A girl can never have too many shoes...

A girl can never have too many shoes, right?

And I'm totally living up to that on my wedding day with a choice of not one, not two, but three pairs of shoes to wear throughout the day! Yes, we are still getting married on a budget...these three pairs have cost less than some brides only pair!

Now, it's a winter wedding and we all know what the British weather is like, the ground is bound to be wet, soggy and probably a wee bit muddy so for my journey from the hotel to the church I shall mostly be wearing these...

These came from ebay for £18.
They're perfect for the cold and wet and also perfect for our theme of black, white & silver stars! Once I am at church I shall be slipping into something ever so slightly more 'bridal'...

These came from next for £30.
I hunted high and low for round toe shoes and found these in next, I plan on dying them afterwards so I can wear them again. I then finished them off with these on the bottom...

These also came from ebay for £2.
They're cute and will hopefully make for some nice photos. My final pair, and possibly my most favourite are these...

These came from schuh for £46.
I plan on wearing these for the evening so that I can be dancing in comfort for the entire night! And I LOVE them, they're even more sparkly in real life!

What do you think? xx

The FINAL draft of the 'TO DO' list...

I have a habit of writing lists and losing them lately so I figured if I put it on here I'd always know where it is and how much there is left to do.

I'm a bit (ok a lot) anal when it comes to lists, I make lists for EVERYTHING so I apologise now for the stupidly ridiculous detail I'm likely to go in to. However, in my defence I seem to have a brain like a sieve at the moment, so if you're one of our guests reading this, it's only because I want you to have as good a day as hopefully we will! ; )

Right then, the list...

The Order of Service

• meet with vicar to finalise hymns, readings & Order of Service (21st Sept)
• order 10 extra blanks 
• order paper for inserts
• make up extras
• print inserts
• assemble them 

The Church

• give readers copies of their readings
• type up & print 'posh' copies for the day
• finish pew end decorations
• sort confetti bags & orders of service into baskets for 'bride' or 'groom'
• pay for church 

Daytime Reception

• decide on cupcake designs
• finalise and put names on table plan
• fill favour boxes
• print labels for favour boxes
• write names on placecards
• sort all bits into a box for each table
• make up pom poms for wall
• print photos for wall
• assemble 'bunting' for wall
• make up pom poms for vases on top table, cake table & guest book table
• paint stems on stars for above vases
• draw up layout of room and give to wedding co-ordinator
• buy ribbons for wall display
• buy pegs for wall display 
• make up pom poms for tables
• paint welcome sign 
• buy frames for welcome table
• print photos for welcome table
• print inserts for menu's and assemble them 
• buy decorations for reception xmas tree 

Evening Reception

• paint signs for dress up box
• type up 'instructions' for dress up box to go in frame
• buy a few more hats for dress up box
• put sweets into jars for candy store
• label jars
• sort items into separate boxes 
• find a dress up box
• pay for DJ
• paint frame for dress up box
• popcorn
• pegs for dress up 'smile' bunting 

Photographer

• arrange meeting to discuss ideas etc
• pay for photographer

Other Bits

• complete gift list at John Lewis
• make up H2B's waistcoat
• paint 'thank you' sign
• buy gifts for best man, ushers, bridesmaids, flower girl, parents & readers
• pay for car

OMG! I think that's everything! I know exactly what I'm like though and I'll probably keep thinking of bits to add to it.
As we complete bits I will cross them off, and maybe throw in a couple of tutorials for the creative bits!

Oh well, 18 weeks today...

eeeek ; )

Never underestimate the power of Twitter...

Last week our wedding photographer sadly had to cancel due to serious health problems. Cue me going into panic mode, bridezilla rearing her ugly head and neither of us knowing where to start. Just when we thought everything was sorted and all that was left to do was count down until the big day arrives!

I hadn't even thought about asking twitter for help, I just used it to share the unfortunate situation. It was only when the lovely chocolate blush asked if I wanted her to retweet my original 'oh no our wedding photographer's canceled' tweet that I began to realise how much help twitter was!

Within as little as five minutes I had hundreds, and I mean hundreds, of 'friends' retweeting, photographers names being put forward and photographers asking if they could help. It got so manic that H2B had to physically take my phone off me at midnight and tell me to get some sleep...I just couldn't keep up with replying to everyone. I think I managed to thank everyone a couple of days later but apologies if I didn't...thank you!

Our photographer dilemma was sorted within two days, step forward Andy Baines of b72 imaging
He has well and truly come to our rescue and I can't thank him enough, his work is AMAZING and I'm so excited about what he's going to create for us on the day.

So, if you're ever looking for help or advice in any shape or form head on over to twitter, someone, somewhere, will know someone or know someone that knows someone who will be able to help.

I can now get back to counting down ; )

18 wks and 1 day...

I made the top 100!...

I've made the top 100 wedding tweeters this week! : )

Guess this officially means I bang on about weddings far too much lol, it's only because I'm excited!!

follow me @kirstickels 

5 MONTHS TO GO!

OK, I know I'm a few days late...three if we're going to be really precise, but I still want to shout about it lol! I cannot believe how fast time is going and don't know where it is going...but we're pretty much sorted and are both so looking forward to it now.

The RSVP's are rolling in at a steady pace now and all bar one have been yes's! It's so lovely that all of our closest friends want to share and be a part of our special day and it means such a lot to have them all there.

I'm off to make some more cakes for H2B and the rest of the boys in his formula student racing team...it's race weekend this weekend so fingers crossed it goes well for them they've all worked so hard and put in some ridiculous hours over the last month. I feel like I've only seen him in bed...and not like that either you rude lot ; )

Until next time...  

How our story began...

I know I'm not the first girl in the world to ever get married & I know I certainly won't be the last but I wanted to capture the excitement I'm feeling right now about everything, right from when we first met.

So, here's our story...

After a couple of failed relationships and a particularly nasty break up with my ex after six years I really thought I was doomed to the shelf at the ripe old age of 27. I had no idea where I was going to meet someone, let's face it, all I seemed to do was work and the only guys there could quite easily audition as extras in the Lord of the Rings!

So, after much deliberation with myself, I took the plunge and joined match.com. There, I've said it, I've admitted it to the world, I was one of those sad people that resorted to internet dating!

However, this did absolutely nothing for my self-confidence for a while, I'd log on daily to find new winks and then head on over to look at there profiles and ask myself...what?!...really???

Don't get me wrong, I am under no illusions at all, I am no supermodel, but some of these looked like they'd crawled out from under a rock that time forgot. I accept and completely agree that looks are by no means everything but you've got to find someone physically attractive to begin with, haven't you?

By this point I was ready to throw in the towel and give up on everything but for some reason I decided to take one last look at the lastest winks before I did. There, in my inbox, was a wink from crofty_00 and hey, he wasn't bad looking at all, quite god damn cute in fact! I decided to have a look at his profile and found we 'matched' on a long list of things. Something told me I needed to follow this one up, so I winked back and attached an email.

I have no idea now what I said in it but it must have worked ; )

I didn't know until much later on, but I could access all areas of match.com for free from my phone, poor old H2B had to pay to join for a month just to read my message...whoops!

I sent him my mobile number and didn't hear anything for a while and I guess I'd given up on him a bit. But then, I was a bridesmaid at my sister's wedding and feeling abit sorry for myself as I was on my own and decided to check my mobile for any messages or missed calls.

There, in my inbox, was a text from an unknown number. I can still remember it word for word...
         "Hi Kirsty, it's Oli off match. Hope you're ok and enjoying your sisters wedding. Hope to hear from you soon xx"
From then on we text a lot...a hell of a lot! He even changed his contract to get extra free texts lol! And I can't believe how patient he was. That first text was sent on the 7th of June and I didn't agree to a date until the 13th of August!!

We met for a drink in a bar in Leamington and I think from that night I knew he was quite special and definitely worth hanging on to.

I guess the rest is history, it's true, you do have to kiss a lot of frogs (some toads in my case!) before you find your prince but it's so worth it when you do find him!

Roll on December! : ) xx

Six months to go!...

Oh wowsers! Crikey! Blimey oh reilly! Jeez! Jeronimo!

I can't believe there's only six months to go...it doesn't seem five mins since we got engaged! Where does time go?

This week has been a really exciting one for us...

Firstly, we moved in together...exciting! It's so lovely to know that from now until forever I will be coming home to my gorgeous soon-to-be-husband. Cuddles on tap...yippee!

Secondly, we went through all of our wedding bits and logged everything...yes I'm a control freak with a weird organisational OCD lol! But I feel so much calmer and in control again now. Everything has been sorted into stacks of boxes...the church, the daytime, the evening and it's all lovingly labelled too...happy bride-to-be again.

And thirdly, and possibly the most exciting thing so far...we sent out our wedding invites. Woohoo, there's no going back, we're actually getting married and I can't wait! The response to our invites has been amazing and only added to our excitement. 

I probably did go a little over the top with them, but hey, I only intend on doing this once, I wanted them to be perfect! Right from the shiny silver padded envelope we sent them in, to the silver star confetti that falls out on opening, to the gorgeous cutemap by the lovely Sheree at cutemaps.co.uk to the cute little paperclips I lovingly bent into hearts to clip our extra bits together (very sore fingers afterwards but so worth it!)

I don't tend to like my own work very much but I'm incredibly proud of these and I actually love them! 

And now just to wait for our first official RSVP, let's hope it's a YES! ; ) xx