Going AWOL

So first I got busy Having A Good Time. It was Holi (amazing) and I got all colourful

(and don't remember much of it - this is my confused look!)

Oops.

Then we jetted off to Goa for the weekend for some R&R. We are in our last 2 months in India, so clearly making the most of it.

And life was lovely.

Then I was having a bit of a wobble* and didn't sign in for a couple of weeks. There's another girl at work getting married and we got each other in a tiz. An invitation, font, dress and videographer - induced tiz. Then I did sign in today and my goodness the world's a better place again.

First the lovely Marie gave me awards: http://wifeinthecity.blogspot.com/2009/03/choose-your-own-award.html (which I ignored til now - sorry sorry)

Then I checked out the posts I had missed and it turns out everyone else is wobbling to. Although they're all being a lot more sassy about it than I have been about anything! (I subscribe to the 'hide and it might go away' school of thought). So thank you Meg, East Side and all the other inspirational posts this week. PERFECT.

So... here we go - back into it (with a healthly dose of bhang (only joking) and common sense).


*For wobble, read Crisis that I was going to have an inferior wedding and I didn't really care that much. It's in a field and it will probably rain. My friends will binge drink and his will all have crying babies. I will be lucky to coax T to arrive in a sober state.

I love my hippy Mum

Really I do. I love that she was a real life hippy in the 60s; she had long long hair and burnt her bra. And that is cool.

But I really wish she'd immunised me against stuff. Like mumps, and measels. And I wish she'd had my tonsils taken out when, aged 10, I used to get tonsillitis every few months. Because now I'm 27 and I still get it every year it's no fun. And they won't take them out now. I was looking for a picture of what my tonsils currently look like on Google images, and would seriously advise against it.

Anyway... any babies I am blessed with in the future will be on the receiving end of any medical advances doctors want to throw in their direction.

(PS - she's no longer a hippy, but don't even get me started on how difficult it is going to be to find a 'non-stuffy' wedding outfit)

Save the Dates

I refuse to call them STDs. I smirk every time I read that like a 12-year-old. Then I smirk some more at how juvenile I am.

Anyway... we are about to send out our Save the Dates. The wedding is May bank holiday weekend next year, so I figure we should send them out before the holiday weekend this year, in case people make recurring plans. (T informs me we are probably talking about 1% of our guestlist, but I ain't taking no chances).

So we need to agree on a design.

Option 1: the photos of ourselves. This is my favourite, but T thinks it's too try-hard.

Option 2: very plain text, printed out on nice card. This is T's favourite. But isn't it just a bit grown up? And I'm slightly worried it sets the tone for an elegant sophisticated affair, which as much as part of me would love our wedding to be I don't think it will be anywhere close. More drunken shenanigans in a field.

Option 3: funky badges. This is another one of my favourites. T hates it.

Option 4: Fancy personalised postcard, with either our pictures or a destination close by to home. LOVE LOVE LOVE. Possible with Powerpoint and clipart? I think not.

Option 5: Buy a bunch of pretty postcards and handwrite a note to everyone on the back. Could be a lot of work, but would be nice to get a personal letter rather than a printed card (I think). Would probably only take a couple of hours. I think.

Hmmm. Decisions. Any thoughts?

(I am a bad blogger and had all these pictures saved on my hard drive without sources. Sorry. The second one is from Hello Lucky)

The wedding war

This weekend T and I had our first wedding fight. It was awful, just awful. There were tears, screaming, shouting. Glasses were broken. Then I went to bed in floods of tears and he sat up for hours drinking whisky and being angry. Awful.

And the subject of the war? Obviously something serious enough to cause the worst fight we've had since we got together: which band should play at the wedding. O yes, that all-important, most significant of decisions we are going to have to make over the next year.

To be honest, the band subject is more significant than you would think... I am a musical person, I sometimes sing with a band, and I sing along to whatever is playing most of the time. A very close friend of mine from university sings in a band. The lead guitarist is the fiancé of another very close friend of mine. They will both be at the wedding anyway and have offered to play for just the expenses of the other band members. I LOVE this idea. I love that people I love will be such a big part of the wedding. I know they'd do a great job (even if they're not the best band in the world, they always get the room dancing). They have improved 300% since they gave up trying to write their own (admittedly slightly dodgy) songs, and now just rock the covers.

T hates the idea. As a starting point, he never wanted to get married… but he proposed because he knew how happy it would make me. But now it’s gone too far… In his mind, this would be the last straw in making the wedding all about me. It is already in my Granny's garden (wtf - HIS idea!)… unfortunately, my family outnumber his about 4:1 (NOT my fault!) and my family tend to be noisy and take over situations, whereas his are quiet and go along with things. So anyway, having my university friends play in the band would apparently make him feel like a guest at his own wedding. Not ideal.

I tried compromising (Let’s discuss how your friends/family could play a bigger role) but it turned into a “You never listen to me blah blah blah” type screaming match. (This was at 2am Saturday night after a particularly drunken dinner party). And now if I bring it up it gets met with a “Why are you pushing this when you know how unhappy it would make me” type response.

So that’s that. My lovely vision of my best friend fronting the band, me maybe getting up on stage to sing a number or two, and all our friends and family dancing along is not going to happen. No way. Nada.

And however unhappy that makes me, it’s OK. Really it is. Because IT’S ONLY THE FRIGGIN WEDDING BAND! We still get to get married. We still get to have a big party. And buy a house. And live together and have babies (I hope!) And if it makes T enjoy the wedding as much as I know I will, then it’s a sacrifice I need to make.

(But I’m still a little bit grumpy!)

I could make these.

http://mycoinpurse.blogspot.com/2009/03/diy-thread-led-tealight-cover.html

via $2000 wedding.

very nice!

Dancing dress

Maybe maybe... very pretty although at £250 more than I would want to spend. eBay alert dutifully set...

PS

Whilst we're on the topic of incomprehension... what is a groom's cake??

Meh

I don't even know what a gokko is.

feeling v incompetent after today's postings.

OUR THEME

The Knot just sent me an automated email.... with 15 moths to go, I should be deciding on a theme. That is my big 'to do' this month.

Right.

My theme is Getting Married to T. Which I hope will make for a pretty good wedding. No?

Crikey now I feel all insecure that I'm not going to have a cool theme. What do they even mean? Tarts and vicars? surely not?!

Taking stock

We have pretty much decided that we will be leaving India in a couple of months and heading back to Blighty. Yes, we'll be sad, but we've been away for over two years now and we both feel like it's time to go home.

Work are being great and have given us 6 months unpaid leave between leaving the India office and starting back in the London office, meaning that we will be embarking on a big overland adventure... setting off from Delhi and aiming to arrive back in London months later.

The big news for wedding planning is that:
1. Anything I haven't planned before May, will not get planned until October at least (I can't imagine trawling through vendors from an internet cafe in Khazakstan!)
2. Anything we're planning on getting done in India needs doing in the next 2 months.

So we need to make a list.

On the first point, things I have done already:
1. Dress
2. Photographer
3. Decided on Granny's garden as a reception venue
4. Booked the church
Crikey that's a short list.

Things that I'm pretty sure we need to do soon (i.e. not leave until only 6 months before the wedding):
1. Send out Save the Dates (it's a holiday weekend; I don't want our friends getting booked up)
2. Block book hotels (ditto explanation above)
3. Book a marquee? Maybe?

Other things that could go on this list would be a caterer and a band.... but I can't really believe we need to book those now. OK we might not get the exactly perfect caterer if we leave it until 6 months before, but I'm sure there'll be someone who can feed us!

Then the only other thing is anything we should be getting sorted in India before we leave. I think the only thing that fits in that list is getting invitations done. Printing here in Delhi, I imagine, is MUCH cheaper than getting stuff done in London.

I'm quite a fan of designing my own invitations, then getting them printed. We could wait and print out at home when we're back in London, but that will involve buying a printer, and I think ink etc will be super expensive. And do normal home printers take thick enough card for wedding invitations? I think maybe getting them done here will be easier.

Which brings us on to designs. Major area of confict.

I love love love beautiful floral designs. Like this:


from Momental Designs.

T HATES it. He says is fussy, girly, blah blah blah. Hmph.

He likes plain white, boring type.

The only style we both quite like is something like this:

Which apparently is not weddingy enough for him to oppose, and fun enough to keep me entertained.

He is also dead set against me designing them myself. I think he's worried I will design something, he will hate it and I'll get upset.

So maybe next weekend we'll go check out an invitation shop here in Delhi, just to see what they can do. EXCITING!