It’s funny how things work out sometimes. It’s been a bit of a strange year, work-wise, with a lot of meetings over the summer that came to naught, and the last month being a mad rush of new clients and new work. Of course, I’m very happy to be busy, but it does rather coincide with the run up to the wedding, so I’m rather short of time to write down all that’s going on. I really do want to keep as much of a real-time record of things as I can, because otherwise all this will be lost to the vagaries of my memory and I feel that I really want to chronicle the whole thing, not just the day.
I’m sure everyone on Twitter will be glad to hear that I have finally finished up the beading on the fabric that will be used as the inset for my skirt. Some people have expressed concern over whether or not it is bad luck for the Groom to see said piece of fabric, but in our flat it would be tricky indeed for me both work on it and hide it from him. (You know your flat is small when even the gas man says “Wow! This is a small flat!”) But there’s no way one can extrapolate from a bit of fabric to the finished thing, and as long as he doesn’t see that before the moment I walk down the aisle, I think we’re good. Kev, however, has said that if we have any bad luck after we get married, that’s my fault. Ah well, I’ll suck it up if it happens.
I’ve been told by my dress maker that the corset is now finished, and I will be collecting it tomorrow, when I hand over the silk for the skirt. Wow. Sounds like some sort of dodgy heist…
I bought 15 metres of ivory silk, enough for the skirt, the stole (which I will have to start beading soon – a beader’s work is never done), and a bit left over in case I decide I want to finish the edge of the veil with perfectly matching biased binding. That would, I must admit, be a right royal pain in the arse, but my perfectionism may yet drive me to it.
The corset will be hidden away, where no prying eyes can see it, but having it this early does give me a good chance to think about and experiment with jewellery and other decoration.
Honestly, shop-bought brides get it so easy. One of the things that drives me nuts is all the tiny little decisions that need to be made. As I’ve blogged before, it took me ages to decide on which beads to use, a decision that was tiny but important. Having to go through that decision making process again and again and again is wearing, and sometimes I feel quite jealous of brides who can afford to blow thousands on a wedding planner and whatever dress and jewellery they like. I’m trying to be stylish and inexpensive at the same time, and it’s really hard work. I want everything to be just so, but sometimes the most unimportant decisions are the hardest to make, because there is no clear reason to choose one thing over another. (The fact that I’m reading The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz at the moment is an irony not lost on me.)
I was explaining this problem to Kevin on the bus the other day, using the example of whether we have paper or linen napkins. Obviously if we have paper, then we can have them to match the colour scheme, but if we have linen they will be cream. Paper napkins come with the venue hire, so cost us nothing, whereas linen napkins are an additional £2.50 each. I was struggling with the decision, because linen would be nicer, but do I really want to blow 200 quid on napkins?
“Don’t sweat the small stuff, and it’s all small stuff,” was Kevin’s advice, but that really doesn’t help. The size of the decision is irrelevant, and to say that something doesn’t matter doesn’t make it easier to decide. In the end, Kevin pulled the rabbit out of the hat with a throwaway comment that linen napkins are probably better for the environment, so that provided me with a good reason to sway my decision in one direction. The fact that it swayed it in the direction that it already wanted to go was a nice co-incidence.
Honestly, though, making these trivial decisions is the hardest thing about organising a wedding. The really big stuff, particularly stuff like the venue, the food, the band and the flowers, have turned out to be pretty stress-free decisions, because I was already very clear about what I wanted and the range of option was pretty small. It really was just a matter of finding the right people to do what I wanted. Deciding whether to have round tables or banquet style tables, though, that’s a different kettle of fish.
We still have some big, outstanding matters to clear up, though. Kevin’s outfit for the day, for example. We really wanted something like the outfit Tristan Thorn (played by Charlie Cox) wears in Stardust, but have been unable to find anything like that out there. We looked into getting a frock coat made, but it’s really very expensive. The quality would be amazing, of course, but one has to ask if it is a coat one would wear for years and years after. (Although given that one of Kev’s proudest purchases is a $10 jacket he got from a second-hand store years back, even if the answer to that was yes, I suspect he wouldn’t want to splash out at this point in time. It’s not like we don’t have a lot of other expenses to cover right now.)
Kev has looked at vintage clothing stores but we can’t find anything that we think might stock that style. Much of the stuff up in Camden is more 40s/50s/60s. Costumiers that we’ve found online tend to be fancy dress suppliers, and quality looks a bit shoddy. So we’re rather unsure now what to do. Shame we can’t just borrow the outfit from the Stardust wardrobe.
I think finishing up my dress and getting Kevin and the other males in the wedding party kitted out are probably the two scariest bits left to do. That, plus finishing up the invitations, which we’ve been slowly sending out in dribs and drabs, and getting into the real nitty gritty of organising the big day, and the run up to it. Oh, and immigration. How could I possibly forget the joy that is immigration. I’ll blog more about that little chestnut soon.
Still, I have my to do list in the wonderful OmniFocus, and I have OmniPlan to help me organise the run up, so we’re all good.
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