So many

Cake stands! and this picture is just a fraction of what we have:

For the last couple of years I've been collecting bone china for our wedding. This last week we picked out all our favourite plate combinations, drilled them and made them into 3 tiered cake stands.

I won't be able to keep all these after the wedding - I just don't have the space for them, and can't imagine having an afternoon tea so big that I'll need all of them again, so they'll be going to new homes (via ebay!).

4 days to go!

on my messy desk

I have hundreds of buttons lined up, sorted and stacked waiting to be put onto wire stems for bouquets for me and my bridesmaids:

3 down, many many more to go...

what a relief

I am massively relieved to have finally sorted out dresses for my bridesmaids. It was really turning into quite a chore honestly, and that's not how it's supposed to be in my book.
These are these dresses that we have chosen, although we will have them in Navy:

We looked at and tried a lot of dresses - but we all felt that these were the best, in terms of fit and quality. They are by Mori Lee - as US company.
There is a serious gap in the UK market when it comes to bridesmaids dresses. Most of the dresses I have seen come from the US - and they do it so well in terms of style and choice. My only real gripe is that (as with many things) they are double the price in the UK. I looked at all kinds of options of buying from the the US and shipping to the UK, but once you add shipping and import taxes you lose the benefit.

I ordered the dresses from this UK shop - and I couldn't recommend it more highly. It's an unassuming little shop on what can be best described as a residential road. Their website is easy to navigate, has the right amount of info and good pictures, and the shop owner is a really lovely lady - often making helpful suggestions to help me find the right thing.

I must confess - I also bought wedding dress no.2 whilst I was in the shop today. I have been having a little wobble about dress no.1 (a bargain purchase made many months ago), so I'm now definitely spoilt for choice. Apparently it's quite common for brides to buy two dresses.

This is one of the dresses that I tried - I think it's lovely, but it just wasn't the right type of dress for my body shape. I looked like I'd just been tangled up in a parachute!

wedding shenanigans

This week really seems to be whizzing by at great speed, and my mind really has been on one thing - the wedding. In the past couple of months there really wasn't much to do in terms of the wedding, but now the time has come that decisions need to be made and things need to be confirmed and it all seems to have happened at the same time.
Bridesmaids dresses are proving tricky. Having tried countless dresses, we have found 2 different dresses that would be perfect together. Job done you'd think, but no. Aside from the dresses being quite expensive, the lead time on them is 16 weeks (as they are proper bridal gowns), and we don't have 16 weeks until the wedding (scary thought!) so I've started again on the dress search and have been looking all over the internet for the last few days to try and find alternative options.  I think I have found an alternative - I now just need to get the girls to try them. In the meantime, I'm keeping everything crossed for them fitting and looking lovely.

In other wedding news, today I had an email from the designer who is making our rings, to tell me that they are ready to ship.Wooohoo.
Here they are:

I'm swooning at their loveliness.
Now I must away and pay for them (hmm, not swooning so much at that part), and then they can be shipped. Exciting!

en masse

I'm busying myself with my save the date cards for our wedding. Lots of printing, tearing, sewing and stitching going on en masse here:

There are still mop buttons to be hand sewn on to each one and the backing stitched on.

Very briefly, I spotted this pretty shadow at the weekend:

It was cast by the sun reflecting off the neighbours motorbike wing mirror into my kitchen windowsill and onto my wall. I almost wanted to get the paint out and just paint it in so it's there all the time.

Rightio, it's back to those cards for me - need to finish them by tomorrow - a self imposed deadline, but it's good to have one.