The great hat debate

 By the time I get married I will be 26 and in all those years my mother has never worn a hat. Ever. She bemoans the fact that her head is too big and on the occasions I've seen her try on hats she's both looked and felt ridiculous (sorry mum!). Despite my protestations though, I was informed that as mother of the bride a hat would be necessary. I tried in vain to persuade her that my utmost priority was her feeling comfortable and that I felt she would be uncomfortable in a hat as she is so unused to them. I also feel hats are a little outdated and as for fascinators I feel they look like the wearer has been dive-bombed by a kamikaze bird!

As no shop-bought hats would fit her head she'd decided to go to the lengths of getting one made. I decided it was best to leave her be. 

Thankfully this morning though I was informed that she's seen sense. A talk with my mother-in-law to-be took place yesterday and they have decided to present a united and hatless front. Thank you Shona!

The Guest List

I'd never fully comprehended the politics behind creating a guest list. Unfortunately I'm now embroiled in the middle of it. James and I have split our guest list evenly so we each get 50 guests during the day and a further 25 in the evening. This makes our overall total 150. This sounds like a huge number of our nearest and dearest but when you actually break it down it equates to almost nothing.

Naturally, given they've provided the budget, my parents feel they have a right to have a say in the invitees. While I accept that point I would hate to have purely my parents chosen guests there at the expense of people who I've been to school and uni with and remain close to. Subsequently when they gave me an initial list of 60 including the very extended family I told them the number had to shrink. And so this morning Mum very proudly announced that she'd managed to pare the list down to 34. Unfortunately she cheated. The most notable of her omissions was that of the bride! She also had a number of guests listed without their partners. And the crowning glory was listing a family of six under their surname only and not counting them as individual numbers. 

To their credit the numbers of extended family and family friends had shrunk and as such I was left with about 10 places for my all day list. Out of etiquette (The Debrett's guide to weddings of course!) I need to invite the minister and his wife and James felt that they shouldn't go on his list as the church is entirely my decision. So that was me down to 8. Three of my bridesmaids weren't on Mum and Dad's list and one is in a long term relationship. Down to 4. I'd naturally be inviting my 4 uni flatmates, one of whom is now engaged and another also in a long term relationship - and hey presto I'm over my 50. Once I'd added a few other essential uni friends and my longest standing friend - who I've known since I was 7 my list came to 60. And I'm not prepared to compromise. So I came to the conclusion that I would issue all 60 with an invite for the whole day. I will expect a few people to decline. 

As yet I haven't had the courage to approach the evening list. There we are definitely limited to 150 so I can invite a further 15 guests, however I will be able to operate a reserve evening list, especially if not all my day invitees can make it. 

The bulk of my day guests will be family, with their numbers alone accounting for over half. Ultimately parents, grandparent, aunts, uncles and cousins are all important to me. I enjoy close relationships with many of them and while a few of my parents cousins have made the list (not all as were originally on there) there are  good reasons for those that are there, namely the involvement I've had with them over the years. There are also a few family friends who have been a great support throughout the whole of my life and who I quite simply couldn't imagine not having at my wedding. 

To those friends who haven't made the day list I can only apologise. I never liked the idea of evening invitations but it's proven a necessity due to venue capacity and budget and I would rather have them there to share the fun for some of the day than miss out entirely. The evening list is a slightly easier concept for me than for James as the majority of his guests will be from Scotland, and thus an evening invite is impractical and bordering on rude! 

The other conundrum that arises is inviting people's partners when you're much closer to one than the other. In general I'm taking as a rule that if people are either married, or in a longer-term relationship with their partner than my relationship with James I will invite them. The only exception (because that proves the rule!) will be my chief bridesmaid's partner. While I can't claim to know him very well she means too much to me to risk the offence that would be caused by omitting him. 

And then to children. Here my view is very clear - the fewer the better. I love kids and want to have kids but at my wedding I do not want crying during the vows. I do not want toddlers running round tripping people up and wine spilling on my dress. I do not want tantrums when they don't like the food. I don't want teenagers texting in the corner. So I am categorical - I will only be inviting the children of my close family (cousins) and my god-daughter, who at the age of 11, both knows how to behave and will be one of my bridesmaids. This should amount to just 3 children on my side and to me this will be plenty.

I would just like to justify the fact that I'm planning this already. The reasons are twofold. Firstly it's paramount in finding a venue that you know roughly the size of the guest list. Otherwise you'll find you've booked somewhere too large or too small. Secondly as soon as we've signed the contract we'll be needing to send Save the Dates and clearly we'll need to know who to send them to! 

So that will be 57 averagely behaved adults, three children... and the dog! Job done.  

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.