A Cautionary Tale

These fabulous and terrifying beauties are the result of covering for too many people at work, running a charity in my spare time, too many late nights, and definitely not enough rest.  Love them as much as I do they are definitely not a wedding must.  I jokingly wrote on facebook that when I opened the box it was like opening a box of children's nightmares, but actually I really don't think we can get these out until the children have gone to bed.  The plus side is they have brought me so many laughs already, they are child size and look ridiculous on an adults face I suspect those who choose to camp for the evening will make good use of them - Wicker Man anyone?

I have treated my little seedlings to a new home:

It may not be the most beautiful thing in the world but like a damn fool every evening when I get home before even taking my coat off it is compulsory to run out to the garden to check on progress.  I am pleased to announce progress is good.  Sunflowers are on the up, I have more coriander than I know what to do with, beetroots are peeping through, the flowers that Lynne sent me are doing well but the packet was in French so I have no idea what they are, and finally my sweet peas are flopping about all over the place.  They've made it onto the list (the good list, there is another but you don't want to make it onto that one).

Spring is pretty ace for many reasons, but perhaps one of the best reasons is that the car boot sale at Matford grows and people have a clear out and we swoop in like hawks of kitsch tat and magpies of all things shiny.  Here is a small selection of what we have been gathering for the big day:

Slightly wonky display.

Best glasses ever, especially the bird labelled 'Troglodyte', Sam's favorite - natch.

Pineapple glass vases, still not sure about these, but they were going cheap, surely a good enough reason? 

To round things off a non-wedding, non-car boot sale item:

Throne of happiness.

Sometimes I don't want to think about, talk about, organise or think about the wedding, so this weekend I completed a project that was on the back burner for almost two years.  Happy days.

"Helping"

I am very conscious that we will be dealing with the temperamental British weather for our wedding, ideally we would have loved to have been married in May but alas the registry office was booked, so July it is.  I have everything crossed that the sun will shine and the day will be hot but just in case I have been working on some blankets.....

I went a little bit crazy a couple of years ago and bought so much acrylic wool in every colour imaginable for a project I was working on.  The project only needed a small amount of each colour so I was left with bags of wool, whilst I'm not a huge fan of acrylic wool the positives for this project include if anyone gets chilly they can wrap them around themselves or if they want to sit in one of the surrounding fields and soak up a bit of sun the blankets will be able to withstand the rough and tumble!

As you can see I had a little 'help' from the furry beast-cat that is Ella (also known as Pigga, Catface, Pudding Head, Wiggy, Wiglet, Woo-Cat, Chairman Meow, Beasticle etc).

Another fine example of my little assistant lending a hand:

I couldn't possibly pack away the wedding decorations without my cardboard box inspector checking all was in order to proceed.

Last but not least, my next batch of potential confetti petals, not sure if they'll work but I'm enjoying the beautiful blooms whilst they last. 

The Calm Before the Storm Perhaps?

So last weekend I had my first wedding dress fitting, I was really nervous but thanks to my fantastic soon to be sister-in-law I am now the proud bride to be of a fantastic bespoke 50's style wedding dress of utter joy!  I wish I could post photos, but I guess somethings should be kept a secret.  There are two very valuable lessons I learnt that weekend as well: 1) I need to get a tan, good grief the dress almost disappeared against me! 2) as it turns out when a camera points in my direction I develop a double chin and a naff smile, hmmm not quite the stylish look I'm aiming for.

Back at home some exciting developments include the growing of wedding flowers from seed, not something I have tried before, but as you can see it's not going too badly!  Below are sweet peas, basil and coriander we want to include herbs in the flower arrangements to add gorgeous smells and beautiful greenery, so far so good....

We will be meeting with the venue in the next few days and will hopefully have some photos to show you, in the mean time I thought I would share some photos of a venue we were considering, the beautiful orangery below is located at Bicton Park Botanical Gardens whilst very tempting the guests would have had to stick their heads around palms and other plants and the grounds were too public.  I'm not great at being the centre of attention at the best of times, so the thought of having Joe Public rubber necking us and the guests didn't appeal too much!

Not wedding related at all but fab nonetheless, came home to find a catastrophe!  (I was going to insert some sort of egg pun here but thought better of it.)

Hard Sell Muesli

So things are moving along with the save the date cards (no photos I want them to be a surprise!) which means I have spent most of the evening counting out tiny, tiny seeds in preparation for sending them out with the invites so people can get planting. Alas the lines of sealy bags along my living room floor makes it look like I now deal in hard-line seeds.

Fab sunflower seeds

Fiddly cornflower seeds

Ready for the black market?

Where did all the time go?

Crikey. Where has 2011 gone so far? One minute we had plenty of time and all of a sudden we're 16 weeks away and I am casually browsing portaloos in my spare time.

So why the roses? I am currently undertaking mission confetti. The positives include buying myself lots of lovely flowers (mainly roses), the negatives; I have become slightly obsessed with rummaging through the paper bag of petals on the radiator taking the ready ones out to 'make room' for the others to dry (imagine a stoat or similar small creature scrabbling through leaves looking for tasty mites and other treats).

Flowers of all sorts have been taking over our house at the moment. Sam's mum came round with a box of delights! What fantastic knitted flowers for the napkin rings! When I added my meagre offerings to the collection they looked like a child's drawing of flowers, a tad wonky with bits that by nature simply could not occur, Mary, and bless her for it, said she'd had a few more years to practice and over time mine would improve. Alas there simply isn't enough time for me to improve enough so Mary was packed off back to Brum with a substantial list of extra flowers I want her to knit (thank goodness for creative in-laws!).

Over the last few months we have been searching car boot sales and charity shops for glass water jugs and cake stands, as you will have seen previously my mum has done a great job finding cake stands and I have added several fantastic water jugs (photos to follow), but my find of the month (doubtful I will use for the wedding as I love it too much) is my ice cream cone vase. Brilliant. I am having an internal conflict, I love the beauty of the roses but want the petals for my confetti, I think I will leave it for a few more days!

And last, but not least, the wedding rings, exactly the shade of grey we wanted and made of titanium so with any luck they will withstand Sam's daily rough and tumble work:

Missions

I have to doff my imaginary hat in respect to my mum, you set that woman a challenge and she rises to it admirably! Following a passing comment that I wanted to get a mixture of glass cake stands for the wedding, mum went forth and did a sterling job, 9 cakes stands and 3 cupcake stands later we (well mum) has made a fantastic start to the cake stand collection!

Now the hard work starts; we have to source cakes, scones, buns and all manner of baked goods for our dessert buffet. Sadly, being allergic to milk dessert can be a disappointing affair, but if I were a betting woman my money would be on Totnes as a good place to start in my hunt for a milk free cake...

Continuing on the theme of missions, Sam is on one. A brew mission. So far this year we have been stung, pricked and sunburnt in the persuit of elderflowers for champagne, blackberries for crumbles and jam, and now elderberries for elderberry wine. 5 kilos of elderberries later and a good hour of removing berries from stalks we have a very purple kitchen and a very confused cat.

The spare bedroom is soon to be a brew centre extraordinaire!

Wigs.

I have learnt yet another valuable wedding lesson. Do not tell your hairdresser you are going to get married. I knew things were taking a turn for the worst when I went for a normal cut and blow dry and my hairdresser suggested I get hair extensions for the big day, I am possibly the last person on earth who would ever consider getting hair extensions, as Sam said, it's like suggesting he wear a wig to our wedding!

I don't really understand the compulsion to look completely different on your wedding day, I'm not adverse to a bit of pampering and sprucing don't get me wrong, but if you don't have curly hair why would you go for mad ringlets on your wedding day? Similarly as I have curly hair, why would I straighten it for the wedding and look like someone entirely different? Perhaps I'm missing the point, that's something I'm quite good at doing. I made what I hoped were very non-committal noises to the idea of hair extensions and became immensely interested in Sainsbury's food magazine, marvelous summer salads, truly marvelous.

By the time my usually ace hairdresser had finished the blow dry I had gained several inches in height and could easily have passed for a 1970's television drama actress, I most certainly had a 'do'. My friend Charlotte for her wedding day did her own hair, she like me has curly hair and bought herself some curling tongs just in case her do wouldn't play ball on the day, she looked great, and relaxed and happy and wasn't worried a jot about it, and that to me is a fine example of how to have wedding hair.