Everything has been a bit crazy here. We've both had our birthdays (another year older, not one bit wiser) and we've been throwing ourselves into work. Michael is working all the overtime he can get his hands on which is mostly night shifts and everything in my office has sped up and taken off - there's lots to keep up with and I find myself at my desk earlier and earlier each day.
Now that we have all the important things booked and deposits paid, we've been taking a bit more of a relaxed attitude to the wedding planning. We can finally focus on the fun stuff - the décor, the outfits, the cake... which all happen to be the most over-whelming! As everyone knows, when the "w" word is mentioned, they add another zero or two onto the end of prices and I'm really struggling to understand why anyone would charge, let alone pay, £500 for a simple, plain white cake. The most interesting part is the discussions you have with people who are also getting married. Everyone's attitude to weddings are so different. Some of my friends wouldn't bat an eyelid at paying £500 for a cake, "it's the most important day of your life", but I think that mentality is a wee bit mad. I imagine we'll probably club our female family members together and bake our cake ourselves. It would be so easy to get carried away with the planning of the Reception party but as a couple, we both want to focus our finances on our trip. The idea of spending thousands of pounds on just one day gives us both palpitations so it makes much more sense for us to put the same amount of our savings into a 2-week trip instead.
Saying that, it's been more difficult than we thought to save money on the lead up to New York - life goes on, and every single month there has been something whether it's unexpected veterinary bills, a birthday, a holiday we booked before we were engaged...it's honestly been one thing after the other. We have some friends that are also getting married this year, so that's been costly too. We're burrowing every bit of spare cash away in our money pots (quite often stumbling into the house after drunken nights out and throwing in far more than we can afford) and we've been gifted some US dollars too which is so great. I'm off to Mallorca on a friend's Hen party this week and once I'm home I hope to really buckle down and get back on track with saving as this month has been a bit of a write-off.
It's so hard to believe that 5 months have passed already. It's been interesting looking back and seeing how our plans are changing as we go along. If I could rewind a bit and change anything I think I would have given us a little bit more time to save. But at the same time, it just can't come quick enough - we genuinely cannot wait to get married! We get such big smiles on our faces when we talk about it. Michael is really interested in getting more involved with the plans - we talk about it a lot and spend evenings pouring over invitation samples and gift lists and I'm quickly learning to back off when his eyes start glazing over and he's stifling yawns...The funny thing is, I've generally been finding it really difficult to talk about. I'm a complete Awkward Annie when anyone asks me questions about the wedding. The only people I really feel comfortable talking about it with are my family and my friends that are planning weddings too. I think this comes from being cripplingly self-aware (Laura will understand this!) and I know that wedding talk is mind-numbingly boring to most who are likely only asking out of politeness. I tend to just direct people to my blog for updates if they're interested - with over 1600 views, I know that someone out there is tuning in (Hi Mum!).
We've booked a couple fun surprises for the Reception which we're really excited about. We're still so delighted with our choice of venue and music and I think we're close to picking our food option too. We want everything to be free and easy and comfortable for everyone there, we just want to throw a huge party and celebrate properly. I'm beyond grateful at how many people are traveling from England etc for the night - it's going to be a bit of a reunion with some of my friends I met while traveling and I'm almost more excited to see them than I am about getting married...ha! Thanks to those who have booked their hotel room already - showing some real commitment, guys!
We'll hopefully pick our invitations some day soon (hardest job in the world by the way...) and have them sent out in the Summer and we'll get our gift list launched too. That's something we're having a lot of fun working on as it's a little bit different from the standard wedding gift list (and completely optional, of course, we don't need anything apart from your attendance!) There's also my very own Hen Party to plan - a terrifying thought. There are plenty of little activities buzzing away in the background, just not that much to blog about without giving everything away. I like to check in every now and again and write a little about where we're at with the planning - it might make for fun reading for us one day when it's all a distant memory. What a fun thing to be able to show your daughter or daughter-in-law one day.
Oh how they'll cringe...
