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.

Where Do You Think You've Been??!!...

Hello lovely people! I know, I know, nice of me to make an appearance! If you follow me on Twitter, you will know that over the past few months I have been trying to keep you updated about what I've been up to and why I haven't had the time to blog recently. Before I jump back in on here, I thought I would just give you all a little update and let you know what's been gwarnin.

As some of you may be aware, me and Si lived with my mom and around Feb/March time, Si was made aware that the flat above the pub where he works was going to be vacant as the guy that lived there was moving to London. So we were talking about it in general and working things out and realising that we would be saving over £150 a month with work travel, obviously because Si only has to go downstairs to work! It is also cheaper in terms of living here than what we were paying to mom to live at 'home' and with our wedding and stuff it was going to be better for us financially. Also, Si is going to uni in Sept to do a teaching degree and the uni in our town centre is literally just over the round from the pub where he works, so yeah we knew we were gonna be saving quite a bit in travel fare and also it's nice to have your own place/space, I mean my bedroom back at 'home' (I still call mom's house home lol), was like my haven, but now we have a whole flat to make haven like!

The manager of the pub was glad that we were interested in the flat and that a member of staff would be on-site. He told us that he would get the cleaners in to do a thorough cleanse and that if we made a list of stuff that needed to be repaired/sorted out in the flat he would see what he could do. We did that and then a new area manager was employed for the same brand pubs around here and everything that was going to cost something, so the cleaners and any repairs etc had to go past him first. Let's just say I cleaned the flat from top to bottom myself and let me tell you it needed a thorough cleanse! We had a whole list of things that needed to be done around the flat, but the bathroom was the worst of all and eventually the area manager agreed to pay up to £100 for any work to be done within the bathroom. The only thing we managed to get out of that was a new shower head (because the old one had mould on it, mankyness!) and a few white tiles (fair enough in a nice neat design/pattern so it didn't look stupid) to replace ones that were broken, so it didn't get us much because we had to pay for labour aswell. So yeah, pretty much for a good two months I was coming here every day from morning or midday to evening and cleaning, decorating etc and obviously Si was helping when he wasn't working. Luckily we have fab families, so they were helping out when they could. In terms of the cleaning, I wanted to do that myself so I knew it was being done properly lol cause people living here in the past must have just let things build up and up and not bothered making it into a home :/ shame really, I like to feel comfortable, but maybe they felt comfortable with it as it was, I dunno. So now you can see why I wasn't able to ever get on my laptop lol, I tended to have a couple of days off every week (between Mon-Sun), just to rest/chill because I was just shattered, especially from the cleaning cause it wasn't just a little wipe over, I had to put some proper elbow grease in and I got through a lot of cleaning products! The flat is quite large aswell, basically the whole ceiling area of the pub downstairs (it is quite a big pub) is the floor plan of our flat. I will do another post and take some pics but just to give you an idea we have a porch area that you are in after coming in from the flat door in the hall, then from the porch there are two doors; one that leads to the dining area, living area and kitchen and one that leads to the hallway where you can find the outer door/another entrance door to the living area, our bedroom, the second bedroom, the bathroom and then there are a few extra rooms that we aren't really using, which are a storage room (can be made up into a bedroom, but we have been using it for storage of boxes and bits and bobs) and the boiler room for the pub which is right at the other end of our flat. There are also some fire doors which lead to a little what I like to call 'veranda' area which we could clean up and make into a nice outdoor, garden type area...without the grass! Then down some stairs, through a locked gate is the garden area for the pub.

We moved into the flat on Sunday 2nd June, so the week of the 2nd Si had off work and he put the finishing touches to everything in the flat. I carried on helping until the Thursday and then I spent the Friday and Sat packing 26 years worth of stuff into boxes, suitcases etc. I actually didn't realise how much stuff I had until I saw everything that had to be moved, I was like :-0, this is all my stuff?! Si's mom and uncle had helped to move Si's stuff that was still at his moms to the flat the weekend before. I had to be ready and packed by the Friday night because my dad didn't know till the last minute whether he had the Sat or Sun off work. Like I said, it ended up being the Sunday that we moved, but that gave me the Sat to make sure everything was packed and ready and then just enjoy my last full day at 'home'.

The move took a few hours, dad came to moms and borrowed my grandads trailer so he could move more stuff in shorter trips. The door that we usually use to go to and from the flat is a side door to the pub, but there is a door just through those doors which staff use to go from the pub to the office and they have to go up the same set of stairs that we use to get to the flat. So considering we had wardrobes and big things to move aswell as boxes, we decided not to do it that way and we moved stuff into the flat from the back of the pub where the garage is. For the first trip, me, Si and dad went and then set everything down in the garage whilst dad went back to moms and got the rest of the stuff and bought mom to the flat aswell. Whilst he was doing that we had to carry things through the pub's beer garden and up the fire escape stairs and then into whichever room in the flat...it was a killer! The boxes and stuff weren't light, so we definitely did our fair share of exercise that day ha! It was easier when dad came back and we all unloaded the rest of my stuff from the car and trailer and then there was me, Si, dad and mom helping to move everything up to the flat. Si and dad carried the heavy stuff and me and mom had a little production line going, she was carrying stuff to the bottom of the fire escape stairs and I was taking the things from there up to the flat, it was much easier for us girlies that way! When we finally finished we had a well deserved drink and then my dad had to drill a hole from the living area into our bedroom and sort out an aerial from the tv in the living area to the tv in our bedroom...home comforts and all that :).

So, here we are now all settled in. It took us about a week to unpack everything, which isn't that bad considering what we had, but I enjoyed finding a place for everything. There are still some areas we want to sort out like the area outside the fire exit doors, in case we want to sit out there if the weather is nice etc and the hall and spare bedroom are still as they were when we first saw the flat, apart from I've cleaned them, but there is potential if we want to do something with those areas in the future. My dad should be coming sometime next week to do a few odd jobs for us as we haven't got our own drill or tools yet, so he said he would come and put some shelves up for us, put our kitchen blind up, fix our shower rail and shower curtain and fix our bedroom curtain rail and curtains...yep we've been living without curtains in our bedroom since we've moved in! To be honest it hasn't been too bad, I mean there are lights outside that kind of shine in so it isn't pitch black, which is always nice when you're trying to sleep, but we have managed fine. Si has worn an eye mask and I find them uncomfortable so I've managed without. It's going to be great when we have them up though. More so for the privacy when we're getting dressed! I have been trying to find secret areas within the bedroom to get dressed in or just going to the bathroom, so it's gonna be nice when they're up. The bedroom and living area windows are bay windows you see, so they are long and more open to people seeing in. You can't see all the way in from outside (I've tried and tested this ha ha), but if you're sitting on the bay window or right by it, if people were looking they could see you. I've waved a few times at people waiting to cross the road below our window in the bedroom lol...people I know, don't worry, I'm not just frantically waving at people outside ha ha.

We are buying things for the flat every month when we get paid and doing things bit by bit. I mean, we have all the main stuff, but it's like extra kitchen stuff cause I love cooking and baking and then we are eventually going to get a dining table and chairs. There's also stuff like blinds for other windows, a bookcase, dvd and cd racks, a new coffee table, rugs and then just bits and bobs to put our own stamp on the place and make it our own :). I can't wait till my dad puts our shelves up and I can put my pictures out. I'll prob show you some things we buy along the way and any cute little finds that I get :). I am also going to do a post on the rooms, so you can see how we've decorated and what we have done so far. A few of you have requested this already so I'm looking forward to showing you all our first home together :). For now, here is a pic of me jam-packed into my dads car when we were moving:

I do miss 'home' and it'll probably take me a while to get used to not seeing my mum come in from work, cooking for two people instead of four and you know, stuff that you get used to. Si said it's to be expected and that he'll look after me (bless). I've only ever lived in one family home since I was born, so it's a little different for me because Si has lived in a few family homes and then he's been living with me at moms for nearly 5 years, so yeah. I see my mom often though, but it's weird cause when she leaves or when I leave her I get a sudden feeling of upset for a little while. Like I said I've got to get used to it, me and my mom are close so it's going to be strange. I speak to her every day though. My sister comes over too, so yeah we're settling in nicely :).

Another bit of exciting news is that we have booked our wedding! We booked it during those months when we were busy with the flat aswell, but we'd been saving for ages so wanted to get it booked cause we wanted to get married next year. We've been engaged since 2010 and initially we thought we were going to be married within a couple of years but we've been saving and deciding exactly what we wanted. We are getting married abroad in Cyprus, next September with our nearest and dearest coming with us :). It's so exciting because we have actually had our date confirmed now and all information has started coming through on what reception options there are and all the rest of it, so it's very exciting and lots of organising is to be done in the coming months! I will prob do some sort of wedding series on my blog, I haven't decided what to do yet or how to go about it but let me know if you have any specific requests of things you'd like to know or things that you'd like to see.

That's it for now I think! Like I said I just wanted to fill you all in :).

Are you living with family or have you got your own place now?
If you have your own place, how did you feel moving out of the family home for the first time?

Speak to you all soon!
Gem x