My Planning thread: Rustic Romance with a twist of “City”

About us:

We met the latter part of 2009, I was working behind the bar in a local pub and H2b and his friends would come in and we’d make the usual small talk across the bar. The weeks passed and talking over the bar turned into a group of us meeting up for drinks, I turned into H2b relationship guru he was having a rough time with a girl he was with and I would sit and listen to him and give him advice, we would sit and talk for hours and just generally enjoyed each other’s company. It was at the same point me and one of his friends grew close little did I know he was also seeing TWO of his ex’s also. It was during one night out that H2b confessed to me that his friend was doing the dirty on me, he was like my knight in shining armour, things with the other girl fizzled out and from that point on we were inseparable, “Just Friends”.. It was a running joke with a lot of our mutual friends and our families our “Just Friends” situation as like I say we were inseparable, meeting up of a weekend with our group of friends turned into us doing our own little things at the weekend and soon filtered through to week days to. Neither of us wanted to put a label on things but it was fairly obvious we were “always more than just friends”..

Neither of us are entirely sure when the turning point from friends to our relationship starting really happened, I couldn’t even possibly tell you our first date we did so much together. I suppose we would say the turning point was towards the end of May 2010 beginning of June when H2B’s brother publicly asked us what was going on, it was probably at that point we realised we hadn’t been as discrete as we thought and realising we couldn’t be apart we embarked on our journey together..

We decided at the start of 2012 we would look for our first place together, neither of us had a massive amount of money saved if any so after a lot of deliberating we decided that we would look for somewhere to rent and in April 2012 we moved into our first house together. Fast forward 6 months my uncles house became available, it was much bigger than our rented house a beautiful garden, free reign to do what we like décor wise (which for me was a massive bonus) and all for the same money, it was a no brainer, we were on the move!!!

The Proposal

It was nearing our first Christmas in our new house, our first Christmas living together so we made a huge effort to make the house look extra special. Christmas grew closer and H2B became stranger and stranger, he wasn’t his usual excited about Christmas self I just put it down to the stress of moving house not too long before Christmas and the extensive list of jobs I wanted doing before Christmas. I wanted everything to be perfect.. Unbeknown to me it couldn’t have been any more perfect.

Christmas Eve approached and he was an absolute nightmare, we went out for dinner that evening and he hardly uttered a single word to me, what was wrong with him!!! It was Christmas eve for goodness sake!! This was ridiculous it was Christmas Eve and he was in the worst mood “I’m off to bed”, I dragged myself off to bed sulking that our first Christmas Eve together in our new house and things were icy.. H2B remained downstairs for another half an hour and then jumped into bed and gave me a cuddle, he was back but what had just happened for him to change the way he’d been?

Christmas morning quickly arrived and we were up at the crack of dawn, he hurried us both downstairs, under the tree was filled with presents, Santa had been!!! The morning followed the a similar pattern to the rest of December he was very sheepish and not at all interested in his presents.. “Ungrateful so and so” I thought!! It was my turn to open my final present, inside was a message “You’ll find me in the kitchen getting warm”.. WTF!!! It was 8am on Christmas morning and I was now being sent on a treasure hunt for my present. The cooker, the toaster, the hot tap.. There was nothing what else gets warm in a kitchen, MICROWAVE!! There sitting in the microwave was my final present, two tickets to Milan!!! Eeeeeeek!!!! I was off to Milan.. Oh wait what’s this, another note, “You’ll find my waiting under the Christmas tree”.. Off I trot back into the front room and there he was on one knee beside the Christmas tree, he nods towards to tree and there was another small box under the tree. My heart started to race, my hands began to shake and it took me what seemed like forever to open this carefully wrapped box, H2B was saying how much he loved me and how he could never be without me, within 30 seconds he’d said more to me than he had done for the last 24 days. I was finally in the wrapping, slides off the sleeve, and pops open the box to a beautiful 18k white gold, ½ carat diamond twinkling at me, through tears and a shaky voice H2B uttered the words “Will you be my Princess forever?”, I literally was on cloud 9, I just sat there in a bit of a gormless state, H2B even had to give me a nudge, of course I said yes!!

It was literally the best Christmas ever!!! And regardless of the fact id always said I hate to be proposed to on Christmas day I couldn’t of asked for anything better. I later found out he had been round to ask my Grandad if he could have the pleasure of marrying me, of course in my Grandad’s hilarity, he said “You daft bugger, you don’t have to ask me, take her, she’s yours!!” Cheers Grandad!!

The rest of the day was spent gazing at my ring and showing it off to as many people as I could, it was perfect, Christmas was perfect, the proposal was perfect.. It was time to start planning.. Well after a good old engagement party, lots of snow and a very special guest..

We're staying at the venue the night before the wedding to try and minimise the possibility of one of us being late. For my first wedding, which was traditional, with me leaving my parents' house to go to the church, we got stuck on a country lane behind a slow moving tractor and I was very VERY late!!

I look forward to reading more of your story!!

Lovely story so far Looking forward to the rest!

The Engagement party

So we decided to have an engagement party exactly a month after the proposal I was still on cloud 9.. For the most part of January we visited venue after venue, the plan was to have everything under one roof to make it easier for our guests but no such luck (More on that later)

The day of the party arrived remember that horrible weather we had January 2013, well we decided to book our engagement party right in the middle of it!! The day had started off pretty well, the last few days’ worth of snow had cleared and it was looking rather nice considering the weather we had had. We spoke to soon.. 7pm we had asked guests to arrive from, obviously we was late!! Guests had started to arrive before we had arrived to our own party.. As did an unsuspected guest…. A guest by the name of Mr Snowman!! It came down thick and fast, I was even able to get out my front door in the heels id chosen to wear H2B told me to grab my uggs and put them on till we got to the party, uggs, heels and fur coat it was freezing. (Little did I know these would save me a horrible journey home a few hours later) Myself and H2B arrive about 7.40, yes 40 minutes late for our own party, we greeted our guests and thanked them all for coming at 8pm there was at least half of our guest list there we couldn’t believe it, the snow was still falling thick and fast but it didn’t stop guests turning up and still they kept coming we were absolutely amazed at how many people actually came that evening and still are. The party was in full swing, everyone was up dancing and having a fabulous time (regardless of the weather outside and unaware of the chaos it would cause later on that evening) Now you know that noise when a DJ scratches a disk and the music flips from one song to another that happened, guests did the usual Huh!! What’s going on!! Sort it DJ!! Kind of thing, and then Blue Moon erupted from the DJ’s sound system (Do you get the title of my thread now?) Both mine and H2B’s families are huge city fans and apart from the very few other Manchester team fans at the party that evening everyone went crazy the room was filled with a chorus of people singing “Blue Moon” que our very special guest, Moonbeam yep the Manchester City Mascot!! Family and Friends still talk about it now.. We had decide earlier on in the day that we would announce our date that night we had kept it a surprise from everyone, it was set Friday 5th June 2015!! The night was memorable one for sure in more ways than one, Fast forward a couple of hours and minus a couple of guests who had to get back home via the motorway and with the continuous snow falling it was going to be difficult.. For everyone!! Last orders was called and taxis were phoned, 10 minute we were told by several taxi firms, 10 minutes came and went no taxi’s, if 2 of the 15 taxis that were called that night turned up that was all that did, we along with our guests were stranded luckily for us we weren’t far from home (thankfully as I mentioned earlier I had my uggs to walk home in), and thanks to our lovely friends and family, those who lived to far to walk home in the snow bunked with others, and we were still receiving messages and phone calls at 4 and 5am to tell us people had arrived home safely.. It was an amazing yet eventful evening!!

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Days to go!!!!

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Venue

We had spoken in great detail about what we wanted from a venue/ceremony room, and we looked and looked.. The Turnpike Rishworth Moore, Crewe hall, The Castlefield Rooms, The Saddleworth Hotel, The Etihad, to name but a few, nothing did it for us, non had the wow factor, no not even the Etihad!! Everywhere we visited was missing something, character, emotion, history. It was on one of our drives out that day we drove past our local church.. Its beautiful alright it didn’t look much the day we drove past as it was having work done to the clock face and tower, we looked at each other and smiled.. We decided to contact our churches wedding verger, she asked us to pop round an see her there and then.. The church is in the area we live together, we both grew up here, and we were both christened in this very church!! It had it all character, meaning, history and emotion..

We decided that it was going to be a church wedding, it felt right, it felt perfect!!!

We were still left with the fact we had to find a venue. Que SIL, What about the Last drop village in Bolton? SIL shown me a few pictures of the hotel, it was qwerky, it had character and most of all it had the wow factor; we called the hotel straight away to arrange meeting with the wedding coordinator. It was kinda like fate the day we called, the hotel had a wedding fair on later that day and the wedding coordinator could meet with us that day. We headed over to the hotel and had a walk round the wedding fair and were directed to the different rooms they had available there was only one contender, the room with the most character and exactly what I was looking for “Wooden beams” we walked into the room and I literally burst into tears, this was the room!!! This would be our venue!!!

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Just stumbled across this thread - it's so lovely and needs an update!! What a lush idea (and one I might have to pinch too ?)

Yep great thread, update please! ?

days!!!!!!!

Just want to say thank you to the ladies who bumped this.. I cant honestly believe how much time has flown!!

Im just updating, keep your eyes peeled

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The dress shopping and the dress

My first thoughts when looking was I wanted the big princess style dress, well it is my wedding day and I’m never going to wear that style of dress again... I tried several princess style dresses on and well to be honest I looked like I was carrying a bus under my dress it made me look huge!!

Several weeks later I was adamant my dress didn't exist, I’d gone from trying princess dresses, A lines, tea length, satin, ruffles, figure hugging lace, long sleeve, short sleeve, no sleeve... It was exhausting, my only other option was the fish tail I didn't think I could pull off the fish tail it wasn't what I wanted, so at this point I was feel very deflated and feeling very sorry for my SIL, MIL and MOH who came everywhere with me..

I ordered fish tail dress from china I couldn't take any more traipsing round the shops, few weeks past and my SIL texted one very wet day to say it had arrived. It had been left in the garden, I was dreading it!!! Long story short, I tried it on that evening it was nice, that was my dress... Weeks past and I couldn't stop thinking about my dress, nice wasn't good enough.. I decided I go to the shops again, calling in on my SIL, MIL and MOH we were off again on mission dress finding, it was just like the first, second, third, and the twenty third time I’d been there was nothing. We decided to head to a bridal outlet store in Bolton, This particular day I’d walked past my dress several times, even at one point looking at it and shaking my head, I hated the way it looked on the rail, in comparison to the other dresses surrounding it, it looked old and dirty, but as time passed I continued to dismissed it but there was something happening the more I avoided it, I was drawn to it, I had to try it on..!!

It was perfect!! Pronovias Romina, she’s just stunning!!!! My MIL, SIL and MOH loved it. We had fabulous service; I couldn’t fault the young girl who helped me in and out of dresses all day. But it was settled this was my dress, no more looking for dresses this was my dress. As we were at an outlet store I had to take my dress there and then, this was although very exciting it was very daunting too, but I had my dress!!! It’s currently being stored at my SIL’s house. I have recently visited my seamstress and she is going to bring it in more into a fishtail, this picture really doesn’t do it any justice, the detailing is just stunning..

That dress is stunning! Eeeek 50 day is not long at all now!!

Exciting to read this, very lovely! I get married a week before you.

Gorgeous dress, not long to go now!

Stationary

So I knew from the moment H2B proposed I wanted to design and make all that I could im a very crafty kinda gal, so after some research into different designs etc I made a start on our stationary..

Our Save the dates

Our Day Invitations,

Each individually wrapped in ivory tissue paper and presented in boxes

Our Evening Invites

Order of service

Awww seeing it all together like this has made me feel a little emotional ?

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Venue Decor/Centre pieces

Im not sure where, when or how it was decided on how we were were going to decorate the venue, I think for a long while it was just a case of pick up things we liked, when we first visited the venue they had a wedding fayre on and "our room" was decorated just to perfection and i think it was from here that we took inspiration but gave it our rustic twist.. First thing was the 6ft candelabras that were stood at each end of the top table, i fell in love with them and if it wasnt for H2B id have booked the women's candelabras there and then.. We spent alot of our time looking online for various things for the room, I was adament i was having those candelabras.. and a turn of fate would have it, during one of our trawls through ebay/preloved/gumtree we came across a pair of 6ft ivory candelabras!! They were perfect!! A short car journey north we had them for a bargain price of £45 for the TWO!!! I must add here that the women who had dressed the room the day we went wanted £150 per candelabra to hire!!

(I apologise for the really bad picture) this was the only picture i got of them before SIL bundled them off in her car and hid them away in her loft, otherwise to this day they would still be out and i think they would have lost there wow factor, i now get a urge to go up into her loft each time im round just to see them...

Our centre pieces were bought in stages and probably part of them was one of the very first things we bought.. i say we i went out shopping, fell in love and couldn't get hold of anybody so made an executive decision and walked out with 8 birdcages!! Various other bits and pieces have been bought for the centre pieces along the way and up until a couple of weeks ago i had no idea how it would look put together, but this is what we have and apart from adding a thin sky blue ribbon draped round with the pearls and some more gyp round the base this is them complete.

And this will be across the front of our top table with lots of gypsophila,

Table plan

Is currently still in the making but basically im doing the vintage case idea like below

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I'm loving reading about your prep. Keep the updates coming

xx

Hey! Are those your wooden bases below the birdcages? If so where did you get them?

My theme is 'Scottish Wild / Woodland' and short of going out and picking up logs to cut myself I can't find any for a reasonable price....

Hey Jen!

Yes they are we got them on ebay, Faye is lovely if you message her with exactly what you need she should be able to sort it for you.. We found that this was the best place to get them from cost wise

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/alfacontracts/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_ipg=&_from=

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Enjoy reading your post its lovely, and the decorations you have planned look great. I'm getting excited for you! haha

Wow it all looks lovely, you are really talented and have a great eye for detail..... Love it all.

5 weeks tomorrow for you.... How exciting xx

On the offchance that you are anywhere near me I have 20 of these from my wedding that I am planning to ebay soon. I am South Yorkshire. No idea about how to package and post, I don't think it'll be worth it as they will be so expensive to post. Here is a pic of my table setting with the woodpiece. PM me if you are anywhere nearby!

Hi Aquiescence*,

I've sent you an email about the bases, not anywhere near South Yorkshire but as per email I drive up and down the country quite a bit so you may not be too much a detour off a normal route for me!

Please let me know if you get email

Jen x

Eeeek how exciting - love all your decor and stationary! Wish i was crafty... ☹️