Random wedding idea #1: table plan

Okay, sensible stuff like guests lists out of the way for a moment...

As I've mentioned before, I'm a bit of a Pinterest nut, but occasionally there's a lovely, inspirational pic that for whatever reason I can't pin onto my boards. So I've decided to post them here, which will let me pin to my heart's content!

First up, an idea for a vintage-y table plan:

This is from a great blog post of a 'vintage wedding tea party' on littlemisswedding, and I've decided that I'd like to do something like this for our wedding.

We're not going OTT with the vintage details (no Victorian tea cups or birdcages stuffed with roses), but something like this would work really well with the interior style of our venue. Now to hit the charity shops to start collecting old picture frames!

The big guest list dilemma

There comes a point in a bride-to-be's planning whirlwind when the fun details of colour schemes and stationery must take a back seat.

As much as I'd prefer to ignore them, there are also the boring, fiddley details to work out. For us, that includes things like:

• giving notice at the registry office – and since we don't live in the town we're getting married in, that brings along a whole raft of extra faffy bits to figure out;
• participating in our church-organised wedding preparation class – probably best saved for another post, that one!; and
• agreeing on the guest list

Now, when I started on the road to planning this wedding, I didn't think the guest list would be a big deal. I do have a big extended family, but everyone knows we have a tight budget, and it didn't seem like we were under any pressure from either of our parents to make sure that Aunt Sue's cousin's uncle's long-lost brother had an invitation.

Surprisingly, the guest list pressure has come from two different sources:

1. Other family members who expressed surprise and concern when I mentioned that certain cousins weren't invited or certain family friends had been 'relegated' to the evening guest list (to make room for those cousins!); and
2. Symmetry/being fair - in other words, when I realised that I couldn't invite a load of cousins from one side of the family and not invite at least some from the other side (even though I'm barely in touch with them). Or when I realised that it would be tricky to invite one cousin and not invite their siblings (again, even though I hardly see them).

Of course, the sensible, pre-bride-to-be person that I was would say "Pfft!" to both points. Just invite who you want. And it's sensible advice.

But in reality I don't want this wedding to create any family discord – in fact, I'd love to be able to reconnect with parts of the family that I've lost touch with. And what better way to do that than a joyful occasion such as a wedding?

But guests cost money, as anyone planning a wedding knows. For every extra person we invite beyond our original budget, it costs us at least £55. Multiply that by all my cousins and, well, the budget starts looking more like wishful thinking than sensible projection.

Ignorance is bliss (while it lasts)

When we first got engaged, me and my H2B had quite different ideas on what it would cost. He thought around £5,000 would do it; I thought it would be more like £7,000. Then we started pricing up venues and realised that we'd be lucky to do it for less than £8,000 all in. That was based on around 70-80 day guests and maybe 10-20 evening guests.

We were lucky with our venue, however: it's just the kind of place I was hoping for (an elegant hotel) but somehow doesn't cost the earth. It was one of only two places that I found in our budget in the local area, and the other one has a reputation for keeping its guests awake with loud discos in the downstairs bar until 3am. Not so great for my 70-year-old dad!

But even with getting a reasonable rate on a lovely venue, with the guest list creeping up and up, our budget has crept up too, so now we're looking at around £9,000. That's almost guaranteed to put us in a small amount of debt, which we were both hoping to avoid.

That all said, however, I do keep reminding myself that we'll only do this once. It really will be worth it if we can pull off a brilliant day and night, and in the process generate a stack of fantastic memories as well as become a bit closer to both our families.

I will still need to run yet another rule over the guest list before the invitations go out, just in case there are any other 'savings' I can make. (And that's after having done so several times already!) Hopefully I can avoid putting too many noses out of joint in the process...

Stationery / stationary

Okay, so the last post I wrote was well over a month ago. And what have I been up to during that time? Why did I neglect this blog yet again? *slaps wrist and looks dolefully at the floor*

Well, work got in the way as ever (and still is, grrr), so when I get a spare moment at home it's difficult to feel like writing when you just want to curl up on the sofa and watch episodes of Fringe. Plus the evil imp of indecision has been plaguing my mind yet again, and as a result it feels like progress has ground to a halt.

The wedding stationery is the best example I can give. Thanks to the job I do, I'm in the fortunate position of being able to design our invitations. I'm not a designer as such, though, so it doesn't come effortlessly to me. But I think I have a decent eye for good design, and I know my way around InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator.

That said, I rushed the first draft of our invites, more focused on the excitement of seeing the words in print than actually trying to craft a particular style. After that, the idea of our 1960s/Mad Men theme really took shape, and I realised that the invites didn't really reflect that very well.

(Not that anyone who gets these invitations will actually notice or care, of course! I'm realistic about that. At best, my closest family and friends may appreciate what I'm trying to do, which is good enough for me.)

So, after the nice-but-unimaginative first attempt, version two took the vaguely 1960s-style fonts I'd selected in v1 and added some proper styling and structure. They were a lot better, and were very nearly the final version. I took some inspiration, structure-wise, from this elegant design:

That was until, Googling for inspiration, I saw some gorgeous 1950s/1960s wedding stationery that played around with curvy frames and polka dots, really hammering home the era. (Though I preferred my fonts and layout.)

So version 3 began, in which I took the layout and typfaces of v2 but added a cute frame that I made and, yep, polka dots.

You'd think that would be enough. But noooooo.... Pesky interweb. You see, I'd been looking online for some inspiration for RSVP wording (something more quirky than 'Accepts with pleasure / Declines with regret') and came across a beautifully designed example. The rest of the invite wasn't right for us, but this one part seemed quite 1960s, but in a really cool, Mod style.

And so version 4 was born, sort of. I got as far as designing our RSVP in a similar-ish style before I realised that it totally clashed with what I'd done for v3 - so bad that there's no point even trying to merge the styles into a brand new version 5. They're just too different.

So now I'm stuck. Do I:

1. revert back to the stylish-but-kinda-plain version 2;
2. go for Kath-Kidson-cutsey version 3; or 
3. try to make all our stationery in the cool/Mod-style of version 4? 

Of course, it might help if I could decide which one I actually like best, but that imp of indecision keeps making me change my mind! And as long as that goes on, it feels like I'm getting nowhere.

I'll round this off with a saying (that I don't really agree with): "Good designers borrow. Great designers steal." In my situation, I'd add: "Pseudo designers should probably pay someone else to do it..."

P.S. The examples above are all from proper wedding stationery designers, so to give them their due credit, here are links to their websites: square, elegant invite • polka dot design • cool RSVP

Attack of the wedding zombies

Like the after-effects of a zombie bite, wedding planning has a horrible habit of taking over your brain.

There's always something to think about, to research, to decide on, to weigh up the costs of, and to wonder if it goes with the four hundred other things you're pondering.

I imagine this might be a particular feature of the stage of planning we're at right now, which is that the main things are ordered, booked or bought – namely venues, car, dresses and centrepieces.

But all the lovely little details that can occupy the mind – such as stationery, room decorations, jewellery, accessories – have yet to be sorted. And there is so much lovely stuff out there! My Pinterest boards are filling up and I seem to be no closer to deciding on anything.

Sometimes I wish we hadn't given ourselves a full year to plan this thing. I imagine there must be a certain liberation in a short engagement, where (money allowing) you can just make decisions, get stuff bought, and get married.

But, to be honest, I'm glad we didn't do that. Despite the current brain takeover situation, I've enjoyed having the time to really figure out what kind of style I want for the day. I say 'I' again, even though H2B has started to show a bit more interest at last. But that's mainly about practical things – he's really not arsed about the little details, which suits me fine actually!

That said, I did reach an overload point last month. It coincided with falling off the dieting wagon and a bit of relationship crap that needed sorting, and overall it left me feeling decidedly 'Meh...' about the whole planning thing. Hence the gap in blog entries.

Thankfully, H2B and I sorted out our issues, and things are better than ever. I've made a shaky start back on the dieting journey (one stone down, two to go), and yes that wedding zombie mode is back.

But this time around I'm actually glad of it. This is (hopefully) a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I don't want to rush it.

I keep reading, whether in forums or blogs, about the post-wedding blues some brides get after the big day is over. I hope that's not the case for me, and married life is more than enough to put a smile on my face.

But either way I'm going to savour this. I'm planning the biggest and best party I could imagine for me and my mister, and I plan to enjoy every minute leading up to it, during and afterwards.

So bring on the Pinterest boards, the wedding blogs, the bridal forums and the countless Google searches. I only get to do this once, so I may as well make the most of it!

When in doubt...

I'm torn.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I consider myself as having pretty simple tastes. So my* choices for this wedding (now just under nine months away, eek!) have so far steered clear of fussy, frou-frou details.

*By the way, I'm giving up on 'we' unless it's actual reality. It's our wedding, we're getting married etc, but I am most definitely making the vast majority of decisions for the day. I'm realising that this is pretty typical, though I do wish my H2B would occasionally get even a teeny bit enthused about the likes of stationery and favours! But that's another blog post...

Going for the simple option has often also been dictated by our budget, which isn't tiny, but is less than half of the so-called national average.

For example, the first thing we bought for the wedding were some lovely glass pillar candle holders for the table centrepieces (in the Sainsbury's sale at £4 each – and I think they look a lot more expensive than that). From the beginning, I didn't want flowers: as soon as I totted up a realistic wedding budget, I didn't see the point of spending a chunk of it on something that would end up dead and thrown in a bin.

Lotus flower pillar candle holder (Sainsbury's)

So for each table, we will have this glass holder with an Ikea pillar candle (£1.50), popped on a mirror plate (£3.50) along with a few simple Ikea glass tea lights (£1). And I can sell a lot of it on eBay afterwards and make some money back.

That's just one example of many instances where we've opted for something less showy that also keeps costs down. No towering vases stuffed with exotic blooms and succulents for us...

However, as I said before I have become a little obsessed with looking at other wedding pics. And not just the perfect-world ones that appear on ruffledblog and stylemepretty. No, I'm also obsessing about real weddings now.

Last week, an old friend from school whom I've not seen in almost 20 years posted some pics from her wedding on Facebook, and I was immediately scouring them for every last detail: dress, bridesmaids' outfits, men's suits, car, church decorations and so on - purely to see whether our wedding choices are, well, better!

And, even worse, another friend from my home town - who I do actually keep in touch with - is getting married later this month, and there's a rather large part of my brain that is feverishly wondering what she will have as her centerpieces, if they're having favours, whether her dress will look ten times as expensive as mine, and - oh please no - have they booked a photobooth like we have?

But why do I care? All this is doing is making me second-guess all my/our decisions. Like those glass candle holders, which up until this week seemed like the perfect choice. But I'm now starting to fear that they will look small and ineffectual and like we haven't made an effort. I've been fretting over whether I went just a step too far in being practical, and maybe we should have blown a few hundred quid on some gorgeous bouquets in vases after all.

There is still a sane part of my brain, though. And it keeps telling me not to stress about stupid things that probably no one will notice anyway.

Well, apart from the photobooth. I reeeeeally hope they don't have a photobooth. I want ours to be the first wedding among our friends that has a photobooth, dammit! It's myyyyyy photobooooooth!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What's in a wordle...

I came across a fun website recently, wordle, which creates instant, customisable word clouds of a piece of text, RSS feed or blog. 

Here's mine for my blog so far (in our wedding colours, ha!). 

I'm slightly alarmed at the prominence of the word 'like' – seems a bit limp really! Mind you, I guess it's a good thing that the word 'panic' is relatively small. 

No surprise about the biggest word overall, of course: 'wedding'. Nor the second-biggest: 'dress'. I'll try this again in a few months' time, to see what I'm fussing over then...

Wedding envy

Okay, first a wee update. My dress dramas are, just about, done with. After a lot of thought, web research and changing my mind one way and back again, I decided to stick with dress number 1.

I won't bore you with the details, but essentially I weighed up the pros and cons, and dress number 1 won out. Plus – and this is what swung it – my H2B said I can sell it on eBay if I don't love it and buy a 'proper' bridal-shop dress, budget be damned. Ha, easy to say now, darling man. I wonder if you'll be as generous-spirited when the time comes?

So the dress is ordered and I'll know whether it was the right decision in a couple of months. One thing the whole experience has taught me, though, is to chill the heck out! This wedding is still over nine months away, and I'll drive myself insane if I freak out like that over every little thing that could go wrong. As long as me and my mister end up married at the end of the day, then it'll all be all right, right?

That attempt at sanguinity, however, doesn't stop me from obsessing over all the details of the day. Obsessing in a good way, mostly. My Pinterest boards are filling up with gorgeous wedding-y pics and I'm even acquiring a few followers (yay me!).

And I'm now no longer a wedding forum lurker - in fact, I'm a bit of a regular on one particular board. I joined a wedding weight loss thread, and it's been pretty inspiring. I am now a reasonably adept Zumba-er and am also seven days into the 30-Day Shred DVD (my own personal hell-in-my-living-room, but hopefully worth it!).

So, update out of the way, and back to the real subject of this post: wedding envy.

As I'm sure many other engaged ladies have experienced, wedding planning is like being a little kid faced with a wall of pic 'n' mix and just one small cup to fill. There is so much choice! Colour schemes, themes – picking just one style for the day can seem impossible.

Actually, it was pretty easy at first: the navy and silver colours were established early on, thanks to the reception chairs. (I ain't ashamed to admit it.) And, as I mentioned in my last post, the styling has emerged as being quite '60s: the bridesmaid dresses are very Audrey Hepburn…

Alfred Sung, D448, in midnight

… the stationery typography is kind of Bewitched (the '60s TV series, not the denim-clad girl group), the wedding car we have our eye on is a 1960s Daimler, and while my wedding dress isn't strictly '60s, it could definitely be styled that way. It's all falling into place.

So we have our 'theme'. Great, I can relax, right? But nooooooo…  You see, ever since wedding fever took hold of me, I've developed a ceaseless appetite for looking at photos of other weddings. And it's putting my brain into overload.

I'll be honest: call me a snob, but the pouffy dress and pink shiny bridesmaids thing doesn't do much for me. Instead, I'm all about those simple yet impeccably detailed weddings that feature on the likes of ruffledblog. Think vintage lace bridal gowns, messy side buns pinned with roses, powder-blue chiffon bridesmaid dresses, wildflower bouquets, adorable, hand-made wedding favours, a photogenic bride and groom holding hands and looking wistful in a meadow…. You get the picture.

And every time I look at one of these perfect weddings, I'm like that Little Britain character: "I want that one!" It doesn't matter that it wouldn't 'go' with everything else we've decided on for our wedding, or if it's way beyond our budget. For a few moments, I get all green-eyed monster-ish and wish that our wedding reception wasn't in a hotel, but instead in a Midsummer Night's Dream-esque woodland, or that the invitations weren't smart pocketfolds but instead lovingly crafted out of antique maps and doilies.

Okay, it's completely irrational. Everyone has their own tastes. But the thing is, I've never been very good at accessorising. I've always envied the kind of women who, like my best friend (and maid of honour), can throw together a seemingly random selection of layers, scarves and jewellery and look fabulous. Me, I'd look like a walking jumble sale.

And I suppose it's the same for weddings. I know I have decent, simple tastes – my H2B is the same – and navy and silver with the odd '60s detail should look quite classy. But part of me longs to be the kind of bride-to-be who can gather an assortment of seemingly random yet beautiful details and create the perfect vintage-style wedding.

So going back to that kid-in-a-sweetshop metaphor... I guess I'll have to make do with my simple pic 'n' mix cup, and try not to get too distracted by the delicious-looking bon bons or frosted sherbert pips. This wedding will still be yummy, and – for better or for worse – very 'us'.

The big dress dilemma

Forget my last post about not panicking. I was clearly under a state of denial.

Yesterday I had my first full-blown wedding panic attack. Well, okay, not an actual panic attack. But an attack of panic. And stress and upset.

It sounds ridiculous now, even to me, but I got in a tizz about the dress. The wedding is 10 months away, so I know I have ages to sort it out. Plus I'm trying to diet (8 pounds lost so far - yay!), so I wasn't planning to go to bridal shops or try anything on until October. But I'm also on a tight budget: I'm hoping to get something for around £300, which I know may not be easy, so I've been looking online. A lot.

As a result, I've discovered that I don't like 95% of wedding gowns. Well, alright, lots of them are exquisite, but I've dismissed them because I'm not a 5'10" size 8 goddess. I know my shape (kind of rectangular, apparently) and fortunately the style of dress I prefer - mermaid - suits it, ie fakes me a waist.

I've also discovered that I have quite expensive tastes. I don't like shiny satin or pouffy netting. I like lace. And lace ain't cheap. I also don't want a strapless dress, mainly because most dresses are, which puts me off a bit, and also because the wedding details so far have emerged (without any engineering by me) as quite '60s in style, so I wanted something a bit vintage-y. And vintage-y usually equals expensive-y.

So imagine my surprise and delight when I discovered a mermaid-style beaded lace wedding dress within my budget. Actually, £50 below my budget. It's on eBay, which did set alarm bells ringing. But the seller is a UK-based dressmaker with a proper website, including customer pics and testimonials. And I emailed her past eBay buyers who'd left feedback and I've had 100% positive responses. So all was looking good.

Until I got into the nitty-gritty of the dress's fabric and beading (I asked for samples, photos, descriptions). And to cut a long story short, I'm now worried that the final finish of the dress won't look as good as the pictures suggest. Cue the attack of panic.

To top it all off, one of my bridesmaids emailed me about a pair of shoes she'd like to wear for the wedding (we're paying for the dresses but the girls are sorting their accessories). The shoes are lovely: silver satin peep-toes, £110. I emailed back saying they were gorgeous and to go for it.

And then I felt even more awful. It took me a few hours to figure out why, and then it hit me. There I was fretting over a £250 dress and taking a gamble over the quality and so on, when my bridesmaids were picking out fabulous shoes that cost nearly half as much. My own bridal shoes probably won't cost 50 quid! So I added a load of self-pity onto the panic.

And that wasn't actually the worst part. Okay, so I wrote off a weekend with worry, fretting and gloom. But today I discussed my concerns with the dressmaker and she is happy to make some adjustments to the beading, swapping out the cheaper sequins for more expensive crystals. (I'll have to pay a bit extra, but I don't mind that.)

No, the worst part is that, during my weekend of panic, I went and looked at a whole load of other wedding dresses. And I found myself a different one. This dress is from a 'proper' bridal gown designer, is also mermaid style, taffeta with lace appliqué, and a very '60s neckline (sweetheart with slightly off-the-shoulder straps). However, it's only available in the US and, after import duties and such like, would be double my budget!

However, it is gorgeous and of course is on a fabulous looking model (who probably weighs the same as my left leg!), whereas the eBay one is pictured on a dressmaker's dummy, so just doesn't have the same appeal by comparison. The dress that I was over-the-moon excited about last week, now looks just a slight bit mumsy. Mumsy! Who wants to look mumsy on their wedding day?!!

So now I'm stuck. Do I order the eBay one anyway, and hope for the best? Or do I bust my budget and splash out on the other one (which is also a gamble in itself, as I can't try it on or see before I buy either)? Or do I forget them both, and go down the old-fashioned route of bridal-shop shopping?

And this from a grown woman who lives in jeans and trainers. I'm not sure I can take 10 months of this!!!

Weddings: a weighty issue

So, yet again, I have neglected this blog. Oops...

To be honest, I was struggling with an idea of what to write about - well, an idea that's in keeping with the blog's title, anyway.

I didn't feel like I was panicking, you see. The venue and church are booked, as are the band and photographer. I've even started working on our wedding stationery. And the wedding is still over 10 months away. It has seemed like a stress-free zone.

But it came to me in a 'eureka' moment in the bath the other day (how very Archimedes of me). I was pondering my naked form and the fact that I really have to shed quite a bit of weight before the big day. I worked out that even if I diet and exercise properly for the next 10 months, I'll - at best - drop just two dress sizes (and even then I'll still be a curvy lady).

Now, that's not a bad thing - in fact, if I can pull it off, I'll be delighted. I've been trying to diet on and off for the past couple of years, with some success. However, each time I've run out of steam after a few months, and slowly but surely all my hard work is undone.

But here's the thing: I've never gotten married before. The prospect of being centre of attention all day in a fabulous spangley dress is one hell of a motivator if you so choose. And I have so chose. My diet started on 28 June and I have lost six pounds so far. (Woo!)

However, I didn't handle the scary prospect of squeezing into a fabulous dress so well to begin with. Which brings me back to my 'eureka' moment. I got engaged on 1 May, and started my diet just over two weeks ago. So what was I doing the previous eight weeks, I asked myself amid the Radox bubbles. Yep, I was panicking about dieting. And what do I do when I panic? I eat. Genius.

The most messed-up thing is that I didn't even realise I was panicking about it. (Ingesting half a packet of chocolate HobNobs in one sitting must have some kind of amnesiatic effect...) So while I've been congratulating myself on getting over my initial freak out, and actually enjoying the process of planning our wedding, in fact I've been more stressed and panicked about one particular aspect than anything else.

I'm just hoping I've got it all out of my system now. Otherwise watch out Tesco's: I'll be heading for your biscuit aisle...

The insanity of co-ordination

Forgive me reader, it's been nearly a month since my last confession...

Alas, I fell into my predicted teenage diary trap and pushed this blog to the back of my to-do list for a few weeks. I did move house during that time, however, so I'm not going to feel too guilty.

In fact, moving house was great, as it meant I could channel all my comparison shopping/online research urges into more practical and/or immediate things, like curtains, cushions and kitchen bins. Two weeks in the new place, and we're pretty much sorted. Plus, I figure if I* can turn a studenty, tired-looking flat into a cosy-yet-sophisticated home for two in that amount of time, a wedding will be a cinch, right?

* Okay, H2B, aka Dave, had something to do with it, but that was mostly along the lines of installing a working smoke alarm and putting flatpack furniture together. I consider myself a feminist of sorts, but you gotta play to your strengths!

So, yes, back to the wedding, and to the title of this blog post... I had a colour scheme in mind pretty soon after I started my burning-the-midnight-oil web research, namely: teal, gold and ivory. Well, I kind of stole it from a blog poster on one of the many forums I dip in and out of (so far always a lurker, never a poster).

It wasn't a complete theft: I already knew I wanted teal (my fave colour for years) but didn't know what to pair it with, and this seemed pretty nice. However, a little gremlin in my head (let's call him Co-ordi-Nathan) started whispering that my engagement ring is in white gold, not yellow gold, so that wouldn't really go. A sane person would roll their eyes and point out that a tiny thing like that shouldn't be a worry. So I dismissed it and carried on looking at teal bridesmaid dresses (comparing in great detail the exact shade of teal in each range, I kid you not!) and pondering how to bring in the gold aspect.

Anyway, we went to see the wedding reception venue a few weeks ago – an elegant but not OTT (ie tacky or snooty) independently run hotel. Just the kind of place I'd been hoping for – and within our budget. The room where we're having our do is lovely, plus the neutral walls and floors weren't troubling Co-ordi-Nathan one bit. However, I also wanted to get a good look at the chairs, as I was trying to decide whether to bother with the expense of covering them. The chairs are lovely too actually: upholstered in very dark blue-almost-black material, with matte silver metal legs and trim.

I decided that covering the chairs was an unnecessary expense. Great, that's about £300 saved, I thought! But then that pesky gremlin started fretting about the gold in my colour scheme clashing with the silver chairs. Plus, going with silver would mean my engagement ring would match. And maybe dark navy would go nicer with silver than teal...

So, yes, it's official: my new colour scheme is dark navy† and silver. I am matching my bridesmaids' outfits with the reception venue chairs. Chairs!! Have I reached a new level of wedding insanity?

† Well, I'm calling it midnight blue. Navy sounds like school uniforms...

Embracing the madness

It's been a little while since my last post, and I had myself a flashback to my teenage diary-keeping days. And I do mean actual days: usually the 1st, 2nd and maybe 5th of January. After that, the procrastination and consequent guilt would kick in, with maybe a half-arsed diary entry in mid-February and then nothing. I could wallpaper my house with all the pristine sheets of unused notebooks I've wasted over the years.

Anyway, I'm pleased (and relieved) to find that the blogging urge has taken hold again, so here I am. And I have to admit that I have a slightly different mindset than I had when I wrote my first couple of posts. The goggle-eyed terror of planning this wedding has actually receded a bit. I still feel the panic from time to time, but it's a bit more manageable somehow. I think I'm actually starting to enjoy this!

I have a sneaky suspicion that this change may have something to do with the fact that we confirmed both the church and the reception venue this week – woo hoo!!! They're booked for 364 days from today, in fact. One whole year away. I can manage to plan and execute this thing by then, surely?

One other thing that is helping in a smaller but infinitely enjoyable way is a recent discovery of mine: pinterest.com. It's a genius way to catalogue all the weddingy things online that I've come across, whether that's from online stores or other blogs. You 'pin' a picture you like from a website, and that gets added to your board (or one of many boards that you can set up). Here's a sneaky peek at mine:

I've started by collating all my wedding 'inspiration' onto one board, but further down the line I might reorganise that into separate boards, eg dresses, table decorations, flowers and so on.

The best part about Pinterest is that it removes one of my panic triggers: that I'll see some perfect dress, colour scheme or bouquet online and forget to bookmark it. And my bookmarks folder is already heaving at the seams, so the genuinely good stuff will probably get lost among the over-priced tat that keeps catching my eye (yes, I'm talking about you, er, well-known wedding website). This way, I've got instant visual reminders (which, if you click on one, takes you straight to the website you got the image from). Plus I can add useful details, such as price, to the caption too. Perfect!

One thing I should add before I hang up my hat as Pinterest's unofficial cheerleader: the site is currently invite-only, though you can request an invite (they took a few days to get back to me with one). Once you're in, you get a bunch of invites to hand out too, and I have some spare if anyone wants one...

Anyway, I do have lots more to ramble on about, but time's getting on (yep, I'm back to my post-midnight wedding sessions) so I think I'll save it for next time. Thanks for reading. :o)

A reluctant Bridezilla...

Well, didn't I have a nice little vent on my first post on this blog? Actually, my first ever post on any blog.

I read it back today and thought, "gosh, you sound like a right moany cow". I guess that's what sleeplessness does to you. The venting helped, though: for the first evening in too long I didn't bring the laptop to bed (or keep it within easy reach for when my better half drifted off to sleep). I was out like a light before midnight. Zzz...

Anyway, back to my moaning. I suppose what I was complaining about – researching the hell out of delectable dresses, gorgeous jewellery, sumptuous stationery and so on – might be heaven to some people. I know this because a part of me does find it heavenly. (Why else would I keep myself awake with it all?)

It's more the fact that I've never been someone who thought much about weddings before (other than hoping, as a guest, that the speeches were short and the drinks free). I've known for ages that I want to get married to my other half, but that was more about moving our relationship forward. It was never about the pouffy dress or the blingy ring.

I'm also not what you'd call a girly girl. I'm not really what you'd call a girl, in fact. I mean, I am female, don't get me wrong. I'm just a sometimes world-weary, mid-30s woman now, so I guess the 'princess' mentality has long disappeared, along with the Sindy dolls and My Little Ponies. Or so I thought......

Once that lovely little ring was popped on my finger, it all changed. It took a few days to really kick in, if I'm honest. I was too busy grinning like a loon and glancing down at my left hand 20 times a minute. But once the scale of the task ahead became clear, I was lost. First the fear: How will we pay for all this? Will anyone come? What if I can't lose the weight in time and he has to roll me down the aisle? And then the research. The never-ending research...

So, yes, my sudden unbridled obsession with all things weddingy has come as a bit of a shock. It's taken my new fiancé by surprise too. In fact, he had the temerity to utter the word "Bridezilla" today. Bridezilla?!!!?! How very dare he?!

But, as I said, the venting has helped me chill out a little about it all. Plus we made a provisional booking today at the reception venue. Ooh, where's my 'to do' list when I need it? I feel a big tick coming on... :)

I said yes to marriage, not to insomnia!

So it's been nearly three weeks since he proposed. Woo, horray! and all that jazz.

And before I go on, I don't mean to complain. I am genuinely thrilled that him indoors has finally done the deed and "will make an honest woman out of you at last" as one cheeky so-called friend quipped. I suppose he has a point – me and my mister have been together for the best part of a decade.

The lovely ring I expected (like I said, the best part of a decade. You wait that long for a diamond, you've earned it), along with the excitement, the congratulations, the friends pressing me for all the details, the family dropping hints about who they think we should invite, etc etc... I was mostly prepared for it all.

And I knew this thing would involve plenty of thought and organisation along the way to make the big day happen. That's cool. I'm the queen of the spreadsheet and I like (almost) nothing better than ticking off a well-made 'to do' list.

But what I really didn't expect was the sleepless nights. And not from engagement-induced passion by the way! No, the sleeplessness has been caused by my wedding-addled brain keeping me awake into the wee hours, urging me to scour website after website for, well, every darn aspect of the day.

So while he lies there gently snoring, I've been hunched over the laptop in the dark, feverishly clicking, linking and bookmarking until 2, 3, 4am. Every. Single. Night.

We're talking venues (hours and hours of venues), bands, wedding dresses, table decorations, flowers, favours, tiaras, chair covers, stationery, cakes, shoes, hair styles, themes, colours, and this week – just to add a new layer of wedding madness – photo booths, sweetie tables and gospel choirs (!!)

So, after several hours of that each night, I'm either too exhausted to talk about any of it with him the next day – or I've hit my second wind and instead have to restrain myself from dropping a carpet bomb of wedding details all over him.

I hope I'm not alone in this engaged-lady lunacy (a look at some of the more exciteable wedding forum posters makes me think I'm probably not), but either way I hope it's not going to be like this until we walk down the aisle. Maybe once we've booked the venue and the church (hopefully tomorrow) my brain can take it down a notch.

In the meantime, I have a stack of bridesmaid dress bookmarks and I'm not afraid to use 'em....