Newbie Intro - Weddingin 8 Weeks...

Welcome to hitched ?

Our planning tools should be able to help you along the way (in the members area) - and the inspiration galleries will give you thousands of ideas.

We look forward to you sharing your journey through wedding planning with our wonderful community.

Fran x

The main things you will need to organise (if you want them) are a venue for a reception, then a dress and a photographer. (I am assuming that you are having banns read/notice given at a CofE church? If not, you'll need to organise that with your local register office).

The rest is just fluff.

I would have liked to have a short time to plan our wedding as I just procrastinate anyway. Guests would be the first big thing; email them all info you can put together asap and ask for RSVPs asap too. Or call them.

Then, decide if you want a reception. Is there a church room or hall you could use for drinks/buffet or do you want a bigger affair? In which case you need a venue. If you go for the former idea, who will provide the food/man the drinks for you?

You can get a dress from Monsoon, Phase Eight etc or go to one of the second hand wedding dress shops around.

Buy rings.

Decide on readings/hymns and see if the church can do the order of service. (Banns as previously mentioned too.)

Hire your OH a suit.

Get a guest book as messages from guests will be of real value.

Either get a photographer or allocate someone with a good camera to take photos for you. That might not be the best but will be better than nothing.

Anything else would be a bonus at this stage - cake, flowers, decorations, cars, bridesmaids.

Best of luck, that is the best surprise but so much better he told you now than on the day!

Ah, your OH sounds so romantic - how lovely of him to have been planning and saving for a surprise!

If you haven't yet found a dress, depending on your budget, go to some bridal shops now as this time of year they have some great sales on. I purchased mine 2 weeks ago expecting to order it and wait over 6 months but found the perfect dress in my size on the sale rail for less than half price! Took it home that day! Just got to wait 8 months to wear it :-( Have a fabulous day, enjoy the planning (as short as it is!!) xxx

Ah what a lovely story congratulations and welcome to hitched.

That's so lovely, congratulations. Great bunch af hitchers here that will help you plan, good luck.

Thank you for all for responding.

Luckily I already know our vicar quite well so the actual marriage is confirmed, I'm just waiting for the vicar to send me the dates that the Banns will be read. The church has quite deep window ledges so I am thinking that if we fill them with candles it will create some light if the weather is not on our side. The church has also got rid of its central pews for carved chairs so we can have enough out for guests and move the rest into the room at the back of the church.

We do have some lovely friends who have offered to help to. My OH's brother in law is going to be the organist at the church and a good friend of my OH's is a wedding photographer and has agreed to come and take photos for us.

In terms of wedding reception - there are actually only 16 of us for the church, so we will all go and have lunch, I'm close to Oxford so in that respect we should be fine. I'm currently looking for a restaurant with a private room which I don't think will be too difficult to find. OH is organising the evening, he's thinking a pub in the village. I think with white tablecloths and loads of candles and early spring flowers it will look good - to be honest as long as we can have our friends and family with us we'll be happy.

My Aunt works in a bridal shop and they are having a sale at the weekend, she has kindly put aside a couple of dresses in my size that she thinks will suit. We've also figured out boy's suit and something for the bridesmaids and the best man.

We have let people know to save the date so hopefully people will have time.

I've also started to soak the fruit for the base of the wedding cake and made strawberry vodka which I thought we could use as favours, along with a big batch of sloe gin that I've already made.

I guess I need to think of invites next - I've tried to write down things as I think of them. I'm actually quite calm, it will come together and there's no point stressing about the small things. I'm more excited and excuse the fluff, so touched that OH has been planning this.

Apologies for the long post - writing things down helps to organise my scattered thoughts!

Your plans sound absolutely lovely.

Thanks kharv ?

In my mind it all works so hopefully we can pull it off!

That's all amazingly efficient of you! I sometimes wonder that less prep time is better, I've wasted so much of my time umming and ahhing over things and I've still got aggggges to go. And your OH sounds like a diamond, you lucky thing.