Parents of the bride and groom

James and I are both very close to our parents. We are also both only children. This is therefore the only opportunity our parents will have to be 'the parents' at a wedding. Naturally they are excited and keen to be involved. Unfortunately for them, while we value their input, James and I want this day, our day, to be about us. I am a planner. I never used to be but I am now and I have been for a number of years (much to the occasional frustration of James). What is new to the equation is that James too has been converted to the cause. As such we are both in planning overdrive. We have accomplished an awful lot in a short space of time (just over three weeks to be precise!) but noses are starting to be put out of joint.

I had envisioned that I would be the primary planning force in a wedding and that if that wedding were to be planned by a team that the team would automatically constitute of me, my Mum and my bridesmaids. It turns out that the team is actually the main protagonists, just me and James. My mother has already informed me that she is feeling sidelined. I am terribly sorry about this but I'm keeping her updated about all the developments, sending her links to any of our suppliers and taking on board any of her suggestions. However, when she suggested coming with me and James to our first appointment with the wedding coordinator the answer was a resounding 'No!'. I'm more than happy to visit the venue with her long before the big day, and we now seem to have settled on a date in February to do just that, but it just didn't seem appropriate that she and dad came along to that first meeting.

Mum will get to be involved in the picking of the dress. And again we have provisionally set aside some dates in February to do just that. She has also volunteered to calligraphy the table plan, place-cards, and invitations. I'm also in desperate need of her guidance when it comes to flowers. I want her and Dad to be involved in the day and the preparations as much as possible. Tomorrow we're having some Mother/ Daughter shopping time and may even pick some shoes. I'll show her my mocked up invitations and seek her opinion. I'll also show her my rapidly populating scrap book and we'll probably buy any new issues of bridal magazines that we can find. And then I'll come back to Oxford, back to James, and between the two of us we'll decide more about the day that will start the rest of our lives.

As for James' parents I absolutely adore them. Today though an SOS came through by email. Before we've even signed the agreement with the venue they were trying to book the rooms (all of which are currently on hold should we go for exclusivity) and panicked when this endeavour proved useless. Here's hoping everybody around us starts to chill out as much as we are.