A non-guidey guide from a 'Soon to be Bride' Part 7

We are officially in double figures and the final countdown is on!

I've had my countdown calendar running since Christmas 2018 when I was at 542 days to go, and I still can't quite believe that this final stretch has come around so fast. There are lots of reminders and final appointments which are reinforcing how close we now are and how much we still need to finalise! I'm finding that the most random things are giving me butterflies in my stomach (of both nerves and excitement), such as when i visited the hairdressers this week and finalised all of my hair appointments up until the week before the wedding to get me 'bride ready'!

My hens seem to be busy planning my hen do behind the scenes, and I keep receiving random texts from my sister asking questions about my favourite tunes and what my shoe size is! I'm still completely in the dark about my hen do, to the point where they won't allow me to pack my own clothes even!! I'm so excited for it, and can't wait to share it with you afterwards... what are your predictions for my hen?

As you can imagine with only 87 days to go, we are now ticking things off our list at lighting speed. This month I've had my hair trial, Jack has the suits for himself and groomsmen and I have my wedding shoes! Yay! If you read last month's blog, you'll remember me sharing that one of my bridesmaids Cece is the owner of Dymonds Shoes; a Whitewed approved company who create beautiful bespoke, handmade embellished shoes. I really do feel so lucky to have such talented and generous people around me.

I've finally started to delegate some of the tasks from my to-do list to help me get the finer details organised, and no doubt my family and friends are wishing I did it far sooner - better late than never eh! If I can share one word of advice on this, it would be to take up offers of help - people don't offer unless they want to so let them, you really will appreciate it in the long run. I now have my Dad brainstorming how to make our cake stand, my bridesmaids writing out my favours and a couple of family members helping with welcome signs and other random bits. It feels good to have a little bit of the pressure taken away and to tick things off the never-ending list again, I don’t know why I didn’t do this sooner!

Our biggest tick off the list since the last blog is... the invites are FINALLY all out!!!

I now finally get why brides in the bridal groups are always chatting about how stressed and frustrated they get when they are awaiting their RSVP's. Sending out the invites to your wedding is a 'big deal' to a bride-to-be, so when the responses don't come back immediately it's a total killer! In your head your wedding is the most important thing in the entire world, so why isn't it the most important date of the year for them too!!?

I am obsessively checking the post each day and our emails (all the time!) to see if anyone else has responded. We've still got a few weeks before the cut off, so in the eyes of a guest there is no rush; however, in the eyes of a bride this is torture! So... any wedding guests reading this (mine or others), put your bride-to-be out of her misery and RSVP your response!

I am trying to take my own advice and enjoy the little things. As I’m sure I have said before, it is so easy to get bogged down in things that don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things and forget to enjoy it.

Here's the perfect example; Since Christmas I have been trying to lose a little bit of weight to look as good as I can ready for my dress fitting. I was so caught up in focusing on the weight loss, that I forgot to get excited about getting to try on my stunning dress again soon. When a friend asked me the other day if I was excited to see my dress again and how I felt about trying it back on, I realised that I'd lost sight of the things that mattered most. It was after that, that I had a little chat to myself to relax a bit and not get stressed out.

I absolutely love trying my dress back on and just took it all in.

This is all getting very real.

Happy Planning,

Your bride-to-be, Steph x