Tags: photographer, wedding dress
Hand-made by French mice
Image by Giara
On Wednesday I went for my first wedding dress fitting, apparently at the most expensive of them all, Caroline Castigliano. In fact I thought the sales assistant was going to kick me out when I told her my budget.
How are you supposed to know which shops are best suited for your budget though? It’s not as if we’ve done this before. We only know which high-street shops suit our budget through experience and hear-say. Hardly any of my friends are married so I don’t have that many people to ask about things like that.
Any it was nevertheless an exciting experience, despite the pushy sales assistant. I have a vague idea of what I want to wear on The Day but all the four dresses I tried on were quite different to that initial idea. I really liked three of the four, but there was a definite favourite. I do really like it but I didn’t get the feeling that it was “The One”.
The sales assistant there kept going on about the quality of the materials they use, how they never use Chinese silk (god forbid) and that the lace is made by French mice or something. You know what? I’m not really bothered about wearing the finest quality materials.
Obviously I don’t what to wear a poorly made dress, but having the very best just isn’t important to me. After all it is only one day. The sales assistant thinks differently (surprise, surprise). “What you wear on your wedding day defines you as a woman for the rest of your life.” Whatever.
I’ve got three more dress shop appointments this weekend, and another next weekend so I’m going to see plenty more dresses in the next few weeks. It’s fairly unlikely that I will go for the Caroline Castiligano, mainly because I’m sure I can get something even more beautiful at an even lovlier price.
I shall keep you posted though.
Add a comment October 18, 2008
Tags: Wedding, wedding dress
National Wedding Show
On Saturday The Boy and I went to the National Wedding Show at Birmingham’s NEC. We had booked to go in the hope that it would give us some ideas.
The event was good but we both decided that it probably gave us more ideas about what not to do. Some of the favours in particular were hideous and totally lacking in imagination.
That’s not to say that it was all bad. There were some lovely jewellery stands including Smooch and Furrer-Jacot and helpful honeymoon stalls.
The event also featured a programme of talks on shows things as flowers and clothing, as well as a catwalk show of wedding dresses.
I found the fashion show particularly useful because so far all the dresses I’ve looked at have been in magazines. It was good to see how they looked on and how they moved, as well as what shoes and jewellery went well with them.
All the big department stores were to there too, in order to push their wedding lists. We signed up with John Lewis because we’d already decided we were going to go with them anyway, and doing it there meant we got entered into a prize draw.
I was surprised to see that quite a lot of girls were buying their dresses there. I couldn’t have done that personally because the units the dresses were in were all tiny, queues for changing rooms were as long as a church aisle and all the other people at the event gawped at you in your dress, whether your pants were sticking out or not. It probably saves lots of money to buy your dress there though.
I had hoped to see some tables laid up so that we could see some different colour schemes, but clearly this doesn’t offer enough of a chance to make money, because there was no such thing.
We were also expecting to see more stalls offering stag and hen party options too, Gavin and Stacey style. It would also have been good to have seen a few more bridesmaid dresses, as the focus seemed to be more on the mother of the bride as far as the female wedding party was concerned.
The show is next being held in March and while I do recommend it for ideas, I wouldn’t suggest you go expecting to organise your entire wedding.
In other news The Boy and I have pretty much picked our First Dance song. I’m not going to let you know what it is until after the big day though. Sorry.
Thanks for reading, come back soon.
Add a comment October 14, 2008
Tags: dresses, national wedding show, Wedding
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1 comment October 13, 2008
