Beards, Hair & Invitations

The nights are drawing in, I'm wearing a jumper, the living room is full of boxes and I'm soooo excited, it can mean only one thing... Christmas!!! No, wait, talking about Christmas in September is early even by my standards, I haven't even had my birthday yet. It appears however, that preparing for an autumn wedding brings out similar emotions, as well as a similarly cluttered living room. There are just over 4 weeks to go before I'm a Mrs. and things suddenly feel like the are gathering momentum. 

Little dress up beards have been printed, stuck on card, cut out and put on sticks. 

Invitations have been printed, cut out, divided into piles and sent out. In fact all the RSVPs are also back. 

All flowers have been made, all the ball arrangements are completed. My mum and auntie have already put dibs on a ball each. 

 Our ring box has arrived. (We aren't doctors, those are just our initials silly!)

A wonderful hair and make-up trial with the lovely Fenella St John has been and gone (don't worry, hair and make-up isn't a surprise, Fubby was there with me as he was the one that drove me to Ipswich. It also meant that I was able to keep my pretty hair and make-up all day, even if it did mean I was a little overdressed for KFC). 

 

Frames for dress up photos have been painted (rather roughly, but it doesn't really matter). 

 LED candles arrived and are now all in jars ready to go! 

I'm starting to think about stationery for the actual day. Lots of things are ready on the computer, but I wanted to print out some rough place cards to make sure they sat in the bits of tree okay. They do! 

I also printed out some rough hot chocolate instructions for our favours so I could have a play and practice at punching holes and adding eyelets. The real ones will be happening this weekend.

So what's next? Lots, we have sweets arriving, we will be ordering pumpkins, I need to create table plans and make bookmarks, as well as lots of other things! I'll keep you posted! :)

Hen Party In Bath!

A few weeks ago I went to Bath for my Hen Party! I will be honest, I was too busy enjoying myself to worry about taking many photos and half of these were given to me by Lydia (that's her on the right), but I thought Id share them to give you a little idea of what we got up to. We arrived on the Friday afternoon and went for a lovely meal at the Firehouse Rotisserie in the evening. The following morning we popped into town to have a look around the shops and have a little drink. I would like to say how those drinks (above) were all cocktails, but it was far too hot, so soft drinks it was. Then it was back to the hotel for a change of clothes ready for afternoon tea... cue pretty dresses! Lyds and Gayle also gave us all our goodie bags which contained some Baileys, many sweets, lip balms, headache tablets, badges and glass charms. I was also given my hen sash. :)

Our afternoon tea was in the garden of the Royal Crescent Hotel. We all chose our preferred tea, I believe I had the Green Organic Long Jing, and our sandwiches and cakes were brought out to us. Lyds had told them in advance that I would need something other than clotted cream for scones (weirdly, I seem to be okay with dairy as long as it isn't too rich, so I avoid clotted cream, fresh cream etc), but they ended up providing me with my own cake stand which appeared to be completely dairy-free. My immediate thought was that it did look a little drab compared to the other stand covered in colourful treats, but I quickly felt relieved, as the other treats were very creamy, and I would have felt a bit nervous about eating them. As it turns outs, I think I had the better end of the deal. I was the only one not to get given an egg sandwich (I had roasted pepper instead), the scones were delicious just with jam, they didn't even need the cream, and as the heat started to make the colourful creamy treats sweat and melt (and were therefore slowly abandoned), my slices of loaf cake (fruit, chocolate and cinnamon) were suitable for boxing up and taking home. I shared them with Fubby the next day and they were really good.

As soon as we had finished with afternoon tea, it was back in a taxi and back to the hotel for another change of clothes, ready to go out for the evening, so we could eat some more food :). We had a VIP evening booked at Komedia, which involved a bubbly drink on arrival, a three-course meal, drinks brought to our table and an evening of comedy. I'm not sure what I was expecting the food to be like, I had assumed that there wouldn't be much choice, but as you can see I was wrong about that, and the food itself was really, really good. I chose the pork belly, but I have no photo as I was to busy troffing it down. It was delicious :)

We had a great evening, the comedy was a little hit and miss, but that is always the way if you are seeing a selection of comedians. I also had moment where, because I was a Hen, I had to stand up and answer some questions, usually I would find this mortifying, but it was okay... I didn't feel drunk because it was still so warm, but I can only assume the cocktails did help!   

On the Sunday morning before returning home, I dragged the remaining ladies through Bath to find the Bath Artisan Market. I was super pleased that the hen party had fallen on the second Sunday of the month, and having not spent very much, decided that I wanted to buy things! Along with some chilli and cranberry jam and some chilli and banana chutney I also bought:

 A print by Stephanie Cole

 A little clay mouse (which I think was) by David Jones

This lovely bird sketch by the super talented and friendly Ben Rothery.

I feel like a very lucky lady, having such lovely friends organise such a great weekend for me. I had forgotten quite how beautiful Bath is and now I can't wait to go back again (preferably on another second Sunday of the month). :)

A Cup Of Tea & A Catch Up

Whoops! That was a longer break from my blog than I had planned. There I was having a ponder over what content I actually wanted to have on my blog and suddenly it was nearly the end of August. Nothing has actually changed content-wise as yet, and I can't promise to post on a regular basis on what is now the run up to my wedding (exciting), but I'll try! There has been lots going on, mostly wedding things, but I've saved most of that for a wedding related post. There will also be a post about my hen party in Bath, but for now, here are some of the smaller things!

Red shoes! They were on sale and I needed them for my hen party dress. They are wedges and surprisingly comfy. 

We went to stay with our friends, and they cooked us a lovely meal, this was our starter, just look at those yummy colours!

Dave McPherson ran a Pledge project to create a new album (Pledge Music is like Kickstarter but just for musicians) and here it is. Everyone that pledged had their name popped in the booklet (below), see there I am. It's not that exciting I know, *but it is a little exciting for me*

Naughty Fiance brought home doughnuts! 

Card-making (You can see the finished card in a previous post; yes it has been that long since I've posted).

Wine suggestions for our wedding breakfast. Jo and Thierry from Cellar Magneval came around to our house with the suggested wines for us to try. We had a wonderful time and may have been a little tipsy by the end of the evening, which was a bit of a shock seems as the bottles were all still really full. 

We visited my parents in Norfolk for a catch up, and so that we could check out the hotel Rob is staying in for the wedding and see our registrar. While there we took a little walk around Titchwell Marsh. It was great to see the sea. 

I made brownies, they had mayonnaise in them instead of fat. They weren't the best brownies in the world, but they were still brownies! :)

 Spontaneous online shopping, Rob Ryan zine. 

 Wedding invite chopping. 

German chocolate from my English friend, living in Germany, working on an American base. These were delicious, honestly, they lasted minutes.

Never sure what to make of Hershey's chocolate, there is no denying it has a distinctive tang, but here is the thing it also has a higher melting temperature. I like my chocolate solid, from the fridge, and during our hot weather I was getting quite distressed about how quickly my chocolate was softening up, until I had my kisses, perfect for heat waves! 

I've wanted this book since it was published last year. Fubby treated me to a few things from amazon, so I chose this, the alphabet stamps (don't be fooled they are just pretend vintage), a couple more books and the Hot Chick DVD (I don't know why but I can watch it over and over).

We have a new teapot. We decided after having a lovely but rather expensive breakfast in Guildford that we could probably do it just as well at home. Fubby made bread for toast and we bought an infuser teapot so we could have our own loose leaf tea. It is a lovely turquoise/teal colour and I'm a little in love with it. Now I just need to convince the other half to try more tea, other than just breakfast tea.

Finally, it was Fubby's Stag last weekend, so I was staying with my friend. She just happens to live near Stateside Candy so we popped in and picked up some treats. I haven't opened my Lotus biscuit spread yet, but I did try some in the shop and it's amazing. I know once I open the jar it isn't going to last long, so I might try and save it until after the wedding, especially after looking at the calorie content, crikey, but then what was I expecting, after all it does taste that good! Oh Fubby survived.