Something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue! With only a few weeks to go until my wedding these words finally popped in to my head, and I realised that I was might struggle to fill all the requirements! In the end my something old and something new were relatively easy, and will be covered in future blog posts.

But it was something borrowed and something blue that were the real problems. My future in-laws solved "something borrowed" for me, I carried a little piece of my fiance's family history down the aisle with me on my wedding day, before returning it to my mother-in-law.

Photo by Maria Carrington Photography

So that just left something blue. I'd been planning on buying blue converse for some time and using
those as my something blue. But the problem with being a woman of average height (I'm slightly over 5 foot 5) is that my wedding dress was a bit too long, and I couldn't get it altered as I didn't buy it from a proper wedding shop. That meant I had to bite the bullet, give up on my idea of being a Converse bride, and get some shoes to make me a little taller, and hopefully lift up the hem of my dress a bit.

The only problem was actually finding them. I'm not the best shopper, especially when it comes to shoes. I wear hiking boots most of the time, with my dark red converse when the boots aren't feasible, or smart black flats when I'm taking part in an event at work.

I didn't really know where to look, and with time starting to run out I took to Facebook in a call for help! A friend on there pointed me towards Irregular Choice, who do some really amazing shoes, but sadly a lot of them were out of my budget, and also looked a little impossible for me to actually walk in.

A Google browse introduced me to Ruby Shoo, and after a long browse I finally thought I'd found the ones I wanted. But when I went to buy them they only had them in one rather large size, they were last season's shoes and were no longer being sold!

eBay then came to the rescue! Not only did I manage to find the ones I wanted in my size, but I got them a bit cheaper than others listed because the seller had spelled the company as "Ruby Shoes", they weren't coming up on an eBay search but were showing via Google shopping!

Photo by Maria Carrington Photography

I'm not one for heels and these are definitely higher than I'm used to at the best of times! My work colleagues thought it was great fun to see me tottering around the office in them as I learned to walk (slowly and carefully) in high heels, and learned how to hold myself standing up so my feet would hurt less. I even wore them in the kitchen while I did the cooking.

But after a week and a half of practising I knew I wouldn't be able to manage the whole wedding in them, I just wasn't used to it, and eleven days wasn't enough for me to get used to them.I got my blue converse too, and had two something blues on my wedding day!

What was your something blue?

Wedding - One Week Later!

This time last week I was getting ready for my wedding! My Other Half proposed to me last May on a holiday to Rome, and my desire to get married on his next birthday (our anniversary sadly fell on a week day) meant that we had just under a year to plan and arrange everything (and save up for it).

We decided to get married at the Great Dunmow Maltings as it was a nice small venue (we only had 40 people we wanted to invite), very affordable, and they were very flexible about what we could do for catering. Plus we could have the ceremony and the reception in the same venue, which was an added bonus since we had guests with small children who wouldn't want to shuffle them in to car seats for a short drive somewhere else.

My Mum suggested that we have an afternoon tea for the reception. Me and Jon aren't big party/dance people (and I don't drink) so having a long evening dinner and dancing thing really wasn't something we wanted to go with. Plus we have quite a few family members and friends with dietary requirements (gluten free and dairy free being the two main ones), so being able to let them pick and choose what they wanted to eat was the easiest way to ensure that they felt welcome, and wouldn't feel that they had to say "no thank you" to our invitation. My Mum did an amazing job sorting out all the food, including spending weeks testing different gluten-free scone recipes (my Dad is now a bit sick of the sight of scones), and baking them and cakes in the run-up to the event. My in-laws sourced all the drinks, and did a great job as everyone managed to find something they wanted, from a nice glass of bubbly through to a selection of soft drinks for the non-drinkers.

The afternoon tea thing also gave us the opportunity to spend a lot of time sourcing vintage china. Between both families we've been through charity shops, junk shops and eBay collecting all manner of pieces. My mother-in-law even found a lovely teapot (not vintage but still gorgeous) with a lavender pattern while she and my father-in-law were on holiday in Canada! She managed to get it home in her suitcase without damaging it, and it's now sitting happily on my kitchen shelf.

We also wanted to source some handmade items where our budget allowed. In the end the four things we managed to get were our wedding rings (mine from Nikki Stark Jewellery and Jon's from Grow With The Grain), the boutonnieres from Alana Phoenix & Co, and our dried confetti flowers from Shelsley Herbs & Flowers, who was brilliant and posted them by special delivery when we bought them a bit too close to our wedding date! Being a former Etsy seller myself, it was great to be able to get a few things from small creative businesses, and every shop was lovely to deal with.

Our lovely photographer was Maria Carrington, who was great to work with as she's seen lots of weddings and was a very calming presence. I don't have the photos from her yet, so she'll get her own little post in a few weeks once we've seen the shots and picked a few to show on here!

We generally had an absolutely fantastic day. It was lovely to have so many people we loved be able to share it with us, despite some of the distances there were to travel! We'd recommend every single business that I've linked to on here, as they all helped make our special day one to remember!