Spontaneous discovery

I dislike working on Saturdays, and yesterday was no exception. After spending a rather unsuccessful and frustrating four and a half hours working, I needed cheering up. Thankfully (and unbeknownst to me!) there was a wedding fair in the hall upstairs in the building I was in. So after a quick call to R we were soon in my idea of a HK wedding nightmare! Don't get me wrong, I LOVE anything and everything to do with weddings but this was in a whole different league. If your idea of a wedding dream is over the top sparkle, garishly large frilly dresses, totally posed and fake photography and queues and queues of people lining up to try the finest delicacies that Maxims has to offer, then this is the place for you!

So, naturally, the moment we walked in we both started to question why on earth we were there! We felt like the target of every hard selling salesman there was. So after turning down many, we foolishly attempted to ask one nice, friendly looking lady what the price of her photography service was. 20 minutes later we finally walked away none the wiser and pretty fed up.

We were nearly ready to leave then something caught my eye... The jewellery! I don't think there's woman I know that would walk away from the opportunity to try on loads of pretty jewellery. And I still need to find my wedding band. R is having his wedding band made my a local jeweller in Cornwall, using Cornish gold and tin and his grandmothers diamond. But it has turned out to be incredibly difficult to find one for me. I want a ring that goes well with my engagement ring so they can sit nicely together on my finger. Also, my fingers are really quite small, so anything too thick looks silly. We've been to numerous jewellery around Hong Kong but nothing has really jumped out at me so I didn't really have high hopes at the fair.

However, I was proven wrong. The first ring I tried on I loved. But, like a dress, you CAN'T just buy the first one you see, right!?! So, we walked around some more, tried on countless numbers of rings and nothing compared. So we finally went back and I tried it on once more and that was it. I secretly knew it was love at first sight, but my stubborn, second guessing, indecisive nature took me away. However, with R's supportive nudging, I made the decision to buy it right then and there. And the cherry on top, it was more than half the original price just for that day!!! Well within the budget we'd set for my ring!

So, after a miserable morning and a spontaneous visit to the fair, I found my forever ring!

To finish off the day, we went and watched the final Harry Potter, followed by curry dinner. Smiles all round :)

Planning colours

After a long break, I'm back from my trip and ready to get down to it. In exactly a year today we will have tied the knot for the second time and it will nearly all be over. So it's definitely time to start planning... properly.

So, we set up an appointment with our planner. With so many ideas flowing round my head and more and more coming to me every time I scour the Internet, I needed some focus and guidance.

The planner was great. We sat down and spoke about the timeline and plan from here. Unfortunately because we cannot secure the venue (that I've fallen in LOVE with) yet, we can't begin to plan decorations or table settings. So there's only so much we can do now. And before we can do anything, I (I mean we) have to decide on a theme/colour scheme.

Trying to pick a colour for the whole HK wedding on the spot was near impossible! And with the planner on one side and R on the other, I was certainly under pressure. After to-ing and fro-ing for a while, we finally settled on two separate ideas. R has a passion for purple so I indulged by opting for a pinky/purple combination, while my focus recently has been drawn to green and brown with a touch of yellow. So, after much deliberation, those are our starting points.

Here's my inspiration for the colour scheme:

With two separate colour schemes in mind, we've decided to begin our planning with invitation designs. The invitation is going to lead the way for the design of the whole wedding. Everything from bridesmaids dresses and flowers, to table settings and cake. So I'm extremely excited to see what our planner and her designer are going to come up with, based on our two colour choices.

Finally the wheels are in motion!

8 months, 29 days to HK wedding
12 months, 0 days to French wedding

Save the Dates

Other than the initial issue of sending STDs to all our friends and family, there was of course K's general issue of never, ever, being able to make a decision. So for this particular milestone R took the lead. Which is why I am writing this blog post.

After multiple photo, colour and text changes I was finally at a design stage where I was sure I could share with K and not be confronted by questions. Everything seemed fine, except for one thing. It was this one change that K was correct to point out. We needed a logo.

I enlisted the help of an Art Director friend at work and in no time at all we had an amazing K n R logo. All was complete.




We compiled a list of names, email and postal addresses and set about sending them out. We owe thanks to all of K's friends who responded in seconds to our request for details, as well as R's research skills because his friends were typically slow.

And so, the Save the Dates are now sent, all seems very officially. We are definitely getting married, but it was last night that it finally set in. In a good way of course.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Sing Woo Rd,,Hong Kong

Colours and Styles

I’ve been back and forth in my head over the colour/theme for the wedding. I started off thinking about browns, oranges and reds for my colours/theme, but considering we’re getting married in the spring and summer, those colours are probably too dark and autumnal. I feel like the bridesmaids dresses are representative of the whole wedding and I want the feel of my wedding to be natural, fun and relaxed. I really don’t want to put too much pressure of everything matching and looking polished and perfect. I just want people to have fun!!!So, in an attempt to narrow down colours/themes for the whole wedding, I've focused my attention on the bridesmaids dresses.

In my typical fashion, I am totally stuck on colours for the wedding. I've been back and forth sooooo many times and I want so many different things! I was talking to one of my wonderful bridesmaids who sensed my angst and suggested something I hadn’t thought about before: different but complementary pastel shades for the bridesmaids. So I started researching and decided I really like this style:

I was talking to R and he wants to get married in his family tartan kilt, which is blue. This is another reason why brown, orange and red won’t really work as I feel like they’ll clash with his kilt. I thought about similar shades of blues and purples, so that’s another option. I really don’t want them to be too dark though. Might be nice to have some kind of a mix of the colours below.

I originally thought about knee length dresses, but I’ve done some internet scouring and I’m definitely more attracted to pictures of full length dresses. I want them all to be the same style, just complementary colours. I know some brides let their bridesmaids choose their own dresses within the colour, but I'd like to keep some kind of consistency and make them feel a special part of the day, and I feel like the same style dress will do that.  I also know I want them to be full length, in a light, flowy fabric. I really want the girls to like their dresses so they can wear them again! No puffy sleeves, ridiculously large bows or garish colours. 

Once again, with budget an issue, I had the (potentially) genius idea of buying one dress and having replicas made by a local tailor in HK! The difficulty with dress shopping for the bridesmaids dresses is that they all live in the UK and I live a 12 hour flight away in HK… logistical nightmare! So, they’re going to have to meet up and find a dress they all love, fight over which colour they want (once I’ve decided which colours to go for) then buy one example for me to work with. This could be an amazing idea, or a total disaster… only time will tell!

It's happening!

Today we guaranteed our wedding will happen, by booking a registrar! The lawyer on the other end of the phone was somewhat surprised to be approached a year in advance (seems like people do things last minute here!) but she’s promised to keep our date free. So, now we can get moving on our location, Save the Dates and beyond. Unfortunately, the price for her services turned out to be slightly higher than we anticipated, so we now have to find ways to save in other areas. This means that our great plan for Save the Date magnets is out the window, and we’re going to have to start gathering e-mail addresses for all our guests. I guess we have to prioritise, especially with two weddings on such a tight budget.

So my mission for this week is to find out if the venue I love is available for the day (and book it!) and design and send the Save the Date cards. I want to make sure they go out as soon as possible so that we ensure all the people we care about are able to come.

Two weddings… on different sides of the world… and both requiring friends and family to travel. Details will be revealed once the Save the Dates have gone out!

The Journey Begins

It’s been 2 months since R gathered my friends and family from across the UK back in the one place that meant the most to us both and got down on one knee. Since then, it’s been a whirlwind of wedding magazines, websites and dresses!

I’ve been thinking about weddings ever since I can remember, but the problem with this is that I have too many ideas! And the biggest issue of all is that I am quite possibly the most indecisive person in the world, making wedding planning near impossible. Oranges or blues, matching bridesmaid’s dresses or different complementary colours, chiffon or lace, vintage or modern… so many choices!!

With friends and family across the world, the hardest decision was where to tie the knot. To solve this, we’re just going to have to plan two. That’s right, two ceremonies, two receptions: two weddings! R drew the line at two dresses, but at least I’ll get twice the wear out of my dress than most girls!

So now I just need to focus on two key ideas, while still trying to keep some kind of consistency between them and staying within our limited budget.

This blog will follow our journey from diamond to aisle, as I attempt to channel my over-enthusiastic, hyper-indecisive brain into creating the wedding(s) of our dreams.

K