Tuesday, May 28, 2002Ring Update
The jeweller called today and they're about to start work on making me a new ring. They'll let us know when it's ready. Hope it's not too long as my left hand feels remarkably naked.
Posted by Jane at 2:10 PM
Saturday, May 25, 2002I got a note from my Dad yesterday, they'd been walking past a Skeltons bakery in Hessle the other day when him and Mum noticed a wedding cake in the window decorated with sunflowers. They immediately went in for a look at the details, and got a leaflet for me as they knew that we hadn't make a final cake decision yet and that Sunflowers are my favourite flowers. Thanks Mum and Dad.
Posted by Jane at 9:16 PM
Ring saga
Our wedding rings are ready for collection! We've had some platinum wedding rings made to work well with Jane's platinum engagement ring, and today we went off to try them on. They fit just fine and look great (it took a squirt of E45 cream to get mine off my finger, but it feels fine when it's on). We didn't take the rings away with us because of the following complication....
Jane picked up quite a deep scratch on her engagement ring after her run in with a sheet of aluminum (see blog 766612771). Now the jeweller doing the wedding rings isn't the same one who did the engagement ring, but while we were in the store we asked them what they could do about the scratch. The answer is to do a laser fill with white gold. White gold? Why not platinum? Because, the jeweller told us, the engagement ring is made out of white gold and isn't platinum. We were stunned, angry, and stormed off to the jeweller who sold us the engagement ring to find out what the hell was going on. We paid for a platinum ring and we wanted a platinum ring.
We were ready to deal with this con-artist jeweller and any excuse or fob-off they tried. When we got there they were as surprised as us, and apologetic. They rarely sell white gold anyway, and couldn't understand how this could have happened (never happened before in 16 years of business...etc etc). After much scratching of heads, they're going to have the ring re-made in platinum at their expense. It does mean that Jane is now without a ring for a few weeks...but I'm glad we found this out now rather than have the engagement ring worn away from rubbing against the harder platinum wedding ring.
Posted by Richard at 2:50 PM
Friday, May 24, 2002Suit saga
Today we went to take a look at suits at Pronuptia. We may or may not hire suits from them, but their attitude and level of service is so much better then any of the other hire stores we've seen (national hire chains, that is: we can't really consider the smaller locals because we need to kit people out from all around the country). Although we're still not sure what we'll be doing for blokes clothes, at least it's good to know there's at least one hire place we could do business with.
Posted by Richard at 2:33 PM
Thursday, May 23, 2002Well, we've now spoken to all the people we wanted to be involved with the wedding service. So, we've got one 4 year old Bridesmaid, 2 Pageboys (aged 4 and 6), a Matron of Honour, a Best Man, 2 people to do readings, and 2 people to be our witnesses. Thank you all for accepting.
Posted by Jane at 9:05 AM
Tuesday, May 21, 2002And the winner is...
tomato and basil soup. See the results. Thanks for your input.
Posted by Jane at 9:37 PM
Sunday, May 19, 2002What soup?
When we were planning our menu for our wedding dinner the other day, we were offered "Soup of our choice" as one of our starter choices. We can't decide which soup to offer, so please help us out by voting. Cheers.
Posted by Jane at 8:22 PM
Thursday, May 16, 2002Another successful weekend in Hull
Well that all went well. During the weekend we've:
So, all in all a highly successful weekend. Posted by Jane at 9:33 PM
- visited my hairdresser, and made appointments for the day itself, and for my Mum and I to have trials beforehand
- visited the florist and seen a mock-up of my bouquet (this was really impressive actually as it was put together in about 5 minutes from the flowers they had in the shop, and yet it still looked fabulous)
- visited the venue and organised the menu (well, more or less)
- bought a selection of jewellery for me
- found an outfit for my Mum (we weren't really looking, it was a "we have an hour's parking left, lets see what York has to offer" type deal, and there was an outfit that was perfect)
- talked with the Vicar of the Parish and got his approval to have our friend Sue (a Canon) do the service
- booked hotel rooms for Richard's family for the days before the wedding
Sunday, May 12, 2002Today I've made an appointment for us to go and register a gift list with Debenhams - but it isn't until the middle of June. I hope this means that we get to go and play with a barcode scanner, I think it does. We're going to try and be sensible and have some sort of list, rather than getting too carried away and going scanning crazy
Posted by Jane at 1:47 PMbut time will tell on that score.
Sunday, May 05, 2002Suits are still causing us problems. We popped along to Moss Bros yesterday to see what they had in their hire range, but weren't really very impressed. Nothing really shouted "Try me, Try me" so we left feeling a bit sorry for ourselves - again!
We also popped into Debenhams, who are expecting to get their new menswear hire brochures into the stores in the next few weeks. In the meantime we decided to take a look at the Debenhams hire website and got to play at dressing the manequin in different styles of suits.
Posted by Jane at 12:39 PM
Saturday, May 04, 2002Yesterday I went to the Grand Hotel for my pamper day with Steph and Vicky (people I worked with at Aspect). I met the girls at around 11.30 and we had a quick wander to look at a few B&Bs that Steph is considering for her hen weekend in September (she didn't find anything suitable although she did stumble across the B&B which was featured in Eastenders a while ago - the Oriental Hotel). We got to the Grand and started off in the gym for 45 minutes or so. The gym doesn't have a huge range of equipment, but it was okay. Then we had lunch. To be honest I was a bit dissappointed with the selection available - basically sandwiches, toasted sandwiches and salads, and not worth the £10 we'd paid really. They were pleasant enough, but if I was to go again, I wouldn't pre-pay for my lunch. After lunch we headed into the pool area and this was really, really relaxing. We'd all booked treatments for the afternoon, Steph's was at 2.30, Vicky's at 3.30 and mine at 4.30 so I had quite a long time alternating between swimming, sitting in the hot tub, sitting in the steam room and using the sauna/tropicarium. My treatment was an hour long body polish - exfoliation followed by a massage with body lotion. This was really, really lovely and relaxing. I picked up a copy of their price list, as I might be tempted to go back at some point.
Today we've been back to Young's Hire for Rich to try on the re-ordered suit. Still no joy. The trousers were the correct size, but the jacket still seemed massive. We're now having a total re-think on the suit hire subject.
We've also managed to book our flights for our honeymoon again - this time going from Heathrow as there are now no direct flights from Gatwick
Posted by Jane at 7:31 PM. We've also booked car hire. Both of these were done using the Airline Network - a company that Jeremy had mentioned during the week.
Friday, May 03, 2002Suit hire considered harmful...
...or at least a worry. Last weekend I tried on a suit, with the idea being that myself, the best man and the two fathers could be dressed in similar suits for the Big Day. Sounds simple, but isn't. I was measured by Youngs Hire, and they ordered me in the suit to try on.
When I tried the suit on, it turned out they'd ordered the wrong trousers. Not wrong size, just wrong colour. Simple mistake; could happen to anyone. What was worrying was that they didn't have an alternative in store (contingency trousers?). Still, we'll let that slip.
The bigger worry was with the suit jacket. Now this was the right size for me, according to their measurements, but it didn't fit. They re-measured me, and yes, it was the right size for me, but just looked wrong. The issue here is that the groom is the only one they will allow to try on suits before the wedding. The others they will just measure. So there's no way for us to know how the two fathers and the best man will look on the day. This smells to me like trouble.
I'm going back again soon to try on the suit again, hopefully (fingers crossed) in the right size. But it may be a waste of time, as I think we've lost all confidence in suit hire. Time to switch to Plan B -- whatever that is.
Posted by Richard at 12:03 PM
Thursday, May 02, 2002As I was cycling home this afternoon, a vintage open-top car drove past with a bride and groom in it. The bride seemed to be struggling to keep her veil on in the breeze. I suddenly got all excited about the prospect that in not many months from now, that will be Richard and I, a bride and a groom.
And in other news, I was browsing a few blogs this afternoon and came across this entry, it's basically the text from one couple's wedding ceremony, a ceremony that they conducted themselves. It's quite an interesting concept.
Posted by Jane at 4:30 PM
Wednesday, May 01, 2002And it was all going so smoothly as well.
We booked our honeymoon flights through expedia and yesterday they emailed us to tell us that our flight itinerary had changed again (the last change was only by about 5 minutes). This time however the flight was no longer a direct flight, and they had us routed via another US city. Bah! Rich followed it up and it appears that our airline have cancelled the route as from June, so there is nothing that can be done, except for expedia to give us our money back. This is what we've asked for, and so we're now back to looking for flights. Unfortunately the airline we'd chosen was the only one to do the flight direct from Gatwick, which means we're now going to have to trek around the M25 to Heathrow.
Posted by Jane at 9:51 AM
Wise Wedding Planner
I've just done the Are you wedding obsessed? quiz. Admittedly the quiz is aimed at people who aren't getting married rather than those in the middle of organising a wedding, but even so I'm quite relieved. I'm glad to report that I'm a Wise Wedding Planner, and not a Nuptial Nut.
And the results say: 'Sure, you're excited about slipping into a white dress one day, but you aren't exactly sprinting to the altar. "You have high self-esteem and good perspective," says Sharyn Wolf, a psychotherapist in New York City and author of So You Want to Get Married. "You know there's time to find Mr. Right, so you're able to be happy for other people at the wedding stage without grumbling to yourself 'Why isn't that me?'" Of course, you may occasionally fantasy-plan, but you do it realistically, not because you're pining for a reception worthy of the Wedding Channel. Ironically, it's your nuptial nonchalance that makes you a prime candidate for proposals. "If you give off the honest impression that you don't need a husband to validate yourself, it makes men more drawn to you," says Wolf.'
The question is, does the fact I took the test tell us more about my state of mind, than the results?
Posted by Jane at 1:05 PM
