Flowers and colour schemes are a potential recipe for disaster

If there is one aspect of this wedding that has so far caused me the most stress, it has to be the colour scheme and the flowers. Don’t ask me why. The only rationalisation that I have been able to come up with is that I am just too damned indecisive and there is just simply too much choice. Either that or I have no taste what-so-ever. Even bridal magazines and Google images haven’t been able to help me on this one. If anything, they have just confused me more. All I knew initially was that I wanted a big splash of colour to lift the whiteness of our huge traditional marquee.

So where does one start when trying to make these kinds of decisions? Going with your favourite colours should work for most, but I like red and purple, and they are not always great friends. In my flower and colour scheme naivety (I had a lime green and dark blue bedroom as a teenage, which says it all really), I thought I would put the two together. Hmmm. It was a very good idea in theory and I had found some great flower arrangements on Google images which I flashed in front of sceptics faces – there were a fair few sceptics – I knew it was what I wanted.

Actually getting further than the pictures I liked was tricky. Finding other aspects of the wedding to match the shades of red and purple I liked was a lost cause. It wasn’t so much the purple that was the issue but could I find a red that wasn’t a scarlet red or burgundy red? I stood in a fabric shop for well over half an hour, staring at the shades of red and trying to find once that didn’t clash with the purple I liked and was not scarlet or burgundy. I was only looking for fabric for my bunting, a task I thought would be easy and fun. I think the shop assistants thought I was rather strange as my behaviour probably looked mildly crazed. My heavily furrowed brow and huffing and puffing out of sheer frustration would have had me avoiding me. So I went home empty handed and feeling more than a little annoyed.

‘Why not just have the purple?’ suggested a friend gently, as we were sitting drinking coffee in the staff room at school one day (which is not all that teachers do by the way!) Then it hit me like a lightning bolt. It was so obvious, why didn’t I think of that? I had been so stupid. Purple. Yes. I could still have variation if I chose different shades and incorporated it with ivory. I realise it is not everyone’s choice, but I’m not brave enough to go with what seems to be the trend at the moment and have all the colours in one go. Google images came into its own after that as I found reams of pictures which reflected the ideas I now had in my head. The rest after that would be easy, surely?

Not when you can’t decide what to put your flowers in. I have probably completely over thought this, but as every bride knows, you just want everything to be perfect. I at one point thought I wanted vintage vases and have different ones for each centre piece. I even started frantically buying them from Ebay. I had a sinking feeling as each vase I’d successfully won arrived through the post that the idea just wasn’t right. When I confessed this notion to my mother, she said she thought the idea was fairly obscure and didn’t think it would work. I hate it when mothers are right! I have even been back and forth over tall glass flute vases and fish bowl vases. Now I am at glass cube vases. I still can’t bring myself to order them and time is now running out. I am hoping that some twist of fate will make that decision for me, but as that is highly unlikely, I guess I’ll probably go with the…. ARGH! Where is a Magic Eight Ball when you need one?!

Make your own... Bunting

adds a certain 'je ne ce quoi' to a room or an event. Forget the plastic stuff you see at village fetes or hanging on the outside of a pub. Think vintage floral and soft fabrics delicately hung from beams or, in my case, the traditional marquee poles. When it is handmade with love, care and attention, bunting is just perfect to lift a room or garden.

You will need:

a selection of plain and patterned fabrics

bias binding

matching cotton to your bias binding

pinking shears

fabric scissors

triangle template made from pattern paper or baking parchment

Bias binding: This is a strip of fabric that has been cut on the bias - diagonally against the grain - where the edges have been pressed under. It is mostly used to bind curved and straight edges, or for making piping. It works brilliantly for making bunting as you don't see and raw edge of the triangles. It comes in different widths, lengths and colours. Most good habidasheries will have it but you will probably find entire rolls on ebay for a fraction of the price. I paid less than £10 for 66m.

Bias Binding

1. A bit of maths is needed to begin with. Draw your triangle template onto your pattern paper or baking parchment. I personally thing slightly longer triangles look better than triangles with a wide base and a short length. Decide on the length of your bunting and calculate roughly how many triangles will fit on your bias binding per metre, depending on the size of the gap you want between each triangle. Just to give you an idea, I had about 1.5cm between each triangle, and I could fit roughly 6 triangles per metre. Now you can calculate how many triangles you will need to cut out.

2. Pin your template to your fabric and use pinking shears to cut around your template. This will mean that your edges won't fray. If you are using patterned fabric, you won't need to use pinking shears, but instead you will need to use 2 pieces of fabric per triangle as 2 must be sewn together to get the pattern on both sides. Add a 1cm seam allowance to the size of your triangles. Pin the right sides together and sew around the two longest sides. Turn the right way out.

3. Cut your bias binding to length, adding 30cm additional length onto each end. This will give you plenty of room to attach your bunting to whatever you are hanging it from.

4. Lay your bias binding with the raw folded edges facing up. Place your triangle onto the bottom half of the bias binding. Fold over the top half of the bias binding and pin in place. Repeat until you have pinned the length of your bunting.

 

5. Sew along the bias binding to finish.

It can be time consuming if you have a lot to make, particularly cutting out the triangles. I needed to make 55m in total, but once I'd cut it all out, putting it all together took no time at all. Watch this space to see pictures of it up for our wedding!

Make your own... Lavender Pouches

I am using lavender a lot for my wedding. I absolutely love it, from its smell to its versatility. I use it in cooking, coffee, sewing projects and all kinds of different things.

Searching online for party favours really didn't inspire me, particularly as they are definitely not good value for money. So I decided to make lavender pouches for my female wedding guests. They are simple to do, and in an afternoon you'd be surprised at how many you can whizz up on  a sewing machine.

You will need:

fabric

matching thread

paper or baking parchment

pinking shears

fabric scissors

30cm matching ribbon

dried lavender

1. Cut out a 10cm x 9cm rectangle from your baking parchment or paper to create a template. Fold your fabric in half so you are cutting out two rectangles simultaneously and pin your template to your fabric, then cut out your rectangles.

2.Ensure the right sides are facing and pin the two rectangles together.

 

3. Sew 3 of the sides using a 1cm seam allowance and leaving one of the shorter sides open. This will make the top of your lavender pouch. If you don't have a sewing machine, you can sew your pouch by hand using a back stitch - see diagram below.

Back stitch

4. Trim the excess fabric from the bottom corners on the diagonal. This will help the corners look less rounded when you turn the pouch the right way out. 

5. Now use the pinking sheers to trim the top of the pouch. This will stop the fabric from fraying and it will give your lavender pouch a good finished look.

6. Now turn the pouch the right side out and fill it approximately half full with dried lavender. 

7. Finally, use the ribbon to tie the pouch up and secure with a bow.

It would be very easy to make larger lavender pouches for other occasions such as birthdays or Christmas, they're so effective and make a great present.

Happy sewing!

How do you plan a wedding when you're on different continents?

Well, obviously this depends on which continents you might be on, some being less accessible than others. I am in sunny Wiltshire. My husband-to-be, on the other hand, has spent all but seven weeks of our engagement in Iraq. There lies the potential problem. Communication. Skype is a wonderful invention, and had it not been for Skype, then my groom wouldn’t have had a great deal of input at all. The ball would have certainly been in my court. ‘Hurraah!’ I here some of you say, no grumpy grooms! We can make all the decisions! And in some cases, I’m sure that is definitely preferred scenario Number 1. The wedding planning experience may often leave grooms begging for a reprieve, and ‘guy’ time where they do just need to check that their manhood is still present. Decisions on centre pieces, colours of the bridesmaids’ dresses and hand-making party favours, meetings with the caterers and photographers all may just be one step too far. After all, shopping for a ring and plucking the courage up to propose was what we really wanted them to do anyway and they’ve come up trumps on that one.

So what about scenario Number 2? This is of course the scenario where your groom is equally as excited about planning a wedding as you and is eager to involve himself where possible. Believe me, it does happen, I’m engaged to one of these phantom grooms. There are of course parts of the wedding that he doesn’t have a great deal of interest in, choosing the colour scheme being one of them. Fine by me. It took me long enough to come to a decision on that one without the input of a man without such a keen eye for colour. However, when it’s come to injecting our personality as a couple, he’s been right up there with me, suggestions I’ve given often being met with, ‘Yeah! Let’s do that! Han, I love it!’

Skype has been our saving grace. Whilst some of the planning meetings I have had to do alone, he’s always been there, on the end of a keyboard, headset at the ready, to hear about progress on the wedding or to help me make a decision on party favours, or decorations for the bar. The Bar. That is his domain, eager to inject his own stamp on the wedding, he has come up with some great ‘alternative’ ideas which he is mightily proud of, all linked to our holiday to Maui last year, and actually, they’re pretty great.

For the most part, he has put up with my frequent and probably rather annoying Skypes about the minutest detail of the wedding. For that, I think he probably deserves a medal. It doesn’t matter whether he hasn’t had time to have lunch that day, or he’s just about to deliver a report he’s written, my future husband will make time to humour me on my next idea for the wedding. So perhaps that’s where being on different continents has worked for us. He hasn’t been here to have to decide whether to go to the pub or to stay at home and make wedding invitations, and when he has been on leave, he is has not had to be dragged to meet the caterer. He has come willingly… as long as I leave the little details to keep me occupied when he’s away. 

The Dress... Ssshhh, its a secret.

Right. The ceremony and the venue are booked, and there are a fair few months to go until the big day. Time to sit back and just enjoy being engaged for a while. There's no rush to get things done yet, is there? Er, yes! Time is often not on a bride's side when it comes to the wedding dress.

The dress is perhaps one of the most important aspects of bride's day. Being the focus of attention for a whole day tends to put the pressure on just a tad when it comes to choosing the right dress. My other half and I became engaged just weeks prior to our new Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, so throughout my search for the perfect wedding dress, my thoughts strayed frequently to the then Miss Middleton who must have been feeling the pressure somewhat. Did she get it right? That question will probably generate many answers. However, in my opinion, she chose a dress, designed by Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen, which epitomized elegance and reflected Kate's style which we have all come to know and love. The train was unstated but of a perfect length, the beautiful lace applique bodice, and lace motifs completed the dress which will continue to make headlines for weeks to come. It could not have been more perfect.

  

Obviously I am not going to give anything away about my dress just in case my husband-to-be happens to read this! However, it did take me sometime to make sure I had 'the dress'. The people you take with you on this very important day should give you an objective opinion. You don't want lots of 'oohs and aahh's' when actually what you're thinking is, 'Oh my god I look like a giant meringue, get me out of this thing now!' I was lucky. My mother and maid of honour told me everything I needed to know just with their expressions, particularly when the assistant insisted on putting me in a dress which looked like it had been spending time with a vagasil technician. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, watch an episode of 'The only Way is Essex'. You'll soon get the idea. As you might have guessed, bling is not my thing.

Despite not often agreeing with the dresses the assistants suggested I try, I realised how important it is to keep an open mind and remember that a dress on the hanger will look totally different when you try it on. I began the day with a very clear idea of what I wanted, having pored over many wedding magazines and cutting out many pictures of dresses which all had a very similar shape. So I tried on a dress with the cut I had described in great detail with many gesticulations. Once I had been strapped, zipped and pinned into it, I made my entrance to where my mother and maid of honour were patiently waiting. The first response was, 'it's nice but...,' and the sentence was never finished. The dress clung to every lump and bump that you hope to disguise on your wedding day. I don't even think that sucking-in pants would have done it and I have a perfectly normal figure with curves in more or less the right places. Let's be honest, 'sucking-in' pants are not something you want to wear on your wedding day - they don't exactly scream elegance, do they?! So I tried on a dress with a shape that would have, at the start of the day, probably given me a not so pleasant physical reaction. I was instantly silenced. The shape was perfect. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't the dress, but it told me what I now had to look for. Even then I didn't rush out and get the next dress I tried on that I liked. It's so important to shop around. You'll know when you find the perfect one, you won't be able to stop smiling, and you will probably utter the word, 'princess' more than once!

One thing to bear in mind when shopping for the perfect dress is that bridal shops often only hold one dress of each design. The dress you choose will then be made to your measurements. Depending on the dress and the designer, this could take anything up to six months. Then you have to allow for adjustments. My dress still isn't ready yet, and it was ordered at the beginning of December. But I have my shoes all ready to go, so as soon as the phone rings, I can go and try on my beautiful dress and once again, feel like a princess. A tad corny? Probably. But you'll know what I mean soon enough.