An unconventional fashion blogger trying to find her place on the internet

I’m sure if you’re a follower of mine that you’re quite aware of the fact that I’m going to be getting married this year (sorry about the wedding spam – actually I’m not sorry at all 😉) so I thought for all of my fellow brides-to-be out there that I would put together a post of everything I’ve learnt about weddings that you might not otherwise know unless you’re planning/ have planned a wedding including some of the common lingo that’s thrown around like everybody should know it! Please excuse some of the very obvious observations – I’m quite brainy most of the time, but do have my moments as a dim-minded blonde.

Wedding Breakfast

No, I’m not talking a fry-up, pancakes, toast or a bowl of cereal – a wedding breakfast is your first meal together as a married couple, hence BREAKFAST! I was quite surprised at how many people didn’t know the meaning of it (I mean, I figured it out a couple of years back when my friend Claire got married and told me 😉 – thanks Claire!) and just assumed it was a fry-up on the big day!

Corkage

Corkage is a fee you have to pay for bringing your own booze to a venue and covers the cost of them supplying you with glasses and serving your guests. Is it a bit of a con? Absolutely – you’re paying for the drink because the prices of their booze is astronomical, so they want to cash in on that. Make sure to do some research on average prices for this fee in your area and do some bartering if you can.
I asked about the price of a bottle of their house wine and found out it was EIGHTEEN POUNDS!!!! For a bloody bottle of plain old bloody wine, I think we’ll take the corkage and find our own booze to toast with thanks.

Banns

I’ll be totally honest and say that before we started planning this wedding, I didn’t have a clue what banns were. These are only applicable if you’re marrying in a Church of England (I believe if you’re getting married in another religious building or registered building such as a registry office or wedding venue then you need to give the correct notices before doing so).
Banns are church readings carried out in three consecutive weeks (at Sunday service) before your ceremony, announcing your intention to marry. If there’s any reason that you shouldn’t marry (e.g one of you has been married before or you’re related) then this is an opportunity for someone to speak up against it happening.
There are some logistics to how these are read, because you’d think they’d only need to be read in the church that you’re marrying in – however, they need to be read in the parish you’re intending to marry in and also where you currently live. So if you’re getting married outside of your parish and you don’t currently live together, your banns will need to be read in all three parishes
It’s an old English tradition and was introduced as a way to call out divorcee’s or close relations attempting to marry (like brother and sister) and is a way of announcing to the world of your intention to marry. If you’re marrying in a church and this doesn’t happen in the correct way, it can mean your wedding isn’t legally binding – so deffo make sure you’ve got the logistics sorted out! Only just coming to realise the cost of this having just received the bill for our banns to be read in our local church *cough* money grabbing bastards *cough* – if you want some more information on banns readings, check out the Church of England’s page all about it here.

Dressing Church Pew Ends

To be honest, I hadn’t given this one much thought until we decided we were having a church wedding – I knew what a pew was, but didn’t think about what we could do with the ends of them until we started to think about flowers for the church. Of course, they’re the ends of a pews (seats in a church which have cushioned spots in front for kneeling to pray) – therefore pew ends.
I became a bit obsessed after seeing this image on Pinterest and deciding that this MUST be how our pew ends look on the day;

However, I’ve come to realise that this won’t work as the reverend (his name is Trevor aka REV TREV LOL!) said the pew ends have little vases on which we can use – so I don’t think this bright idea is going to work now. Excuse me whilst I contemplate all of the time I’ve wasted picturing my beautiful pew ends on Pinterest *sob*
Flower Girl Dresses Are EXPENSIVE!
If you’ve read some of my other posts about our wedding, you might already know that I snatched our bridesmaid dresses on eBay for just £15 a pop – yes I’ve had to get a bit dandy with the sewing machine to make them wearable (they were only lined down to the crotch area and you could have seen vagina if I’d let them wear it like that), but they were still a good buy in the grand scheme of things. But can I find reasonably priced flower girl dresses? Absolutely not.
I’ve always known that children’s clothing can get pricey – Mum’s are always going to want their precious little darlings to have the most beautiful clothes, no matter the price (or the fact that they’re going to get it covered in quite possibly real human shit – I know that this has 100% happened to my cousin’s daughter, so don’t come at me for exaggerating LOL) and it’s something I’m finding extremely frustrating when trying to plan a beautiful wedding on a budget.
I’ve found some cute dresses on eBay which I’m hoping are going to be okay (I’ve only ordered one for now and am going to wait to see what it’s like before ordering the other one we need) – I’ll make sure to keep you updated on this one!

Picking Wedding Rings is a nightmare 

If you’ve read back on some of my older posts, you’ll know that I’ve covered how I’ve been finding it difficult to pick a wedding ring and having tried some on now, I can confirm it’s a hard process – especially having to match it to your engagement ring!

Have you planned a wedding and found out some odd things you weren’t aware of beforehand or have you found out some new information from this post? Let me know in the comments below!

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