Our Mad Men wedding

I wasn't born in the '60s, my parents weren't married in the '60s, and I've never really loved the Beatles or the Rolling Stones. Ditto my husband-to-be. So why pick the 1960s as the theme for our wedding?

'D448' by Alfred Sung

Well, it probably comes down to two things: falling in love with some beautiful bridesmaid dresses that look like they were made for Audrey Hepburn, along with me finally finding out what all the fuss was regarding Mad Men. Talk about amazing hair, outfits and, let's face it, Joan Holloway's general magnificence.

So we have a theme, great! However, I soon realised that bringing 1960s style into a tightly budgeted wedding set mainly in an early 20th century hotel building in Birmingham has its challenges.

When I first started looking for inspiration online, the few 1960s-inspired weddings I found had some amazing, stand-out touches, like being held at a retro recording studio or having a 1960s-era scooter as the wedding car. It seemed to me that all our location and budget could manage, bar the bridesmaid dresses, was hiring a 1960s limousine. Nice, but it's no powder blue Vespa...

As time (and research) went on, however, I realised we could bring in the styling through a variety of other ways, namely:

• I used 1960s-era fonts in our stationery:

Honey Script (based on 1950s/1960s font Filmotype Honey)

and Eloquent (based on 1960s typeface Pistilli Roman):

• We've hired The Vintage Salon to give the bridesmaids and me Mad Men-inspired hairstyles:

• I'm having a 1950s/1960s-inspired wedding dress made:

• The men aren't in 1960s clothing as such, but instead of old-fashioned cravats, cumberbunds and the like, they've got smart grey suits:

• Finally, instead of a guest book and bog-standard white cardboard 'postbox', we'll have a 1960s vintage typewriter and suitcase. Okay, not the most original of ideas, particularly since the whole 1950s/1960s wedding styling seems to have really taken off. (The wedding blogs are now full of them!) But at least we've made an effort to add a bit of the era to our elegant-but-neutral venue. I haven't found a pic of exactly how I'd like this to look, but it'll be something similar to this:

So there you have it: Mad Men styling through our stationery, outfits, hair and a little bit of venue styling. Oh, and not forgetting that 1960s limousine!

With all that sorted, the only thing left to wonder is: will any of the guests notice?

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 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...