Jonathan and Anna's wedsite

Seven (not the scary film)

admin — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:03:39 +0000

Happy seventh anniversary Jon! See you at the end of the aisle in seven months time…

PS - Our story proves that cheese is the way to a woman’s heart!

We do!

admin — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 16:51:09 +0000

Earlier this week Jon and I met up with our minister Kate Hill to discuss our wedding ceremony. Having had a long time to research alternative ceremonies, I had some pretty… interesting ideas about elements we could incorporate, but she was very understanding, much to my relief.

As neither of us follow any particular religious belief system, we decided straight away that it wouldn’t be right for us to get married in a church, and as we both love the countryside and being outdoors, an open air ceremony seemed would be much more fun than crowding everyone into a registry office. In England (unlike Scotland), weddings have to legally be carried out in daylight, in a permanent and licensed structure with a roof which is open to the public - just to make things difficult. So we plan to pop to Brighton Town Hall the day before our “real” ceremony to say the legal bit and get the paperwork done - all very boring, really.

Without giving too much away about the ceremony, we’re incorporating several elements from a variety of traditions and cultures - and making a few cool things up ourselves. Kate is working with us to write a structure to the ceremony and a set of vows that we will say to each other, and we plan on making it all as personal as we can to reflect what the wedding really means to us. It will also be a bit more up to date - none of this archaic giving-away-the-woman rubbish: this is the 21st century, people! We plan on getting our family and friends involved in some way too, so be prepared for that…!

(Photo via Nick Kidd)

Fluffy White Dresses

admin — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 23:08:45 +0000

Seeing as most of the big parts of the wedding are now sorted (venue - done, catering - done, My Little Ponies - done), I figured that it was about time I focused on looking for a wedding dress. As those close to me know, this was not something that I was particularly looking forward to - being “plus-sized”, I’d heard horror stories of sample dresses coming only in size 8 and bearly fitting a thigh, and the thought of getting almost naked in front of a stranger didn’t really appeal. So one day I bit the bullet and strode into a bridal shop nearby in central Brighton - I just wanted to get this over with. However, immediately I felt at ease - the staff were lovely, the dresses went up to size 16, and they pinned me into them so expertly they still managed to fit like a glove and look stunning. Dare I say it, I almost had fun?

So, the situation as it stands is that I have since been back to the same shop twice with several friends, and have found the most stunning dress I could ever imagine. Standing there with a veil and tiara (which I swore I would never have) I could totally see myself wearing that dress on my wedding day. Alas, there’s just one tiny problem - the price. It’s about 3 times my budget. And this is not good. I’ve thought about reselling the dress after the wedding and making some of my money back, but it all depends on the state of the dress at the end of the day as to how good an idea this is. So the plan at the moment is to look in a few more shops to see if I can get a similar style and quality for a lower price. It’s gonna be tough, but I’ll keep you posted.

(Photo via killrbeez)