Fairy princess...

I am so excited!!

After months of searching and searching I have found exactly what I was looking for...

Right from dreaming about having a winter wedding I had always imagined having a flowergirl in a pretty floaty fairy dress with little wings and a wand...have you ever tried looking for such a dress?!
I had found the perfect wings - black ones with sparkly silver stars on them (perfect for our theme!) and created the perfect wand but the dress evaded me still!

I imagined layers of floaty tulle in ivory to match my dress so that she could feel a million dollars like I do in mine. With black satin ribbon around the waist and lots of little black crystals sparkling on the skirt so that she matched my bridesmaids too.
I didn't want it to look like one out of the dressing up box or one of the cheap looking ones from a party shop but this is all I could find...until now!

Whilst browsing through twitter I spotted a re-tweet about Isobella's tutus...could this finally be what I was looking for?! After having a look at the facebook page and looking at all of the photos I had found the perfect flowergirl dress!!
After a short message to Michelle and a very prompt response it was clear that this is an amazing lady creating wonderful things. I gave her a whole list of exactly what I was looking for, she went away to price it up and came back with a quote, all within 24 hours!

Thanks to this wonderful women and outstanding customer service I am going to get the flowergirl dress of my dreams!!

I'm not sure who's going to be more excited when it arrives...me or flowergirl Daisy!
: ) xx

Is it being ruthless or is it being a bit Bridezilla?!...

Another potential wedding supplier bites the dust!

I'm not sure if I'm becoming ruthless in my old age (30 : ( in September), whether it's because I work in an environment where great service is paramount, whether it's because H2B & I are sticking to our budget or whether it's just a case of the bridezillas!

H2B & I went to a potential 'supplier' back in November & I'm talking early November for a quote for our flowers for the big day. The girl was nice enough & the quote was good enough. We were promised our quote would be mailed out to us that same day and once we had received it we could go ahead and pay the relevant deposits etc.

November came and went...no quote.
Christmas came and went...no quote.
New year came and went...no quote.
Even the bloody snow came and went...still no quote.
Despite emails each week to find out where it was. I finally got a response in early January!

"I'm very sorry that you still haven't received your quote. I've had a look and found it here in the mail tray, it must have got mislaid in the Christmas rush. I will put it in the post to you today."

Err! No! Not good enough! We got in before the 'Christmas rush' thank you very much! I appreciate you might get lots of orders in November for Christmas but surely you don't need to make them up until nearer...well nearer Christmas?!

Service...not good enough!

So...the lovely Gillian at Silver Daisy is going to get our custom for our bridesmaids corsages as well as my bouquet now.

www.silver-daisy.co.uk

I've been like this with a few people we've contacted and I wonder if all brides to be get like this? At the end of the day we're potentially spending a lot of money on the most special day of our lives with these people and I'm sorry but if you can't be bothered to email us back or be honest when you do you won't get my custom.

Rant over! ; ) xx

With this ring...

We've ordered our rings!! We've ordered our rings!!

Yesterday we took a trip on the train up to the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham just to have a look at wedding rings an the sort of prices we' be looking at paying.

What a bizarre little place! It's almost like a place that time forgot and has an air of Harry Potter about it, buzzing to be let in to speak to withered little men out the back while security stands at the door!

We visited a few places explaining that I really wanted a wedding band that would sit together with my engagement ring perfectly.

The funniest we visited pulled out a beautifully shaped band with little dark stones along it "We have this one which has the same black diamonds in as your engagement ring", to which I replied "umm no that black diamond is actually a very dark sapphire"...needless to say we took our custom elsewhere. A 'jeweller' that can't tell a black diamond from a sapphire?!

We've settled on a great guy at Bond & Martin who will create a wax model ring to fit exactly against my engagement ring in white gold. He doesn't want any money until I am completely sure that what he is going to create for me is exactly what I want. And as I intend on wearing this ring for the rest of my life it needs to be that...perfect!

The only downside is I have had to leave my beloved engagement ring with him while he constructs the model : ( it's weird but before we got engaged having a ring on that finger felt weird but ever since it's just felt right...and I really miss it now it's not there. Still, it'll be so worth it for the end result. And choosing wedding bands seems to make it even more official...WE'RE ACTUALLY GETTING MARRIED!! *GRIN*

xx

First dance dilemma...

I thought we'd got it sorted, we'd found a song we both agreed on and liked and the words are beautiful.
And it's by my beloved Take That!

There's only one problem...

How do we dance to it?! The more I listen to 'Rule the World' the more I convince myself it's too tricky. I'm dreading it anyway, I absolutely hate being the centre of attention and will quite happily blend into the background at any event. However, as mother-in-law keeps pointing out I'm going to have to get used to people looking at me : s

So...
We're in a quandary...do we stick with 'Rule the World' and shuffle awkwardly at the re-e-e-ea-a-ally slow bits or do we look for something else that's perhaps a bit easier to move to. There's a part of me that is happy just to shuffle but there's an equal (if not slightly bigger) part of me that really wants to come in and bust a few moves to really surprise people lol! I'm sat here chuckling to myself at imagining our guests faces!!

That's never going to happen though, H2B really doesn't want to do a full on routine and I won't push him to, it's his day as much as mine and I want him to feel comfortable with whatever we decide on doing. So we're back to the dilemma of what song?!

I've come up with a bit of a short list...

Take That - Rule the World
Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars
Elton John - Something about the way you look tonight
Otis Redding - These arms of mine
Bon Jovi - Bed of Roses (perfect to waltz to)

or just to throw one completely out there...

Do you love me? from Dirty Dancing...I love this song and it'd be hilarious doing a routine to this!

Let me know your thoughts...I'm off to ponder xx

Let the weight battle commence!...

I've done it!
I've taken the plunge!

I've joined Weight Watchers online!

I had to do something, I'm at the heaviest I've ever been and it's been really getting me down. Despite hubbytobe telling me "You're not fat!" and "I love you as you are!" I feel it, I feel disgusting some days and that's not good!

I've already had my eyes opened in the first few minutes of signing up and starting to track todays food. I am literally AMAZED at how many points are in milk! I love my milk and I only drink semi-skimmed so thought I was being healthier, but on totting up what I would usually drink in a day it equates to 7 points that's almost a third of my daily allowance!! I'm now sat here with a cup of hot water as opposed to my usual gingerbread latte...and I guess that's where I've been going wrong, over Christmas I was having them almost daily...well no more!!

Don't get me wrong I hold nothing against ladies that are happy larger but I'm not one of those girlies. I've been really miserable about it and I finally WANT  to do something about it, for me, not anyone else, just me.

Weight Watchers seems a great way to do it for me too. I'm one of those people that as soon as I hear the word 'diet' I think "Ooh I can't have that & I can't have that" and I just end up persuading myself that I need it, even though nine times out of ten I don't and I'm not even hungry...crazy!!

But with Weight Watchers I don't have to deprive myself of anything just simply count it in my days allowance. So, straight away I'm feeling better about it because there isn't anything I have to force myself to go without and it's even more daft that because I can have it I probably won't want it as often...work that one out lol!

I've also chosen the option where they set you small, regular but achievable goals of 5% weight loss each time. I figured if the goals were smaller I'd achieve more and be more motivated to go onto the next. I know it will take longer to lose the weight in total but I'll have more chance of keeping it off this way. Last new year I did a three day detox and survived on nothing but water, grapes & celery...yes I lost half a stone in a week but it's all gone back on plus more once I started eating again!

For the first time in my entire life I'm actually looking forward to dieting...I'm officially weird! ; ) xx

Smiles & bouquets...

After almost seven years of being a scaredy cat I have finally got a complete smile again! A second trip to the dentist today and because he was so pleased with how the root canal was healing he filled it all in and added on the bit I'm missing...looks even better than he original tooth if I'm completely honest!

I know it's daft but I was so self conscious of it, I feel like me again!

*GRIN!*

Have also ordered my bouquet for the big day. It's stunning...

It will look just like the one above, only mine will be black. I really wanted black flowers as my bridesmaids are wearing black and having ivory rose wrist corsages. And after nearly falling over at the price a local florist wanted to charge me for a simple hand-tied bouquet of ivory roses that are going to die in a couple of days I decided to look around.

I came across silver-daisy.co.uk in the wonderful wedding bible that is Wedding Ideas magazine and after browsing their website fell in love with at least three of the bouquets...but alas I can only have one so I have chosen the 'Lilac & Lavendar' design.

I love the fact that I will be able to keep my bouquet forever. And I can, hand on heart, honestly say the service you will receive from Gillian at SilverDaisy is second to none.
I cannot wait for it to arrive now!

I'm also trying to decide whether I use artificial flowers for all of our flowers now. Hubbytobe has gone for a very lifelike ivory rose buttonhole because he said he would like to keep it as a bit of a momento from the day so I'm now looking into the same for my bridesmaids. What do you all think?

Choices, choices! xx

11 months to go...

In just 11 months time I will be Mrs Crofts!!!

I can't believe how quickly time is disappearing! xx