Community: Real Life

Seven weeks to go


Ellie and David

Ellie has been with David for three years and they've decided to tie the knot. She tells us how planning the big day can turn into something like a military operation.
Entry: 5

Ellie and David face more and more obstacles on the way to their big day. The couple have to cope with interfering relatives and a fleeing organist.

By now I should be tying up loose ends and concentrating on being relaxed in order to look utterly ravishing on the big day. Instead, I am rushing around like an escapee from an asylum, trying to book 800 things at the last minute. The photographer and the vicar have rung me telling me all the things that are going wrong. The Royal Mail has managed to lose our deposit for the photographer and the church organist may be going on holiday. Fantastic. That's really all I need at the moment.

I should have learnt by now not to ask anyone else's opinion about, well, anything. My wonderful grandma is making our wedding cake, which I am so grateful for. As much as I like cake, I am not prepared to pay £400 for one. There have been mutterings from family members about various styles of decoration for the cake. The problem is, I don't want cake decoration. I don't like ornate flowers or cute little ducks and I'm having a simple cake. This has not gone down well at all. This is just one in a long list that of things that haven't gone down well, but I really don't care any more. I began by trying to compromise with everyone and it ended up being so exhausting that one day I woke up and thought 'Why am I letting these people force me into having things I hate?'

"As much as I like cake, I am not prepared to pay £400 for one."

The money front still isn't looking too rosy. I can fully understand why people live together for 10 years before getting married - it's taken them that long to save up for the wedding. We are having the ultimate wedding on a shoestring and we are still barely treading water financially. On Saturday we are meeting with the photographer and paying her half the remaining balance, which is going to be over £600. Added to that is the cost of the car (£350) and the flowers (which I STILL haven't arranged). The list goes on and on

I was feeling fairly confident about how carefully I had planned everything, but I was actually being hopelessly naïve. There is never enough time to plan your wedding properly, even if you start years in advance.  This has to be the most stressful thing I have ever done in my life. The only thing that's keeping me going at the moment is thinking about how much I really want to marry David. I may complain about what a moaning git he is sometimes but I love him desperately. I want to stay with him forever; I want to have his children and I want to see the person he becomes, as he grows old. I don't think love is about roses and grand gestures, but tenderly wiping up vomit when the other is ill, and giving up your proverbial last Rolo even when you really, really want it...

Speaking of vomit, you can put your sick bags away now.

Updated: 14/03/2005


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