What's in a name?

In my mind there's never really been an issue about whether or not I would adopt James' name when we marry. From my previous post you many be able to tell that I have every intention of becoming Mrs Reid. I am rather traditional and I am making a wholehearted commitment and as I don't do things by halves I will therefore adopt James' name. In a nice twist of fate james' surname is actually my maternal grandmothers maiden name and as such I view it as a family name anyway. 

When James and I first met I can recall a conversation about name changing. At the time james told me he had no views either way, only minding when people tried to have the best of both worlds by maintaining their maiden name for professional purposes and going by their married name for personal ones. At the time he didn't know me well enough to know that that is what my mum had opted to do. Nor did he know me well enough to say what he really thought which is that the woman should definitely change her name. 

As I say I like the idea and with a forename as complicated as mine and going by various monikers I could do without the added complication of wondering what surname a particular person or institution would recognise me by. My only sadness will be renouncing the name of Leonard, which has served me well but this is a new beginning and as such deserves a new name. In nature at least I will always be a Leonard! 

6 months to go

Six months today I will be Mrs Reid. I am incredibly excited about the prospect! At the moment we're in a strange kind of limbo. Almost everything is now arranged. Second appointments are not yet due. Thus we are simply sitting back and watching the days tick by and the day get closer. We're now a third of the way through our engagement, which in its entirety will span 9 months and 5 days.

Getting married means everything to me. It offers me the security I've always craved. As I said to James before we got engaged, living together says 'you're the one for now' whereas marriage says 'you're the one forever'. Marriage provides the only foundation on which I would want to have kids. It provides the only real legal redress if things were to go wrong. More importantly for me though marriage, and particularly a religious marriage, joins two people forever in the eyes of God.

I am looking forward to celebrating my love for James and his for me in a very public way in 6 months time. I am looking forward to standing up in front of family and friends and vowing to be together until death do us part, through the thick and the thin. 

I am also looking forward to being a princess for the day. The little girl who has dreamed of being a bride from the moment she came to consciousness lives on in the woman I am today. That little girl is relishing trying on dresses and choosing colour schemes. She is thrilled to be planning bouquets and tasting cakes. She is having the time if her life now that her dreams are becoming reality. The best dream of all though is the man of my dreams. James is the man I described one girly night out to the friend who gave him my number. He ticked all the boxes - no doubt in time you will hear what they were - and had a few bonuses on top. I really did get everything I wanted and whatever the future holds, be it good or bad, I will always have had now and now is pretty perfect. 

Here's to 6 months time! 

Calling on the vicar

For weeks we had looked forward to this weekend. It was to be a quiet weekend at a country house hotel and we were heartset on relaxing. The hotel in question was one we had viewed as a potential wedding venue and thoroughly liked, just not for our wedding. We had secured an amazon local deal and thought we would sequester ourselves in the peace and quiet of the room to unwind. I did however decide that as the hotel was just outside Stratford on Avon we could combine the weekend with our next meeting with the vicar, which he had requested should take place around about Easter time.

I didn't feel this meeting would detract from the quiet weekend as we could easily see the vicar before checking in to the hotel. As always with us though things didn't remain as simple. 

Instead what actually happened was that we had to shoehorn in a meeting with the mortgage advisor early on Saturday morning. This meeting, which had been due to last two hours, overran considerably meaning that we had to race up to Tredington to see the vicar. Thankfully the timings all worked out... Just. 

This meeting with the vicar saw us discuss in greater detail some of the elements of the ceremony. We (I) decided on at least one of the hymns and the readings. As yet we are still to determine the rest of the music. We discussed the basis of an order of ceremony, which we can start to flesh out. 

The other thing we did was to schedule in a date for the wedding rehearsal. While the weekend beforehand would have been the obvious choice James' parents are not coming down until the Tuesday so we have decided to have our rehearsal on the Wednesday preceding the wedding. It will have to be in the evening as I presume I will be working and so will James. 

After the meeting we frequented the village pub where we could quite easily have a meal on the Wednesday night. They also agreed to open on the day of the wedding so people, namely the groom, could have a quiet drink before the ceremony. It would also offer somewhere for any early arrivals (wishful thinking) to congregate. 

Wedding, what wedding?

The last few days/ nights have been a bit of a blur. Any planning for the wedding has completely fallen by the wayside as I have been working nights and failing to sleep during the day. The main reason for this though is that I've been frantically trying to secure the purchase of our first marital home!!! Following a slightly stressful 48 hours where we were forced into a best and final bids situation we are now able to get down to the nitty gritty of buying. IF all continues to work out James and I will very shortly be the proud owners of a 3 bed semi in a little village north of Banbury. Exciting!

Diet progress

Today, in the middle of night shifts and trying to buy a house I tried out the scales. To my utter delight they've lost 4 pounds. Seemingly house hunting and wedding planning really are that stressful!

With this ring

We decided the time had come to purchase our wedding rings. We arranged this to coincide with the valuation for insurance of my engagement ring and went to the jewellers in Winchester which had resized my engagement ring.

We were greeted by a lovely lady who took us to a desk and started by asking if we had any ideas of what we wanted. As it happened we did. My engagement ring is quite sparkly and I felt a simple ring would best compliment it. Thus the search began. Two trays of wedding rings were produced. We started off with my ring. The ring I ended up with was fairly similar to that which I had envisaged. The two differences were that it is slightly more rounded than I had expected. I had thought I might get squarer edges but they neither suited my finger nor my engagement ring. The other difference is that I unwillingly accepted the advice of everybody I had spoken to and my ring will be made of white gold rather than platinum. 

Then it was James' turn. As a result of his eczema and the obvious potential for jewellery to aggravate his skin, not to mention his liberal use of lotions and potions the ring needed to be able to withstand a lot. The categorical answer from the jeweller was that it needed to be in platinum. He ended up with a wider version in a similar style to mine. He was slightly surprised at the width he went for but we were all in agreement that it was better suited to his hand. 

Thus our decision was made. The next decision was what to have engraved on the inside. We had already agreed on a quote that will go inside both our rings. Unfortunately I won't be able to reveal what that quote is as it would be a key to some aspect of the wedding that we won't be revealing until the day. 

The slightly more painful decision was to pay for them before we left. Turns out men's wedding rings in platinum are quite expensive. The lady kindly have us a 10% discount if we paid up though and so we did. 

The rings are being made especially for us. Mine will be hand finished and the engraving on the inside will be in script form and done by laser. They should be ready for pick up in 6-8 weeks. Plenty of time before the wedding. James has been advised to wear his in a little before the wedding to get used to the concept of wearing a ring. Naturally I am already used to it. Apparently my engagement ring has a very good 'wed fit'. 

The other bonuses of the day were receiving a celebratory glass of champagne. We also get my ring engraved for free. My engagement ring turned out to be valued much higher than we expected, although to me it will always be priceless, and as a bonus they did a formal valuation of James' watch. 

The jeweller also suggested a novel twist to having Sammy as a ring bearer that will fit in beautifully with our Scottish theme. All will become clear in time. 

The first fitting

Today I was summoned to Brides of Winchester for the toile fitting. No I didn't know what it was either. It's a mock up of the top half of my body with the outline of the dress stitched onto it. The idea is that the material is then fitted to me and the actual dress is based on that fitting. I turned up not really sure of what to expect but ended up having a fabulous time and running way over the projected half hour. The girls there were very accommodating about me wanting to try on THE dress again and now the deposit is paid I was even able to take photographs of me in the dress. I did this once and then realised I'd forgotten to take pictures of it with the veil too and so simply had to try it on again. Damn! I took down my shoes and was wearing the newly purchased lingerie. The dress is having to be altered slightly to accommodate it but we were all in agreement that that would work best. With these accessories in place I started to get a better picture of how it will be on the day.

I then brought up my Sweet Home Alabama obsession with the seamstress and subsequently pictures were printed out to work from for the alterations. I had a thoroughly good time and was there over an hour discussing suppliers and ideas as one of the assistants is getting married next year. She couldn't believe how at this stage we feel that everything is organised. Apparently I'm one of the most relaxed brides she's seen! So much so that I completely failed to notice I'd made myself late for my dentist appointment.

My learning point of the day was about going backwards. It's definitely not possible in a wedding dress. If I want to go backwards the only way of doing so is to circle round to the point where I want to be standing. I learnt this as I found myself entagled in a mass of material even though I thought I'd lifted it all up. Oops.

Everything really seems to be coming together now and in celebration of this I'm going house-hunting tomorrow. Yippee!

What lies beneath

I have my first dress fitting tomorrow. As I am big busted they are making a mock up of my top half in order to fit the dress too it. This caused two realisations. 1. I needed to crank up the diet, which has gone remarkably well this week. 2. I needed to finalise my lingerie as every girl knows it can dramatically change your shape.

Therefore today I headed to the town centre and my trusted old friend for the last decade, Bravissimo. To say I hadn't done my research would be wrong. I had spent a number of hours looking online at the various options. I'd looked at everything from bespoke corsets down but drawn the conclusions that bravissimo was my best bet. I'd subsequently chosen a front runner from their options based on what I felt would suit my dress. 

I was slightly nervous that my tummy would prove an issue. As my waist currently goes out and not in I was worried that the basque I was trying on would fit up top but not at the bottom. Happily I was very very wrong. In fact I had to go down a back size and up two cup sizes from what I normally wear. This certainly didn't do my ego any harm! I left just £80 lighter but with three new garments and a beaming smile. 

The one drawback though is that practicality clearly wasn't top of the designers agenda. Thank god for bridesmaids or I would spend the whole of the wedding morning contorting myself in a futile attempt to do up all of the twelve fastenings at the back! 

Why make life easy?

When with a little effort you can combine three of the biggest life events in the course of on year?

Yes that's right. Not only are James and I getting married in 2014, but we will both have started new jobs in the 12 month period AND we're currently hunting for our first property. 

I've never shied from a challenge and in years gone by I decided to undertake my A levels and grade 8 on two different instruments at the same time. That worked out fine so this time I'm undertaking a whole lot more with the blithe faith that it will all work out in the end. 

On the job front barring crossing t's and dotting i's, oh and passing this year, then everything is sorted. Likewise on the wedding front everything left to do is merely frippery. So with the mortgage agreed let the house hunt begin...

The wedding dance

It's no secret that for the last year James and I have been learning to dance. This was driven less by the prospect that we would probably get engaged and married and more by the shared love of strictly.

There is always a lot of speculation at weddings about the first dance. What will they dance to? Will it be a shuffle or choreographed? Will there be lifts? Etc etc. 

James and I decided it would be a shame not to use our dance skills (such as they are) and our dance teacher to have a routine for our first dance. Thus for the last few weeks our lessons have been concentrated our routine. 

The song has been chosen - I agreed to a suggestion made by James as I had no strong front runner and we are definitely musically incompatible. Everything I love makes him imitate a vomit. The dance style agreed - yes it is one you'll have seen on strictly but I'm happy to say that as it hardly narrows down the field! The routine is now also completed so we have plenty of time to practice it. 

The one problem I have is that the section we always have to repeat leaves me feeling a little dizzy. I'm the daft kind of person who, when asked, says 'no of course I'm fine' meaning we start that section again. I could also make my life easier by slowing down the bit I'm doing - which would make it less spectacular and therefore I am definitely not prepared to do it. Stubborn or what? 

Crafting crisis

There are still 200 days to go. This sounds like a lot but in pales into insignificance when I look at the magnitude of the task I am facing. What you see in the picture is the product of two months labours. Initially I was intending to handmake silk roses for my bridesmaids bouquets. I thought the keepsake value would be a nice touch, but my bridesmaids all agree that they would prefer real flowers. However I have decided it is still worthwhile churning out hundreds of flowers in the coming months. The reasons for this are twofold - the first is that I will make a throwing bouquet out of them, the second is only for those who are privileged enough to have seen my scrapbook to know...

Pre wedded bliss

James and I managed to arrange a week of annual leave to coincide with each other and his birthday. Thus it was that we commenced the long drive up to Scotland for a long overdue visit to James parents. Plan was simple - spend a week with them but go away in the middle for a few days at my parents new chalet for some us time.

And so after a successful shopping trip to Edinburgh on Tuesday, where much was acquired for the wedding, including the grooms father's attire - in the hunting Robertson no less - and some token tartan for me, we set off from Linlithgow for the Gourock ferry.  Two hours later and many episodes of the archers we were still stationary on the M8. This was frustrating as I had hoped to arrive at the chalet in daylight and said hope was long gone. We were also starting to get hungry. With me this equates to grumpy. Our first hurdle was to find the ferry. This was tricky as the original car ferry recently lost its mooring and the new car ferry is very poorly signposted. Cue the first call to my parents. Shortly afterwards we located the ferry which left almost immediately. Excellent. 

As per instructions we headed off up the road from Dunoon. We had already decided to stop for dinner en route and as such called in on one of mum and dads new locals where a friendly border collie gave us a warm welcome. Dinner was perfectly acceptable and happily sated we set off to complete the final very short leg of our journey. 

James had enjoyed the local produce so I was driving. I was finding it somewhat stressful as rural Scotland does not abound with streetlights and I had little idea of where I was heading. We found the local inn and but then I missed the turning as I couldn't remember all the details. Doing a three point turn in the dark on a national speed limit road is not an experience I want to repeat any time soon and I was in a fluster. I took the next turning but was convinced it was the wrong one. James was helpfully refusing to ring my parents for instructions and so I stormed out the car to get my phone. It would be fair to say I was not happy. Once in possession of further instructions though we managed to find the correct chalet. Then the fun began...

I was told where to find one key in order to unlock an outbuilding and find more keys. These supposedly unlocked the double doors which provide the only access to the chalet. Unfortunately for us this proved not to be the case. One key opened the right door but for the life of us we could not persuade the other key to open the left door. It would be fair to say relations at this point were not particularly cordial and my rage exploded during another phone call to my parents to see if there was something obvious we were missing - there wasn't. The site management were contacted and dispatched to help. They failed. Thus at 10pm we found ourselves being escorted to the local inn which was shut. However our companions knew where the owner lived. He was accordingly summoned and thanks to a cancellation we were provided with a bed for the night. Gradually tensions dispelled and come the following morning we were disposed to have an enjoyable day. 

We spent said day exploring the quaint local town of Inverary. We took in the jail and the Fyne ales brewery. After a scenic detour to loch goylehead where we failed to procure lunch we headed back to the local inn to await the arrival of the 'local' locksmith from across the water. It was such an experience for him to be called out so far that his girlfriend had been brought along for the ride as she had never been to the area before. After the best part of an hour and a new lock later, not to mention a hefty bill, we were safely ensconced in the chalet and my parents had been reassured that contrary to their fears of the previous night James was still alive. 

The remainder of our mini break passed uneventfully. Unless you count James' 28th birthday as an event! We both emerged relatively unscathed from our ordeal and in years to come I'm sure we'll laugh about the events that unfolded. For now though we've managed to move on and the wedding is still on - in fact as I've been writing this James has been redrafting his guest list. Fun times. 

The national wedding show

As yesterday morning dawned I was brimming with excitement. The prospect of a day surrounded by wedding regalia and paraphernalia awaited me. Thus we made the relatively early start to head for the NEC in Birmingham.

The first impression of having no option but to pay a flat rate of £10 for parking was not the best start. Surely things could only get better. While James and I already have the majority of our wedding organised there were still bits and pieces that I felt would be of interest. I was looking for ideas for final touches and dressing of the reception room. I was also keen to get ideas for my hair and possible adornments. I expected numerous other things to catch my eye and to be a few hundred pounds lighter by the time we left. I couldn't have been more wrong and if you've ever been to a wedding show and enjoyed the experience I would suggest you stop reading now. I would like to add a disclaimer at this point that what follows is personal opinion and no slight is meant to any of my readers. 

My word of the day was 'tatt'. I have never seen so much of it in one place at one time. The hoards of over-made up and underdressed brides-to-be swarming over mountains of sample dresses like bees on the proverbial honey pot were astounding. I can't help but be pleased I obtained my dress from a refined boutique where I was the only bride and had absolute privacy to try dresses and plenty of space. 

Our wedding venue was one of the exhibitors, which I have to say sunk it a little in my estimation, but allowed us the opportunity to say hello to our wedding planner and to mock our surroundings shamelessly - Amy was particularly keen to point out the nylon hairpieces at the next stand. She also saw fit to compliment James' tweed jacket - he is still on cloud nine about it. 

In terms of numbers, wedding dresses and venues in Cyprus seemed to be the most well represented. Needless to say we were in need of neither. Photographers were also in numerous supply but again in that department we are already organised. 

Highlights of the day included laughing at the brides to be who were attached to ridiculous teeth whitening devices. My theory was that they were wearing dark glasses not to protect their eyes but to protect their pride - I certainly wouldn't want anyone knowing if I'd been stupid enough to have a go! 

After whizzing round the stands methodically but at top speed we were more than happy to leave after not even an hour and to emphatically tell the doorman that we would not be needing a hand stamp for re-entry. I acquired no ideas whatsoever beyond ideas of what not to do/ have at the wedding. 

The only productive element of the day was signing up for our John Lewis wedding list. On getting home later, after a spot of research for potential places to buy our house, we found that they'd supplied us with a rather appealing goody bag. Yum. 

It would be fair to say we were both rather disappointed by the experience but we did come away feeling rather good about ourselves, and indeed the vicar at the Church of England stand had told us that we stood out as a very elegant couple! Suffice to say we won't be attending any more wedding fairs - I'll just make do with my ever expanding array of magazines for ideas. 

Apparently what I have just written makes me come across as a snob and a stuck up princess. Oops.