A non-guidey guide from a 'Soon to be Bride': Part Three

This month I attended the wedding of my future brother-in-law Mark and his new wife Emily, and what a wedding it was! I’ve been excited for this weekend for months (in fact, years!) as it was time for my future brother-in-law to marry his beautiful partner in crime. It’s funny, when you start to plan your own wedding you suddenly find a newfound appreciation and admiration for the energy, efforts and finer details of a wedding day when you’re an attending guest. Don’t get me wrong, I have always loved a good wedding, but I feel like planning your own changes your perception of weddings forever, for the better, I think!

Even if the wedding you attend is the complete opposite to what you have chosen for yourself, I have found that you see it all in a whole new light. Our wedding day will be in a barn with massive windows, bright wild flowers and white drapes, whereas Mark and Emily chose a beautiful big manor house with lots of rooms filled with old dark wood carvings and chandeliers, with moody autumnal colours in their flowers that complimented the venue perfectly.I felt like I noticed all of the personal touches far more than I would ever have before, such as their table names all being hand written, the insane amount of rum they must have drunk to have empty bottles that they placed candles in throughout the venue, and, their huge silver skull vase’s that held some of their beautiful flowers. As a bride-to-be, I could see the subtle details and thought behind them.

I spent days in the run up constantly thinking; I wonder how she’s feeling right now? How nervous must she be?! And then at that magical moment of watching her walking down the aisle to her future husband, I was thinking about what it must feel like to be in ‘that moment’!

*Love Letters by Burnt Orange

Being a guest at a wedding also got me thinking about what really is important on the day. It’s so easy for us brides (and grooms sometimes!) to get bogged down with making sure everything is perfect, from the right choice of chair sashes or shape that our cakes should be - we seem to adopt a speciality of letting little details take over our lives! I have even found myself stressing about the type of napkins that I MUST have!

In reality, I don’t think guests really notice a great deal, definitely not to the extent that us brides-to-be do! I’m pretty sure people only really notice how beautiful everyone looks and how good the food is! The perfect example of this comes from this weekend. Even as a bride-to-be who was picking up on lots of the little details, I still can’t remember where Mark and Emma placed the logs that I’ve now taken for our big day! I thought they were beautiful, and will use them for our reception too, but I honestly cannot tell you where they were placed on the day!

I think this month’s blog is as much for me, as it is for others on their planning journeys. It’s so important that we remind ourselves not to get stressed in the wedding planning as it will all work itself out on the day. As cliché as it may be, as long as you’re married at the end of it, surely nothing else is important?!

Although I’ve not focused on our wedding day plans this month, I felt it worthwhile sharing my ‘wedding guest’ experience with you all. I really learnt a lot from attending someone else’s wedding and keep reminding myself that if anything is missing or doesn’t go to plan with our wedding day, it will either not matter on the day or, it’ll make for funny stories in the future!

So, here is a really quick update on our wedding plans...! we managed to book and give our notice last month, which isn’t as scary as it sounds! When they say it’s a 20-minute interview it sounds rather overwhelming, however it really was the easiest interview I’ve ever had! It feels great to have another big thing ticked off the list, and at least we can make it legal now!

Happy Planning fellow brides-to-be!

I’ll be back next month, just before Christmas!

Love Stephanie x