5 Months Today!

All images courtesy of Goggle Images

5 months today until I marry the love of me life, counting down the days!

Wedding Planning update

Well after a few frantic months of sorting out everything for the wedding and working on the deadlines of trying to do everything on our two visits over to Spain. All the major decisions have been made and we have hit a bit of lull. I suppose all wedding planning goes through the same, I have been hitting the weekends thinking, what will I do today?, then wondering why I am not doing anything for the wedding. I did stress a little the first few times with thoughts flying through my head that surely I must have forgotten something really important as I shouldn't be this relaxed but after checking my trusty (3 page!!) checklist I am confident that I haven't.

So the last few weeks I have really relaxed into the planning and must admit that I am really enjoying it. The last few weekends have been spent, finishing off the invitations (totally underestimated the work involved in this) which are going out this week, whoohoo! and looking at other DIY things that I might turn my hand too over the next few months.

I have been looking at all the nice bits and have ordered presents in personalised gift boxes for the flower girls and pageboy which I am looking forward to seeing and I have also got something special for my Mum that I fear may make her cry, but hopefully good tears. I have also got my Bridesmaid an amazing handmade bracelet that hopefully will match her dress.

I have also had a good chat with my dad and we have decided that we are going to do a Dad/Daughter dance. It will be just after our first dance and once we are finished that the DJ will ask my Dad to come up and take my hand, the song we have chosen has already had me in tears so I better start listening to it a bit more to get used to it.

156 days to go!!

DIY Photo Guestbook

I decided that I really wanted to have a guestbook for the wedding day, I know that they are not everyone's cup of tea but I wanted something that I could look back on and read peoples thoughts on the day.

I didn't want a bog standard guest book though as I personally always struggle with what to write and end up just writing something very simple and to the point. Whilst researching guest books I found suggestions to do things slightly differently and to have a topic on each page to give the guest something to write about and I loved this idea! I always really wanted to make it like a photobook/coffee table book that we would look back on with great memories. This brought me to look at Blurb Books www.blurb.com Where you could customise your pages and allows for blank pages as well which is what I needed to allow space for the guests to write.

I went for a hard back book with cover which has 20 pages including two pages for guests to write their names at the front. I have put pictures of some of the pages on for you to see what they have turned out like. I am really impressed and can't wait to see what the guests write!

Left Image - Front of book

The pages include the following:

• How do you know Claire & Maurice
• Advice on being the perfect wife
• Advice on being the perfect husband
• The Best thing about marriage
• Your favourite memory from today
• Love is?
• Where do you think Claire and Maurice will be in 10 years?
• Your predictions!

On the back page I have the quote that is also being used on the unity candle and Order of services, which I feel helps make it all tie in well.

It took quite a while to sort out the pictures and the format that I wanted to print them in throughout the book but I feel it was very worthwhile and love the finished product. What do you think?

Wedding Invitations - DIY Project

So the great wedding invite making weekend took place last week. After trying a few samples I finally narrowed it down to what I wanted and something that wasn't going to take forever.

I started by designing our own monogram through Word which was really easy actually, once I figured out the basics. I am using it throughout the wedding and hope that it just helps with making the day more us! After too many hours to count I had managed to address all the inserts, cut them to size and finish of the corners.

I worked quite hard at making a little production line with all the things on it that I would need and hours measuring bits of ribbon to add to the front but once they were all put together I was really happy with the final product.

Inserts Cut and ready to go in the cards

I added the ribbon to the front by cutting and measuring a long length of ribbon and then tying a knot ribbon through this once it was secured to the front of the card.

I really wanted to keep the fronts of the invites very simple, so after spending some time playing about with the computer I managed to get the words to print onto the front of the card. I used hearts that I had punched using a heart puncher from purple pearlised card and finished off with some diamante stick ons.

Inside of a finished invite

The finished product!

I must say I'm really happy with them, I think that they look really professional and hope that everyone feels the same. Let me know what you think?

6 Months today!

Image courtesy of Google Images

Well the title says it all! 6 Months today to our wedding day.

Excited.com!!!!

Paperwork, Paperwork

The time has come to think about starting the paperwork for our wedding. The Spanish are very strict on everything being dated withing 6 months of the wedding, so anyone planning your wedding in Spain bare this in mind.

We are having a full Catholic ceremony in Spain, which I have been informed is the easiest way to get married in Spain as Civil ceremonies are yet to be recognised. If you are wanting to get married in Spain outwith the Catholic church, you are recommended to get a civil ceremony either in your home country or you can also do this in Gibraltar.

So to start the religious side of the process we need:

Full Birth certificates Copy of Baptism certificate (some parish's may also require your confirmation certificate)

A place on the marriage preparation course

To arrange a meeting with our local parish priest to start to go through our freedom to marry information (Basically a meeting where you provide all of the above certificates to the priest so he can provide you with a freedom to marry certificate for the catholic church)

There is also a lot of legal aspects of planning the wedding that also need to be done but I will cover them in another post.

We have already met with our local parish priest who has started to look to begin the paperwork process with us, the meeting really consisted of him asking us about where we have lived previously (they need this to check out that you have not previously been married) our thoughts on marriage, why we wanted to get married in the church, how we will prepare for marriage, and taking our information to enrol for the marriage preparation course.

In Scotland the course of choice for the Catholic church is run by Scottish Marriage Care and is called FOCCUS (Facilitating Open Couple Communication, Understanding and Study) it is an questionnaire which focus on the basic key elements of a successful marriage. You meet with a facilitator and complete the questionnaire separately and then you return as a couple a few weeks later to discuss the responses that were given. The facilitator will then help you to look at patterns in your responses, identify positives, discuss issues and raise awareness of important relationship topics. In total the sessions over the two periods should last around two hours, if required there is opportunity to have further sessions. I feel that this type of course is better than previous ones which were ran by priests themselves, who to be honest in my opinion are not best placed to provide guidance for marriage. Part of me is a little nervous but I am also happy to be completing it so that we can look at all aspects of our relationship (I suppose it's a bit like pre-marriage counselling)

Trip to Spain

Well this weekend was spent on our final viewing trip to Spain. One of the joys of planning a wedding abroad has been to get to go on a few weekend breaks!

This time the sun was shining and everything just looked so beautiful. I know I have put a few pictures on already of the venue and the church but I can't help but add some more in the sunshine.

The view up to the church, I just love the look and feel of Marbella's old town, so quaint!

The view that our guests will have, whilst we are eating dinner, bad news is the top table will have their back to it!

And the reception venue, we will be eating on the bottom terrace then move inside for the DJ.

We tasted our menu whilst we were there and really enjoyed it, I wanted a Spanish feel but nothing too far from the norm for the oldies! lol and thats what we feel we have managed to achieve.

I also had my hair and makeup trial which went really well and I can't wait for the day to see it all together with my dress.

So all in all a really good productive weekend (damped slightly by me being quite poorly)

We have all the major things sorted now, but the paperwork will be another story in itself!!