Easy Come, Easy Go

That's how it is with money at the minute.  Literally, by 1am the day after payday, I was flat broke.

I paid the £300 deposit for the caterer on Thursday and well, let's just say, we hadn't budgeted for it and now we're in big trouble with money.  BIG trouble.  Which is nice and depressing on this lovely sunny day.

I sometimes kinda think, "Hmmm, maybe we just won't get married," because honestly, I just don't see how we're going to afford ANY of it!  Just no idea.  We can't even pay a £300 deposit for the caterer without feeling the proper giant pinch for the rest of the month.

And then I get the whole, "Why did you pay her?!" business from Andy and it's like, well duh, because she was getting other people asking about that date and it was rude to keep her hanging.  She was the one we wanted, she had it all figured out, she knew what she was talking about, she was the one!  So it seemed pointless to then turn around after weeks of saying, yeah yeah, you're the one to then say, erm, no, you're not the one because we can't afford it.  I dunno, I'm sure we could've worked something out but at the end of the day, I felt I should just pay her.

So I did.  And now we have like 3 weeks until I get paid again.  SOOOO depressing!

Sorry y'all, this is a super depressing post, I just can't help it.  I get depressed very easily!

Off Topic: Freedom of Speech

So, I've been doing a little bit of musing over the last few days.  I'm just curious, how is it that some people can sit behind their computers, say all kinds of crap and get away with it.  I make random comments every now and then, and get taken to the cleaners about it.

Two things recently have happened that have made me seriously question why I give so much of a shit about 'Social Media'.

First, I made a comment about how I felt International Women's Day was a little bit naff, pointless and how it just screamed oppression and seemed to bring all the feminists out in full, hateful, angry force!  I got really shot down by someone I really respected and to be honest, I wasn't quite sure how it had gone from me saying I thought it was naff the way everyone was saying, "Happy Womens Day" to each other - like seriously, that's fucking NAFF people - to me apparently being a Holocaust denier and not respecting Black History Month or understanding that women across the world still aren't educated.  So, that was a bit odd right?  And I suppose it hurt it a little bit, that this person I respected would think that of me and want to try and twist my throwaway comment into something altogether darker.

I just didn't see the point in having this one day a year where we're 'allowed' to be women, stand up and say what we want, do what we want.  Like, I do that every day.  I don't need to have a day where I reaffirm my womanhood or whatever.  Yes, yes, shhh, I get it, it was more for women in developing nations, to give them a voice for just one day.  And I respect that, of course I do, I'm not a total cretin!

The second happened this morning.  I posted a rant on Facebook about a lady in my office prattling on about something which was really quite boring.  And more than it being about her boringness, it was more about the way her conversation was winding up the social retard in my office, he honestly was laughing and foaming at the mouth like he was going to explode at any minute!  So, posted this thing on Facebook.  And about 5 minutes after I had I thought, I should probably take that down. Before I have a chance to, I'm told by another colleague that the sad fuckers in her office were all jibbering about it when she arrived at work.  It's just pathetic.  So fuck the lot of them, had a good clear out of my friends list, bunch of sad acts!

It just got me thinking (oh god, I am NOT talking like Carrie in my head, I promise you!) - Just how far can Freedom of Speech extend?  (Cue camera close up on my question mark.  I sit back and take a drag from my Marlboro)

Right so seriously though.  It happened to me before, YEARS ago.  A friend of mine helpfully sent a link to my old 20six blog where I had said they were a bunch of hypocritical Christians or something.  Yeah, thanks for that.  Aside from the wedding theme I've taken on lately, my blog has always been a place for me to RANT!  I have suffered from depression since I was a teenager and counselling has always helped.  In the years that I didn't have a counsellor, the internet handily provided blogs, which was a dead easy way of ranting, for free, into the ether.  A lot of the time, it was never meant for public consumption ("Why put it on a blog then?"  Yeah, yeah, thanks for that, aware of that!)  But it's true, I write these things and always just think, oh, no one gives a fuck about what I say.  I just don't understand why people get so up in arms about things people write on the internet.  It's true, most of it is throwaway.  People rant and rave and generally use it get things off their chest (as this rambling post will testify!).

Okay, so some of it isn't throwaway.  I'm sure it's being used for evil in various parts of the world.

But here, I'm just a 25 year old girl, who's permanently pissed off, permanently angry, permanantly poor, fat and hungry, and I sometimes, have a lot I want to say, I perhaps don't phrase it in the correct way, and I just seem to permanently piss people off with the things I say.  I don't mean to be a cunt!

So, what am I trying to say with this blog post?  Well, I'm not sure if I'm trying to say, Fuck Social Networking because it's fucking dull, but at the same time it makes me feel gratified, like people give a shit about me and the things I have to say, which I'm sure, more of the time, is not the case at all.  Maybe I just had a shit childhood and so I'm constantly seeking 'friends' and am generally just a bit needy, so by tweeting all day long, I feel like if I get just one reply, one comment on my blog, it makes me feel loved, how fucking sad is that?  How fucked up am I that I need to use these online 'tools' to feel gratified?  Or be funny (or try to be funny).  And have people 'like' me and think I'm cooool.  Seriously.  What kind of world are we living in?

But, you know me, I need to feel loved, I hate myself so much that any ounce of fake internet love I get off people makes me feel a tiny bit better about myself.  So, I guess, when I make a comment, hoping for a laugh or a 'like' or a reply, it makes me feel really fucking pissed off and upset when it backfires and I just get hate back.

Feel free to post all the hate you want, because as of today, I'm trying not to take it personally.

No Ding Dong Bells for me

We've decided just to get married at the barn as originally planned - we were happy to get married there in the first place and just because we saw a nice church, I guess it was never a guarantee that a church was going to let us get married there.  I do still think it's a bit hypocritical of us to get married in a church when we're not exactly the most religious of people!

So then I had a weird idea - get married on June 9th this year, somewhere close to home in a registry office and just have a few select friends there and immediate family (i.e., my parents and his mum) and then have a Humanist ceremony/blessing next June at the barn (which we can do in the grounds/rose garden/lakeside) and the party afterwards.  But I dunno, although it seemed like a nice idea (and convenient for his mum from her care home in Cheam) there was just something not completely right about it I think. So we quickly scrapped that idea!

And now we're back to thinking about the barn.  I'm sure in the summer, with a mop over the floor and the lights and decor and flowers and stuff, it'll look amazing!  And I think what we're going to do is get married in the top part of the barn as opposed to the bottom part (by the toilets!).  It does however mean we need to get our caterers to do more than previously thought in terms of getting the tables in, set up and decorated whilst we're having drinks, but I think they'll manage.  I'd be much happier about that I think.  Just need to get the caterers to agree to that!

Theme: Part 2

Isn't it just the way, "I'll be back later with Part 2" and it just never happens!

Not sure what else I had to say about our theme apart from mention a few of the little touches we were thinking of.  We might not go for the whole record invite thing, we've still to decide that, plus we'd seen these:

Credit: Hello Lucky

But given the church we've seen, I'm not sure if we'll go for it, I don't know if we should get something more fitting.

The other thing I had seen that I rather like (and will attempt to make at the weekend is this:

Credit: Kaboodle

Also, we'd like to make some little bowls out of 7" records and we'd also really love to get new labels printed for them but no idea where to start on that one!

I think we'll name each table after a different band, The Beatles (Top Table!), The Cure, Blur, Genesis.... hahaha!

And I liked the idea of us dressing up as different musical couples and having our photos taken.  So far I've got, Sid and Nancy, Kurt and Courtney, Sonny and Cher, John and Yoko and erm, Elton John and Kiki Dee.  Yeah, okay, I need to think a bit harder about this.  Also, I can only think of couples who ultimately had grisly ends...!   

Robert Smith and his wife Mary, I know Andy would kill to dress up as his idol!!

For our music, we figured that unless a nice family member wants to hire a band for us, it's pretty much off the menu as it's just going to be way out of our budget.  So we were just going to hire the equipment from the guy who owns the barn and buy ourselves a nice iPod to use on the day (do iPad's have the same iPod capabilities?!)  Either that, or I need to sweet talk an old friend of mine into coming along and helping out with the musical side of things.  But, we wanted to more or less plan the playlist ourselves, moving through the decades (our first thought, this might not work in practice!)

So, what do you think?  Just our first musings on it!

Theme: Mission in Progress, Part 1

So I had a literal epiphany on Tuesday morning, I was in the shower, thinking about the venue, thinking about how we could decorate and stuff, when suddenly, literally, a thunderbolt hit my head, and I realised, the perfect theme for Andy and I is.... (and if you know me, this will come as no surprise) MUSIC!

As I said, anyone who knows me will know I'm a teensy bit fanatical about music.  I made Andy stay up until about midnight on Monday playing him one of my Spotify playlists.  He sent me an email on Tuesday morning to say I did have a rather impressive knowledge of music (which made my day, how sad!).  Now, whilst I don't know everything, and I'm not claiming too, there are a lot of tunes stored in this tiny brain of mine and I know how to use them!

I think music has always been a passion for both Andy and I, to different degrees though I think.  His parents are a generation removed from mine and as such he grew up with Jazz (his dad) and Buddy Holly (his mum).  My parents were in their twenties in the 80s and as such I grew up listening to Genesis and Pink Floyd (my dad) and the Beatles (my mum, okay, so the Beatles are 80s, but my dad HATES the Beatles, which I struggle to understand how anyone can hate the Beatles, don't get me started!!)

Andy spent his teenage years listening to The Cure (with whom my only recollection was of seeing the video for Friday I'm In Love on TOTP, or Top Of The Pops for you younger followers who sadly missed out on that great British institution in it's heyday.  My parents had a date to see TOTP be recorded, my mum spends every Saturday watching TOTP 2 on UK Gold just to see if their episode comes up, much in the same way I watch Top Gear on Dave to spot myself, aged 18 in a white hoody being obscured by Johnny Vegas, this ruining my 5 minutes of TV air time!  I digest....)

So where was I?  Oh yes, Andy liked The Cure and Nirvana and Oasis (yuk!) whilst I spent my time listening to Blur, The Prodigy and Ministry of Sound Annuals.

I think our teenage relationships formed our musical taste, The Cure for Andy and for me, large doses of Drum and Bass, UK Garage and House (my teenage friends and boyfriend were all 'DJs', they all had the decks, the vinyl, the big headphones).  I also used to listen to old stuff; Pink Floyd, The Who, The Clash.  So I swing from UK Garage to The Who and back to The Prodigy.

So anyway, I'm rambling, my iMac is crashing every 5 minutes so I'm going to adjourn to apply my make up, pop to Worcester Park, pick up some old records from the DebRA charity shop and come back for Part 2 of my explanation on our theme!!

Venue: Mission Complete

So I've been trying to post for 4 days now to show you some photos of the venue....

Yes, I totally did take pictures of the toilets, and the mirror ball!  Look at the pretty lights in these last two shots. These are hanging on the wall in the smaller part of the barn where we may have our ceremony.  I saw may, because we visited my aunt after the barn who lives in Boxgrove and is a regular at Boxgrove Priory.  We took a stroll over to the church and, wow, it's amazing.  I think I might have to put in a few 3 hour round trips between now and the wedding to secure us a wedding there.  It was stunning, we both said to each other how amazing it would be.  Here's a small picture of it.

Lush.

That is all for now.  Will write again to tell you about the perfect idea I had for our theme!!

Whirlwind

Hello!

I was meant to blog yesterday and tell you all about our weekend trip to visit two venues in West Sussex.  Which I suppose, as if I was telling a story, I could still do in cronological order and the reason for my cryptic-ness will become clear....

So we got up early on Sunday morning, one of our rare mornings off as Scarlett was in Bromley and we headed down to the beautiful countryside in Sussex.  We headed first to Fitzleroi Farm Barn and were met by Mark.  The venue was lovely, everything I had hoped it would be.  But, there were a few things we weren't so keen on - no permanent dancefloor, carpeted floor, one door = quite dark in there and one side of the courtyard was their family home.  It did have things going for it, slightly cheaper, big kitchens.  It was nice and Mark was very helpful and gave us a few insider tips which was nice.

We left there at 11:00 and had an hour to kill before heading to Grittenham Barn.  We passed a little church on a hill, All Hallows, Tillington which looked lovely.  However, we knew it was only going to be necessary if we used Fitzleroi as they didn't have a wedding licence and had stated quite clearly that they had no intention of doing so.

Carried on to Midhurst where we glugged down a cup of tea in a little cafe and headed back to Grittenham.  I think I knew almost as soon as we pulled up and I saw the huge mirrorball suspended from the ceiling that this may be, 'The One'.  We were met by Paul who was really lovely and down to earth.  He seemed really quite enthusiastic about weddings in general. 

The barn itself is over two levels, a large main part and a smaller lower part.  He told us how the lower part can be used as a chillout area in the evening (like the sound of that) with the provision of sofas and chairs.  The view from the barn was gorgeous, you could see the lake and gardens and the South Downs.  Windows on both sides meant it was so light in there, with the sun streaming in one side.  I was innapropriately dressed to see the lake where we can have a drinks reception so I think we will be making another visit down there.

The kitchen was small although we were assured that there are other kitchens the caterers can access via a back door.  Curtains can be pulled at various parts of the barn to allow a band to set up, ready for a big reveal in the evening!  You can decorate how you like.  Paul can provide lights and a sound system meaning that we could save money on a DJ by just having an iPod plugged into it.  I tell you, you have to check out his website, he has a lighting company and they do such amazing things - parties in lit up woods and projections on marquees!  I can't find his website, I've left all our Grittenham details at home, but I'll post it later!

So basically, we came to a decision pretty quickly that it was The One.  Although it's a bit more than Fitzleroi and we have to take extra things into consideration; no tables or chairs (which we can get from the caterer) and extra for the Registrar (which we would've had to do for Fitzleroi anyway, plus a venue if not a church....) we could just really see ourselves getting married and having a great time there.

One problem.  Deposit.  Chatted it over with my parents, none of us have a grand lying around.  Mum mentioned it to my Grandparents and they've offered to lend us the money for our deposit!  Am so pleased and made up and EXCITED!!!  So anyway, I'm off to give them a call.  I'll list some websites later so you can see what this place looks like.