Please help?

Questionnaire

1. How much time (months/years) was there between getting engaged and your wedding day? A year and a half

2. Prior to planning your wedding, did you have any ideas of what you wanted? If so, did this change for your actual wedding? (e.g. colours/themes/the dress) yes, dress was completely different as was venue. Venue down to budget

3. Did you hire a professional wedding planner? No

4. How did you feel during planning (e.g. stressed/excited)? Excited, only a couple of stresses but I didn't let them bother me

5. What was your favourite part of planning your wedding? Sitting down in the evening with the Mr organising bits, working out what we still had to do and generally planning with my fave person

6. What was your least favourite part of planning your wedding? Planning the hen party. Everything's fine and people can't wait to come to your wedding when your paying but when you have to get money of people it's very stressful

7. Did you have any ‘bridezilla’ moments? What were they? Nope

8. Did any of your guests become ‘guestzillas’? One of my cousins, originally said she wasn't coming because I wouldn't let her bring a plus one that I never met (on top of her husband) she then said she would come....wish I'd told her it was too late because she was nothing but hassle and I'm not even married yet

9. What advice would you give to someone planning their wedding now? Relax and enjoy......and do it abroad with just u and OH and a party back home....cheaper. wish we had done that

10. Did you set a budget for your wedding? Did you stick to it? We're on track to be on budget with 3 months to go.....touch wood

11. Did you have any major arguments with your partner due to anything wedding-related? Nope

12. Personal question, feel free to not answer: Did you fund the wedding yourselves / was it paid for by a family member or was it a bit of both? We funded everything bar my dress- mum paid for and church-dad paid for

13. How many dresses did you try on before finding ‘the one’? 25 ish. Purchased one a year and a half before the wedding and hated it within a couple of months so got dress number 2

14. How many venues did you visit before deciding? 2

15. Did you experience post-wedding blues? If so, how did you combat them? Not married yet

16. Anything else you would like to add about anything at all wedding related

Questionnaire

1. How much time (months/years) was there between getting engaged and your wedding day? A year and a half

2. Prior to planning your wedding, did you have any ideas of what you wanted? If so, did this change for your actual wedding? (e.g. colours/themes/the dress) yes, dress was completely different as was venue. Venue down to budget

3. Did you hire a professional wedding planner? No

4. How did you feel during planning (e.g. stressed/excited)? Excited, only a couple of stresses but I didn't let them bother me

5. What was your favourite part of planning your wedding? Sitting down in the evening with the Mr organising bits, working out what we still had to do and generally planning with my fave person

6. What was your least favourite part of planning your wedding? Planning the hen party. Everything's fine and people can't wait to come to your wedding when your paying but when you have to get money of people it's very stressful

7. Did you have any ‘bridezilla’ moments? What were they? Nope

8. Did any of your guests become ‘guestzillas’? One of my cousins, originally said she wasn't coming because I wouldn't let her bring a plus one that I never met (on top of her husband) she then said she would come....wish I'd told her it was too late because she was nothing but hassle and I'm not even married yet

9. What advice would you give to someone planning their wedding now? Relax and enjoy......and do it abroad with just u and OH and a party back home....cheaper. wish we had done that

10. Did you set a budget for your wedding? Did you stick to it? We're on track to be on budget with 3 months to go.....touch wood

11. Did you have any major arguments with your partner due to anything wedding-related? Nope

12. Personal question, feel free to not answer: Did you fund the wedding yourselves / was it paid for by a family member or was it a bit of both? We funded everything bar my dress- mum paid for and church-dad paid for

13. How many dresses did you try on before finding ‘the one’? 25 ish. Purchased one a year and a half before the wedding and hated it within a couple of months so got dress number 2

14. How many venues did you visit before deciding? 2

15. Did you experience post-wedding blues? If so, how did you combat them? Not married yet

16. Anything else you would like to add about anything at all wedding related

1. How much time (months/years) was there between getting engaged and your wedding day? Just over 10 months

2. Prior to planning your wedding, did you have any ideas of what you wanted? If so, did this change for your actual wedding? (e.g. colours/themes/the dress) I always thought I would have a church wedding, but hadn't got much beyond that. We didn't get married in a church because it didn't fit with H's beliefs, but did have a blessing ceremony afterwards.

3. Did you hire a professional wedding planner? No

4. How did you feel during planning (e.g. stressed/excited)? Mostly excited, sometimes stressed, sometimes bored.

5. What was your favourite part of planning your wedding? Dress shopping and food tasting!

6. What was your least favourite part of planning your wedding? Trying to decide about photography (in the end we didn't have a pro tog)

7. Did you have any ‘bridezilla’ moments? What were they? Came very close over H having one of his (very pretty) close female friends as an usher, and I was adamant she couldn't wear a similar dress to my bridesmaids.

8. Did any of your guests become ‘guestzillas’? No, not at all. The only difficulty was that we didn't know until the day whether H's grandparents would be well enough to come, so we had two table plans for both eventualities!

9. What advice would you give to someone planning their wedding now? Don't sweat the small stuff.

10. Did you set a budget for your wedding? Did you stick to it? Not really. We had a vague figure we nominally suggested at the start, but were happy to pay what was needed to get the things that were important to us. We went over a bit, because we didn't anticipate how much some things would cost, but it wasn't a major problem.

11. Did you have any major arguments with your partner due to anything wedding-related? Not to the point of calling it all off, but we disagreed over several things - church or civil, number of guests, photography, various minor bits if decoration etc. Came to mostly satisfactory conclusions though.

12. Personal question, feel free to not answer: Did you fund the wedding yourselves / was it paid for by a family member or was it a bit of both? We paid for the vast majority ourselves. My parents contributed a little.

13. How many dresses did you try on before finding ‘the one’? About 15? Then I tried on some more before coming back to that one.

14. How many venues did you visit before deciding? None, we always knew it was going to be one of two places and picked the one which was available soonest.

15. Did you experience post-wedding blues? If so, how did you combat them? No, I had an exam 10 days later, so that kept me busy.

16. Anything else you would like to add about anything at all wedding related? The important things are that you get married and that you and whatever guests you invite have a good time. A lot of stuff is just peripheral to that and it is better to focus on the things that really matter to you than to try to do everything you think you ought to, especially on a budget.

Thank you so much for your responses

1. How much time (months/years) was there between getting engaged and your wedding day? 3 years

2. Prior to planning your wedding, did you have any ideas of what you wanted? If so, did this change for your actual wedding? (e.g. colours/themes/the dress) yes and they completely changed. We were planning uk, green, barn wedding we have now gone blue, ice chapel, abroad

3. Did you hire a professional wedding planner? Yes as it was abroad

4. How did you feel during planning (e.g. stressed/excited)? Relaxed, calm, excited and found it all very easy to be honest

5. What was your favourite part of planning your wedding? Dress shopping

6. What was your least favourite part of planning your wedding? Paying the bills haha

7. Did you have any ‘bridezilla’ moments? What were they? None so far

8. Did any of your guests become ‘guestzillas’? Yes a few have tried to force/talk us into things but we have stood firm

9. What advice would you give to someone planning their wedding now? Don't choose you bridesmaids straight away and don't share your plans with everyone as everyone has an opinion you probably won't want to hear. Keeping things quiet until booked has done wonders for our planning experience

10. Did you set a budget for your wedding? Did you stick to it? We had a rough budget and we have done better than we thought

11. Did you have any major arguments with your partner due to anything wedding-related? Nope

12. Personal question, feel free to not answer: Did you fund the wedding yourselves / was it paid for by a family member or was it a bit of both? Funded ourselves. Ohs parents did give us a cheque to use as we saw fit but we never intended for anyone else to pay other than that cheque it is all us

13. How many dresses did you try on before finding ‘the one’? About 6 but in total I tried 17 lol I think you have to try more just to make sure

14. How many venues did you visit before deciding? We looked at 3 uk before deciding abroad

15. Did you experience post-wedding blues? If so, how did you combat them? Pass

16. Anything else you would like to add about anything at all wedding related? Do what you want as a couple not what you think everyone else would want. It's your day not theirs

Questionnaire

1. How much time (months/years) was there between getting engaged and your wedding day?

7 months

2. Prior to planning your wedding, did you have any ideas of what you wanted? If so, did this change for your actual wedding? (e.g. colours/themes/the dress)

nope, had not planned any part of my wedding

3. Did you hire a professional wedding planner?

no - though are venue has a "wedding planner" which is basically the co-ordinator

4. How did you feel during planning (e.g. stressed/excited)?

excited, apart from when my MIL2B had something to say as she was/is trying to take over

5. What was your favourite part of planning your wedding?

Planning the honeymoon

6. What was your least favourite part of planning your wedding?

dress shopping - for mine, the BM's helping the MOB etc etc as I hate clothes shopping

7. Did you have any ‘bridezilla’ moments? What were they?

none

8. Did any of your guests become ‘guestzillas’?

none

9. What advice would you give to someone planning their wedding now?

Stand up to the critics and do it your way

10. Did you set a budget for your wedding? Did you stick to it?

We didnt really set a budget but we kept spending to a minimum got quotes and prices etc and we are happy with what we spent.

11. Did you have any major arguments with your partner due to anything wedding-related?

no

12. Personal question, feel free to not answer: Did you fund the wedding yourselves / was it paid for by a family member or was it a bit of both?

We planned to fund it all ourselves but as we got to various stages MIL2B, FIL2B and MOB all chipped in

13. How many dresses did you try on before finding ‘the one’?

about 20

14. How many venues did you visit before deciding?

two

15. Did you experience post-wedding blues? If so, how did you combat them?

16. Anything else you would like to add about anything at all wedding related?

Can only answer the planning ones as we havent had our wedding yet

Questionnaire

1. How much time (months/years) was there between getting engaged and your wedding day?

Engaged 25 October 2013, wedding day 16 July 2016, so whats that 2 years 8 months ?

2. Prior to planning your wedding, did you have any ideas of what you wanted? If so, did this change for your actual wedding? (e.g. colours/themes/the dress)

No, I never thought I would get married, even when I was little. the proposal was unexpected, but a fantastic surprise

3. Did you hire a professional wedding planner?

No

4. How did you feel during planning (e.g. stressed/excited)?

anxious that all the planning wouldn't come together.

5. What was your favourite part of planning your wedding?

So far, taking time to research and find suppliers etc that could do what we wanted instead of going for a package deal. It's been a lot of work, but hopefully worth it.

6. What was your least favourite part of planning your wedding?

Nothing at the moment, but i'm sure that'll change! ha

7. Did you have any ‘bridezilla’ moments? What were they?

One so far, but it was more of "I am having this I don't care what you say!" moment, my OH has had one too, so were even (mine the flowers, his the champagne bus as his wedding transport)

8. Did any of your guests become ‘guestzillas’?

Not yet, but it will happen! I already have an idea who

9. What advice would you give to someone planning their wedding now?

You don't have to go with tradition if you don't want to. Just because everyone else has done it doesn't mean it's right for you and your other half. People may complain or dislike what you want to do, but at the end of the day, they will turn up, and really enjoy themselves. Do what is right for you both. ohhh...and it doesn't matter if things don't totally match, nobody will notice/care.

10. Did you set a budget for your wedding? Did you stick to it?

In a round about way. We looked at what we could realistically save between the time we got engaged to the date we set. We worked out the type of day we wanted, started getting quotes and putting in rough costs, usually over estimating, of things and that was pretty much it. We didnt approach it with "weve got £xxx to spend" we just went with we want this how can we do it and how much will it work out. We think for what we are doing its worked out a bargain! ha, but we would say that.

11. Did you have any major arguments with your partner due to anything wedding-related?

Nope...well not yet anyway.

12. Personal question, feel free to not answer: Did you fund the wedding yourselves / was it paid for by a family member or was it a bit of both?

We are paying for the majority of it, my OH's parents gifted us some money towards it and my dad is paying for the honey moon.

13. How many dresses did you try on before finding ‘the one’?

Ermm..went to 1 shop to try on a dress a fell in love with on line, (I didnt go for that one in the end), I think I tried on about 8 dresses of varying styles and went back to the one i've got.

14. How many venues did you visit before deciding?

None. I know that sounds crazy, i'm not even sure how I found out venue in the first place, but they have a marquee and could accommodate our more relaxed day so we had them pencil us in before we even went to look at it. We signed the contract and paid the deposit before we had seen the marquee up. We went a couple of months later when the marquee was up and it was perfect. (I will add I had spoken to the manager at great length prior to the booking so was very confident it would be what we wanted, and they had the pictures on their website)

15. Did you experience post-wedding blues? If so, how did you combat them?

no idea, but im sure i will

16. Anything else you would like to add about anything at all wedding related?

If suppliers tell you you are too early to book what you want for your wedding, find another supplier, there are plenty out there who are more than happy to take your business.

Alright, here we are. I've not answered them all as they didn't really apply to me.

Questionnaire

1. How much time (months/years) was there between getting engaged and your wedding day?

20 months

2. Prior to planning your wedding, did you have any ideas of what you wanted? If so, did this change for your actual wedding? (e.g. colours/themes/the dress)

Yeah, I was always keen on a short dress and red roses, and I had those.

4. How did you feel during planning (e.g. stressed/excited)?

Mainly stressed!

10. Did you set a budget for your wedding? Did you stick to it?

A rough one, but not exact. And we didn't stick to it!

11. Did you have any major arguments with your partner due to anything wedding-related?

It was a big debate whether to have any guests at all. But not quite argument status.

12. Personal question, feel free to not answer: Did you fund the wedding yourselves / was it paid for by a family member or was it a bit of both?

Bit of both. I think my mum paid somewhere between a third and a half, the rest we paid ourselves.

13. How many dresses did you try on before finding ‘the one’?

Maybe eight?

14. How many venues did you visit before deciding?

None at all, we didn't even visit our actual one.

Questionnaire

1. How much time (months/years) was there between getting engaged and your wedding day?

16 months

2. Prior to planning your wedding, did you have any ideas of what you wanted? If so, did this change for your actual wedding? (e.g. colours/themes/the dress)

Same ideas as what I planned in the end - in terms of overall theme and a general style of venue.

3. Did you hire a professional wedding planner?

No - wouldn't have wanted to use valuable wedding budget on something I figured I could just as easily do myself.

4. How did you feel during planning (e.g. stressed/excited)?

Very excited most of the time, sometimes overwhelmed by financial stress of it, sometimes felt like it would be an amateur shambles compared to the lovely blogs and pinterest posts I was looking at!

5. What was your favourite part of planning your wedding?

Doing the DIY bits - especially the invitations because they looked so professional, got lots of positive feedback but cost me about £5 to make!

6. What was your least favourite part of planning your wedding?

Trying to make the budget stretch after blowing over half of it on the venue and catering! Getting pregnant half way through planning (whilst fabulous) meant selling my already purchased dress that I miss dearly and I'm not excited about being a huge waddling bride on the day now with puffy ankles so I can't wear high heels!

7. Did you have any ‘bridezilla’ moments? What were they?

I don't think so! I've been a bit of a control freak and not let my bridesmaids help with anything

8. Did any of your guests become ‘guestzillas’?

We haven't actually got married yet but so far so good apart from the groom currently falling out with the Best Man and him not going on the stag do - currently not sure if he is even coming to the wedding but hopefully they will sort it by then because the best man's partner is my maid of honour.

9. What advice would you give to someone planning their wedding now?

Budget carefully!!!! Make one divided by each item needed and stick to it no matter what. Err on the side of caution because you won't save as much as you say you will each month. Don't sweat the small stuff!

10. Did you set a budget for your wedding? Did you stick to it?

We set one but didn't stick to it - the venue was too perfect and whilst expensive, we figured we could just save elsewhere but that is tricky. We've spent about £5 over what we initially intended and that doesn't include a honeymoon that we aren't even taking because I'm pregnant!

11. Did you have any major arguments with your partner due to anything wedding-related?

No - we disagreed on song choices for the aisle walk and first dance but compromised so he chose the first dance and I was allowed to pick the song I walked up the aisle to. All very mature of us - he has vetoed a couple of 'overly American, cheesy, naff' suggestions that I considered romantic.

12. Personal question, feel free to not answer: Did you fund the wedding yourselves / was it paid for by a family member or was it a bit of both?

Both sets of parents from mine and grooms side were very generous - they pretty much paid about a third each, we paid the other third

13. How many dresses did you try on before finding ‘the one’?

For the first dress (non maternity) it was the 4th dress I tried on. Had to sell it once got pregnant and still haven't purchased the new maternity one (doing it a month before the wedding!

14. How many venues did you visit before deciding?

2 - we booked the second venue on the spot, we viewed it a week after getting engaged!

15. Did you experience post-wedding blues? If so, how did you combat them?

Not married yet so will let you know - I expect I will be too busy having a baby and moving house though!

16. Anything else you would like to add about anything at all wedding related?

The most important thing at the end of the day is that you are marrying the person you love. Don't let family dramas or anything else ruin that. If friends and family care for you, they will do whatever makes you happy and you should be able to tell them to suck it up or bugger off! If you can't afford a big wedding, go small or elope - the vows and commitment you make are the only thing that matter at the end of the day.

1. How much time (months/years) was there between getting engaged and your wedding day? - 1 year and 18 days

2. Prior to planning your wedding, did you have any ideas of what you wanted? If so, did this change for your actual wedding? (e.g. colours/themes/the dress) - Yes we both had a really good idea and had spoken about it a lot. It hasn't changed at all!

3. Did you hire a professional wedding planner? Nope. Our reception venues claims to have a 'wedding planner' - they haven't helped us organise anything

4. How did you feel during planning (e.g. stressed/excited)? - Mostly excited! 99% excited 1% stressed I'm enjoying the planning process a lot!

5. What was your favourite part of planning your wedding? Ooo that's tough... so far it's probably my dress, grooms outfit and the cake... ooh and the flowers

6. What was your least favourite part of planning your wedding? - The guest list because we knew we couldn't invited everyone we wanted to

7. Did you have any ‘bridezilla’ moments? What were they? - not yet but there's still 4 months to go

8. Did any of your guests become ‘guestzillas’? - I hope not!

9. What advice would you give to someone planning their wedding now?

10. Did you set a budget for your wedding? Did you stick to it? - We set a budget but we didn't really take it seriously or do it properly.. we haven't stuck to it either oops

11. Did you have any major arguments with your partner due to anything wedding-related? - nope... phew!

12. Personal question, feel free to not answer: Did you fund the wedding yourselves / was it paid for by a family member or was it a bit of both? - bit of both

13. How many dresses did you try on before finding ‘the one’? - probably around 60. i wanted to make the most of the experience and try on different styles. I tried on a lot I loved a lot but only got 'that' feeling with one dress.

14. How many venues did you visit before deciding? - about 7

15. Did you experience post-wedding blues? If so, how did you combat them? - I hope I don't.. they will make me so sad. I think I will though because I do something wedding related every day.

16. Anything else you would like to add about anything at all wedding related? Enjoy every minute of it!