I am not having second thoughts on getting married, i am 100% that Craig is my soul mate and that i will be spending the rest of my life with him. When i say seconds thoughts, i mean it more in terms of the structure of the weddings, decorations, choices e t c. I have put deposits down on a lot of things, including my dress and as i was lieing in bed, alone, on Friday night as Craig has been at Silverstone for the F1 all weekend, a million thoughts regarding the biggest day of my life began to run through my head.
I have three major doubts and the first one is the dress. Let me try to explain where this has all come from. As i have written in previous blogs, Craig and I are paying for our wedding ourselves on a £10,000 budget. Craigs family is very religious, Craig not so much and although i am not religious, i always imagine myself getting married in our local church, with a lovely lace dress and huge wedding cars. Unfortunately, our budget does not allow this luxery as our local church and surrounding churches charge over £700 to get married plus an additional £350 minimum would be required for wedding cars. So we decided to keep the costs down and to have a civil ceremony. That way, as Craigs family are from Liverpool, it means they do not have to do any unnecessary traveling as everything is in one place, and we do not need wedding cars.
We fell in love with Lumley Castle as soon as we viewed it, but it was well out of our budget, So we viewed several other venues that offered civil ceremonies. Anyway to cut along story short, we managed to get Lumley Castle within our budget so we put the deposit down and began organizing.
Going back to the dress part. I originally wanted something lacey, quite simple not very voluptuous, a bit like this.
I have booked in next week to get measured for my dress which i fell in love with as soon as i tried it on, and let me add, i did try on 30+ dresses before and after and it has stayed my favorite. It is nothing like the above dress, in fact i was dead against going for any kind of princess style dress but it is so beautiful, i new it was the one. Please see dress below:
So this really is my dream dress, but as i was lieing in bed on Friday night, all i could think was, it this dress suitable for a civil ceremony? Is this not a dress for a Church Wedding? Will it look too much? Should i not be going for something a bit less dramatic and more conservative? As i have been viewing wedding blogs on a daily basis, i have noticed a lot of women choosing, these slimline, vintage style dresses.
My favorite blogs are www.lovemydress.net and www.bridesupnorth.com they have daily real weddings and i have not seen anything like the dress i have chosen. Does this matter? Is it each to their own? Or will people be thinking that i have not chosen the right dress for the venue? Also, why have i suddenly started thinking like this?
My second major doubt is the time of the ceremony. We have chosen to have the ceremony at half 1 in the afternoon, so it gives people a chance to get ready, have a few drinks and not feel rushed. Mainly for Craig, me and the Bridal Party. I worked out, on Friday night, as i was attempting to count sheeo, that that would mean the wedding breakfast would be 3pm at the earliest, possibly 4. Then it dawned on me, we are going to be paying £2000 for people to eat a buffet at 8pm, when 50% of them people will have eaten 4 hours earlier. Now i am worried that we should be moving the ceremony forward, but i know i cannot do this as the registra is booked on the morning of the wedding. Has anybody else had this problem? Did people eat on the evening as well? Does it really matter what time the ceremony takes and what time people eat?........ WHY AM I BEING SO PEDANTIC?
So finally my other issue is research. I am starting to feel that i am not researching things properly and making rash decisions, even though i make sure it is exactly what i want.... at the time of booking :( This particular issue has come from a wedding fair that i went to at Sunderland Glass Museum. I got free bridal magazine, which is pretty standard at these things, but this one is aimed toward North East Brides. In the magazines is had a small article on a place called Lambton Castle www.lambtoncastle.co.uk, which apparently is just 1 mile from my house....... this is news to me. As it turns out, it is a bit of a hidden gem, set back into countryside, not a lot of people know that is exists as it is actually still lived in. So the owners have decided to start allowing people to have their wedding at their home. Clearly they couldn't have made this decision 9 months ago when we booked our venue. I do not want people thinking i want the best of both worlds, the castle is beautiful, but not as beautiful as Lumley castle, see below for comparisons:
Anyway, the main difference with Lambton Castle and Lumley Castle is that Lambton Castle has a separate Chapel inside its ground, so we could have had the religious ceremony, with the castle receptions. I do not know how much it costs, and i am trying, with great difficulty, to not order a brochure with price lists. If i do, and it is cheaper than Lumley Castle i might cry. Maybe i am just looking for something to complain about right? I have a beautiful venue, a beautiful dress, we are keeping within our budget and i am very happy with the decisions i have made. So far...... Perhaps i just need to remember that i cannot have everything....... i cannot have my cake and eat it. Or maybe i need stop getting so worked up about things and remind myself that i am marrying the love of my life, and whether i am in a £10 primark dress saying our vows in the middle of the street, it shouldn't matter what decisions i have made, because to get to this point, i made the most important decision that ever needed to be made and that is to devote my life, to the man that makes me happy.
Have any other brides had this experience? I cannot be the first? Can i?
Id love to hear your thoughts on this. Am i just a number one case of BrideZilla?
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