I'm Getting Married This Year!!

First of all...Happy New Year lovelies! This is my first post after Christmas and New Year, so I hope you all had a good one and I hope you all have an amazing New Year :). I know me and Simon will...

If you don't already know (a lot of you on Twitter do! :)), I'm getting married this year!!! Whoop de whoop. I am so incredibly excited that I literally find it hard to drag myself away from my laptop in terms of organising things for the big day and I'm already struggling to sleep and it's only Jan :/, I don't get married until September! Craziness!

Me and Simon have been together 6 years this August, it has flown by! He proposed to me in June 2010 whilst we were in LA on holiday - one of the most amazing trips of my life. So we've been engaged for nearly 4 years and we have spent time saving, discussing how we really want to get married, whether we want a big thing or a little thing and basically how we want to go about it all.

Originally we had in mind to have a castle/manor house type thing and have everything there: the civil ceremony (what we are most comfortable with as neither of us are really religious), the meal, the disco etc. I even got in contact with loads of places near to us and requested brochures. We looked through them and made notes, worked out prices etc. Then we just continued to save as and when we could. We were in no rush to get married, we wanted to enjoy our engagement and save enough/be in the position to save more to book something we really wanted. Our choice of wedding location then took a slightly different turn when we discussed that it would be amazing to get married abroad. We both absolutely love travelling and it would suit us both perfectly, we talked about inviting close family and having a relaxed, intimate occasion. The thought of having a civil ceremony in a church/area in a castle/manor house with soooo many people turning around and staring at me walking down the aisle, did scare me slightly. I can get nervous and anxious before big things, so I knew already how nervous I'd be, no matter how much I tried to control it. So the thought of an abroad wedding with just close family being there made me feel a whole lot better and after all this one occasion is supposed to be about me and Si and what we want and feel comfortable with for our special day. The close family that we asked to come along (who are all paying for themselves in terms of the holiday and day passes into our hotel for the big day) loved the idea and have been so excited about it all!

So in 2012 I remember ringing one of our travel agents in town and asking how soon we could book a wedding holiday for 2014 (we wanted to go through a travel agents as they offer really good deals and packages). They said May 2013 was the earliest, so yes, we had to wait until the following year to be able to book anything, which was annoying at the time as I wanted to get something secured and booked. We had so many ideas and thoughts going through our head but nothing actually finalised so it was a little frustrating, but gave us more time to save and have a proper look through the brochures/reviews etc for the location that we wanted our wedding to take place.

In June 2013, we had, after soooo much consideration (it was over-whelming the amount of choice there was in terms of actual location to start with and then where you wanted to get married in that location, for example on the beach, town hall, inside a hotel etc) decided that we wanted to get married in Cyprus (no specific reason apart from we fell in love with one hotel we looked at and we thought it wouldn't be too pricey for the close family that we wanted to come out with us) at the Elias Beach hotel. The reviews were absolutely amazing for the hotel itself, let alone the weddings and it's just a nice thing to read good review after good review. I also found forums and web pages where people couldn't recommend it enough. They have a beautiful sunset pier which is one of the options in terms of where to have the ceremony and the rest of your day if you wish. When we saw images of that during the day and during the night, we knew that was where we wanted to become husband and wife. We booked a 10 night all-inclusive holiday at the hotel, aswell as their wedding package (we are flying with Thomson, but we booked the holiday and wedding package with First Choice), which includes all the important things like planning and admin, marriage license fees, the wedding ceremony, marriage certificate and transport to and from the town hall to prepare paperwork. We also get things for the actual wedding like a wedding cake, bottle of sparkling wine for the toast, my bouquet and Si's buttonhole. Then we get some treats like a room upgrade (subject to availability), fruit, wine and flowers in our room on arrival, breakfast in bed the morning after the wedding, a candlelit dinner for 2 and a 'love cake' during our stay, balloons and welcome card on arrival and a free single use of the sauna and jacuzzi (this was all included when we booked in 2013, this may be different now). We also have wedding co-ordinators included that we can liaise with up until the wedding and book any extras that we would like, for example, our ceremony and reception venue, the food and drink we want at our wedding, photography, entertainment, hair and make-up and everything else we would like. I can book things through the wedding co-ordinators or source them myself. Our wedding date is the 9th September 2014 (we had to choose a couple of dates and one was confirmed a week or two later for us).

Images of our wedding location.

Coming to our wedding as guests are my mom and my sister (my bridesmaid), my dad and his partner, my mom's friend (witness), my mom's sister and her husband, my nan and grandad (on my dad's side), my dad's sister, her husband and my younger cousin, another of my dad's sisters, my dad's first cousin (my second cousin), Simon's mom and her partner and Simon's sister (my bridesmaid) and her boyfriend (witness). Those on my dad's side are still looking for a hotel to book and everyone else booked up with the same travel agent as us (and are on the same flight as us :)), shortly after we booked but they are staying in a different hotel to us, which isn't too far away.

Our theme is purple, butterflies and vintage! I have seen so many lovely ideas for things I'd love on our wedding day. I have lists galore! Ha ha.

I have my wedding dress already. I'm not one of these people that wanted to spend thousands on a dress that I'd wear once. The year after we got engaged my mom said that the daughter of a friend of hers had just got married and also had her wedding in Cyprus (I found out this week that she also got married on the 9th September!) and that she was now selling her wedding dress and I could pop round and try it on if I wanted to. Me and my mom went round one of the nights and I loved the look of the dress as soon as I saw it. I was quite nervous about it to be honest because I was thinking if we both have different styles and I really don't like it, how am I going to be polite about it and stop my face from showing that I wasn't that keen. My face must have shown a positive look because my mom said afterwards that she could tell from my face that I liked it. So that was a good start and a happy one for me as I wasn't sure I wanted the stress of going from wedding shop to wedding shop, trying on loads of dresses, umming and ahhing over so many and thinking that they were so much money. I tried the dress on and it fitted like a glove! I can't go into too much detail as Simon reads my blog and I don't want to spoil the surprise :). You will be able to see pictures after my wedding! My dad paid for my wedding dress which was £300 and I'm really pleased with it. I tried it on again just before Christmas and it still fits perfectly. I bought my shoes from Ebay and they were under £20 including postage. I didn't want really high shoes that I was going to be uncomfortable in all day, so I got shoes that were comfortable enough for me to walk in but also make me tall enough so my dress wasn't dragging on the floor meaning I'd have to be holding it up all day :/. One of my mom's pet peeves, ha!

I don't want to overload you with this first wedding post but I just wanted to give a brief intro into how long we've been together, when we got engaged, when we are getting married, where we are getting married and what I've already bought :).

I can't wait to get stuck into this wedding series now and really look forward to sharing things with you lovelies. Whatever I can share and feel comfortable enough to share I will do. There are some things I won't be able to show you until after the wedding, for example my dress, shoes or anything to do with my outfit. I also probably won't share anything that I buy which might be a surprise or for specific people until after the wedding as there may be some people involved in my wedding that read my blog :).

I'll keep you updated with our plans :). I have a few lists but a main one with the months up to the wedding and I have filled in what needs to be done each month, so I'll let you know how that goes :). You can expect to see general progress, things that I buy/book for the wedding, diy projects I undertake, aswell as general wedding things I come across that I love or that I feel would be good to share with my readers or other brides to be!

I hope you enjoy my wedding posts and I look forward to sharing this amazing time with you lovelies!

Gem XxOo
Images courtesy of lolawednesdaywedding, theweddingcounsel, favimages.