A non-guidey guide from a 'Soon to be Bride':Meet Stephanie

Hi There fellow wedding planners!

My name is Stephanie and my partner is Jack, and over the next few months I’ll be sharing my triumphs, failures and top tips with you right up to our wedding day. I am here to share the good the bad and the ugly through my journey from Miss to Mrs.

I feel like first of all I should take a moment to tell you a little bit about Jack and I. We met in January 2011 and We have spent the last 8 years travelling the world together, visiting 23 countries over two incredible 18 months trips. After all the stress, budgeting, compromising and living in a camper-van for months at a time, we still wanted to spend time together, which for anyone who has spent any kind of extended time travelling and spending 24 hours a day together will know the achievement that can be! So last April we started a new adventure of buying our first house, closely followed by the long-awaited proposal last July whilst on holiday in Gran Canaria. Apart from the expected ‘it’s about time’ comments everyone was full of excitement for us! You should soak in every moment of that feeling I absolutely loved coming home and showing off my ring to everyone!

What a year it has been so far. The first thing I did when I got home was started looking at the extensive list of venues (and quotes that one of my bridesmaids had already collated for me!) and found out when the next batch of wedding fairs were. Jack was shocked at how quickly us women jumped into the wedding world, thinking it would be months (not days) before I was dragging him around the first venues talking about canapes and how many flowers it would take to fill a room! He soon got into it though, and we thoroughly enjoy the experienced together. We looked at everything from big manor houses to a country pub garden. We settled for somewhere in between picking the beautiful Wellington Barn, set in the countryside with a rustic feel, but with something a little special about it too - with its draped canopy all lit up in the main room.

Venue Credit: Wellington Barn

Don’t get me wrong, being thrown into the wedding world is as exciting as it is overwhelming, I didn’t realise there were so many different options for everything you could ever imagine! I thought a photographer was just a photographer, and I have never spent so many hours looking at other people’s wedding photos before! This is where the wedding fairs come into their own. It’s like all of your wedding internet searches in one room with people on hand to swoon over your ring and listen to your love story which you will have told 20 times over in 2 hours, but they are honestly their own lively little world and you always leave feeling inspired and full of love. The first wedding fair I went too was a Whitewed show, and when we arrived the lady at the desk asked, ‘which one of you is the bride’ I didn’t react at first then I had that sudden wave of excitement, ‘wait that’s me’! Apart from me running around the house saying ‘I’m going to be a bride’ and ‘omg you’re going to be my husband!’ I hadn’t been called a bride yet. The lady proceeded to give me a sticker saying, ‘I’m getting married!’ I still have this sticker on my fridge as a reminder of that newly engaged haze that I was in.

Everything is going far too smoothly at the moment, when it comes to the majority of big things to tick off the list, although I am sure there will be dramas on the horizon! Things never go entirely to plan, right?! Anyways next month, if all carries on going to plan, I should have updates on bridesmaid dress shopping, wedding invites and dealing with caterers, have a great month!

Your bride-to-be,

Stephanie