Here Come The Girls!

13th - 15th November 2015
Edinburgh, Scotland

Hen Weekend is officially sorted - flights and apartment booked! Thank you to all my lovely friends for confirming so easily and for making the whole process pretty pain-free.  I'm so happy with my brood of hens  - I know we're going to have a fab weekend!

I can't say "I Do" without these two.

I always knew at the back of my mind who I would want standing beside me when I marry Michael. However, when our plans changed and we decided to elope we both decided we weren't going to have all the traditional wedding "nonsense" - including a bridal party.  We weren't sure there was a point in "appointing" a bridal party when we were getting married on our own and they wouldn't be there.  As we continued to plan, it became evident that I needed (and wanted) a couple of my closest family and friends to help with plans, to bounce ideas off, to drag to bridal fairs, dress fittings and cake testings.  I also needed someone to be in charge of a bridal shower or Hen party of course! Planning a wedding is quite a girly thing to do and while Michael is really helpful and enthusiastic about the whole thing, I'm super conscious of boring the life out of him with bridetalk.

I later decided that I needed "sort of" bridesmaids to help me through the journey. Plus, the thinly disguised looks of disappointment on two particular little faces when I told them I wasn't having bridesmaids left me feeling guilty as sin...

It was a no brainer that I would have my sister, Laura.  She's the Tia to my Tamara. The sensible little sister that forever keeps me grounded when I get a little goofy and stupid, who shares the exact same sense of humour as me, who keeps a whole mental catalogue of the most ridiculous little memories of our childhood together. We have a sometimes extremely creepy "sista sista" (as we call it) brain link that only the 2 of us can vouch for. She knows me inside out while still managing to keep an air of mystery about herself. She's the "pretty sister" who carries herself with a level of class and sophistication (sans wine) that I've never quite managed and I need her to steer me in the right directions when it comes to wedding stuff. For sure. Even though she works unbelieveably hard and we don't see eachother as often as I'd like she's forever just a whatsapp away when I need to run something past her. I always feel ridiculously self-indulgent bombarding her with pictures of dresses and cakes and candles when she has a thousand more important things to worry about but she always responds with her honest opinion and to be honest, if Laura says "no" you can guarantee the idea will be scrapped immediately. If we were given a spare ticket to New York with us, I'd give it to Laura.

When Michael and I first began dating, I obviously indulged in the obligitory Facebook stalk of his friends and family. (We all do it, behave yourself.) And there was one family member that scared the living daylights right out of me.  The vampiric Miss Megan Archer. On our dates we used to walk past the shop that she worked in and I would beg Michael not to introduce us. I'd heard stories about her ripping mens hearts out and feeding them to her Jack Russell (only joking) but as Michael's ballsy little sister, I was petrified of her. I think all I wanted was for her to like me and it seemed like we were worlds apart personality-wise. This story always has the two of us in kinks nowadays - we couldn't have got on better.  It's rare that a day goes by where we haven't been in contact. In just a few years we've had some amazing ups and horrendous downs but I couldn't imagine not having her as part of this. She's as goofy as I am and our conversations about the wedding often escalate into the ridiculous (last week we were discussing how cool it would be to have Michael ride into the reception on a Polar Bear) but she's enthusiastic when I need her to be and happily accompanied us to the wedding fair, reveled in telling everyone she was a bridesmaid, let me use her back as a writing desk when filling in details forms as well as springing to action by offering to carry all the leaflets and books I was collecting as we went. Her ability to keep me excited about wedding stuff is much needed and appreciated. I'm really excited to be gaining another little sister.

So, keeping 'er casual as always, I just wanted to write a little card and a letter to both girls to ask them for their help throughout the planning process and to take the opportunity to let them know how much they mean to me. I had some silly pictures of us together printed on the front for banters sakes and wrote a letter inside. What's life without a little cheese, eh?

Finding The Venue.

This weekend Michael and I spent the day at the venue that we'll be hosting our post wedding celebration - and we absolutely love it. It ticks all the right boxes for us as a couple. It's clean, modern with lovely, smiley staff and large comfortable spaces for everyone to relax in. Location is a big factor too; we wanted it close to home that our guests can get to really easily. We wanted somewhere a bit chilled out and effortless with a nice bar and hotel rooms either on site or nearby for ourselves and our guests. The price also had to be right as we want to put the majority of our budget into our trip. We wanted somewhere that could host a 3 course dinner for close family in a comfortable but luxurious setting followed by a function room with a bar and dance floor for our 80-90 guests.

I first visited it a couple weeks ago while out venue-scouting with my lovely Motherbear, Wendy. We had a real girlie day as she chauffeured me around half the country to look at various hotels, restaurants, stately homes and castles! We had a lovely afternoon tea break in Brownlow House in Lurgan.

Brownlow House is a really lovely building, with huge windows and doors. I knew it wasn't for me though when I discovered that it was jam-packed with Taxidermy! With both of us being animal lovers from a young age -and having a pet rabbit ourselves - I wasn't sure we'd be all the comfortable with the amount of dead rabbit heads adorning the walls. It's quite grand too, and I know we'd feel a little out of place there with our rowdy lot! They made me a lovely lunch though and Mum and I were able to have a good natter by the open fire.

After Brownlow we took a drive out to The Dunadry Hotel in Country Antrim. Mum was the obvious choice to take with me on such adventures - as I've mentioned before she has worked as a florist for her entire adult life and she's worked in the wedding industry in Northern Ireland since before I was even born. Check out her Facebook here. She has contacts left, right and centre and has worked in most of the venues around NI - she's my number one contact for anything wedding related! An invaluable resource - plus, it means I get to spend even more time with her than usual - she's my favourite person in the world!

The Dunadry is another grand hotel - very spacious with large rooms and halls. The staff are all dressed really well, and are polite and courteous. The Dunadry Hotel lives for weddings. They have glass cabinets all around the building filled with champagne corks signed by all the couples that have been married there. A nice touch! We were greeted by one of the wedding coordinators who, despite us not having an appointment, took us for a tour of the suites and answered some of our questions (all the while doing slight-of-hand magic tricks as he spoke. Wendy didn't even notice.)

I really liked the Dunadry, but there was something just not quite right about these old-style hotels that I didn't think suited Michael and I. I began to think that these hotels would be more suited for couples having a full day wedding there. As ours was just a party, it made more sense to focus on function rooms alone. There had to be something out there that suited us! 

In the beginning we had our hearts set on - and it still pains me to say it - Riverdale Barn. Riverdale is this fantastic rustic barn near Aghnagallon and Mum had it earmarked as my perfect venue long before Michael popped the question. I always had it in my head that I wanted a gorgeous rustic barn wedding, lots of candles and handmade bits and bobs. Very Pinterest. Infact, between Mum, my sister Laura and my sister-in-law-to-be Maygen we had the entire thing planned in one night. I had emailed Riverdale Barn on Boxing Day to register my interest and ask for a quote. It was decided, this is where I was having my wedding reception and I was buzzing to hear back from them.

As it was the Christmas holidays, they were closed and my impatience was getting the better of me. I finally decided to pick up the phone and call them and on New Years Eve I eventually received a text message with a brief quote. And my heart absolutely sank. They were quoting £3700+VAT for room hire alone, with an additional £37.00 per person. This price didn't include décor, or furniture or even HEATING. There is no way that was within our budget and my disappointment soon gave way to anger. How could they ask so much money for just a few hours in the evening? I didn't even reply. Riverdale Barn dream over. Moving on. After a few days of huffing "I don't even want a reception now" I shook myself and took Mum up on her offer to go and look at other places.

Focusing now on function rooms, we began to consider Gowdy's at the Racecourse. Both my Mum and my Uncle Andrew had held wedding receptions there before it was refurbished and both were really relaxed and rustic. I could probably still hold my rustic barn theme there. So we went for dinner (fantastic food by the way!) and had a peak in at the function space. It wasn't much to look at but I knew that with Mum's talents we could make it into a really beautiful setting for our reception, plus the price was shockingly cheap (FREE to rent - can't do much better than that). The huge open log fire in the foyer sold it.

However, Gowdy's was second only to the venue I had spotted and fallen in love with earlier in the day. A 4* hotel in Belfast. I was waiting on a quote back from them, and if it turned out to be absolutely ridiculous, we had Gowdy's to fall back on.

Mum had me well coached that the hotel may come back and be out of our budget - she'd learnt well after the Riverdale Barn fiasco. When we were being shown around I remember looking at Mum all glassy-eyed and she was like "I knew you'd like this..." in an oh-crap-what-have-I-done voice, clearly petrified that she'd set me up for a fall again. She needn't have worried. When the wedding co-ordinator emailed me with a price list I almost cried - it was so much more affordable than we even imagined and they had the date we wanted available. When I told Mum the price she texted back two words "book it."

Michael still hadn't seen the venue, so the two of us went to see it on Sunday. He was, thankfully, as enthusiastic as I was and he whipped out his card and paid the deposit right then and there. We have our date! The hotel is perfect for our needs and we're really excited. It took us a bit of coaxing to abandon our rustic barn wedding idea, it just wouldn't work in the hotel we've booked, but we've chosen a new theme that is absolutely perfect for both the hotel and for us and our wedding adventure. Can't wait to tell all!

-Rachel