Life List

So, having fawned over Sarah's Life List  for a little while and laughed and thought, ooh yeah, that sounds fun to most of her entries, I decided to give it a go myself.  Sarah reliably informed me that she saw the Mighty Life List over on Mighty Girl's blog and she believes this to be the definite article original blogging Life List.

So, I've had a stab.  I've only got 64 entries so far and I've only crossed one off - which is a posthumous one in a way - I saw Paul McCartney live 2 years ago at Hard Rock Calling and honestly, my life was complete so I'm putting that on there as it's something I've achieved that I wanted to in my lifetime (obviously, there's still Scarlett and marrying Andy but erm, A REAL BEATLE, PLAYING LIVE, no sorry, that is fulfillment for me!)

I've put it on it's own permanent little page so feel free to have a look - I'll give you a post when I update it in terms of achieving something or adding something new that I've thought of!

So, what do you think of my life's ambitions so far?!

The Wonderful World of Being a Mrs

So, it's been and gone.  I do feel slightly bereft not having anything to worry and stress about in the evenings. And I haven't really but my new 'free' time to very good use lately, which is why I'm creating a Life List.  But more on that later.

So, the wedding, The Wedding, THE WEDDING!!  OF THE FECKING CENTURY!  Oh my goodness gracious.  Right, sorry, all other weddings, including those I have been to, and those I am yet to attend, but dude, we rocked the wedding thing.  Totally rocked it.  Thinking back, there is no way that I can't think, "Woooo Yeah!!" and get a little air punchy about it.

I'll post some pictures in a seperate page for anyone who hasn't seen them and really, I think I'll let them speak for themselves.  I guess because A: I might get a bit too show-offy, B: Because I get sad that it went so quickly and C: Because I don't want to bore you all.  Oh, and D: I'm in the process of submitting them to a wedding blog and I think I have to wait until after that!

Needless to say, the day went without a hitch (oh, wait, apart from my bridesmaids, Scarlett and the photographer getting stuck in horrendous traffic and me having to plead with the Registrars to wait.  Thankfully, they did, and we were married about 20 minutes later than planned!).  The food was excellent, my dress was ace, my shoes, whilst looking totes amazeballs, were bloody painful because I forgot the gel insole thingies (boooo!) and everyone had a grand time.

The evening was just the best bit I think.  First dance, went brilliantly (more on that another time), sweet buffet went down a treat, cheese tower was admired, many silly photos were taken in the photobooth and, er, the best bit - THE BEATLES!!  Well, nearly, but I tell you what, they were just so brilliant.  Everyone was up and dancing to them.  And the funniest bit - Starey George from Liverpool was there!  Cue enormous hilarity between us Liverpool Hen Do Veterans and much hiding from Lex!

There's just so much that I want to remember, and I will, and maybe every now and then I will slip in a post every now and then with a fresh wedding anecdote, because there were so many amazing little snippets of the day I want to share.

All that remains for me to say really is, thanks for following the very sporadic wedding posts and that, if you want to carry on reading my inane babblings, please do.  I have lots of writing projects in the pipeline that I want to share, including this blog going back to being just a run of the mill, normal blog.  I hope you don't mind?!  I promise to post pictures every now and then!

Yours,

Mrs Hiorns x

Liverpool Hen Weekend

So I promised I do a write up of Liverpool, but I kinda figured that actually, it's a bit boring to read a big long rundown of things on blogs (save for weddings, of course!) so hopefully below should be a slideshow of the photos I took that weekend.

They're in roughly the right chronological order.  Enjoy, feel free to comment or question!!

6 weeks and counting

So the official OMG countdown is starting to kick in.  6 weeks, how can it only be six weeks?  Last time I heard we still had 6 months!

What developments have I to bring you?

I'm off to Worthing this afternoon with the maids to get their dresses.  I hope they both fit and they look good.  I've seen a picture and I am quite impressed so far so we'll see how they fare.  Am sure it'll be fine, quite excited about seeing them!

I have my final fitting on Saturday.  Ordered a basque which was miles too big so that's going back today and I have another 2 in 2 different sizes arriving today so hopefully one of them will fit!!  I ordered a lace bolero but it was too small and too scratchy.  Serves me right for buying a cheap one.  It did however, prove that with my disgusting arms I need a proper cover up so have forked out £50 for a taffeta one.  Just hope that arrives in time for the fitting on Saturday (and that it fits, I've ordered a size 26 so it bloody well better fit or I shall cry!!)  I just am not confident enough at all to have my arms out, they're just so unsightly!!

I finally showed Andy the wedding shoes yesterday after keeping them under wraps for 6 months.  I don't have any time at home, without him there, to be able to sufficiently break them in.  So unfortunately that little surprise has had to be ruined but I really need the fuckers to be really nicely broken in before the wedding.  They're lush and I want to be able to wear them for as long as possible on the day otherwise they'll be too uncomfortable!  I think he was a bit bemused by them to be honest, he didn't really know what to make of them.  Yes yes, you'll all start whinging at me about having shown him, can you please just leave me alone, when have I ever A: Kept something secret and B: Been the traditional type to do things the 'right' way?!!

Went shopping yesterday and bought most of Scarlett's bits, little cardi (I wish I could just wear a little cardi, I might still buy a little angora one for the evening....!), bag, jewellery, and some shoes, but I'm not sure on the shoes, I can't work out whether she still just needs some little ballet slippers instead, with the crazy silver ones for later on in the day...  Equally I need to find some shoes for the evening, as broken in as my ones will hopefully be by then, I still think I'll need some for the afternoon and evening.  I don't really want just flip flops, I'm wondering about some crazy ballroom shoes for the evening?!!  Hmm, eBay here I come.

Evening invites went out about 2 weeks ago, people have got until this Friday to RSVP but so far we've heard from only one family.  So that's nice....! Not.

Gift List opened at the weekend and a few lovely people have already bought us a few bits which is really exciting.  I think I'm going to send them little emails now to say thank you and that formal thank you's will be going out after the wedding.  Is that the done thing?!

Catch up - 7.5 weeks to go!

So, it's been a while!

What to update you on?  Well, my lovely bridesmaid and my ma took me to Liverpool as a surprise Hen Weekend (more on that another time I PROMISE!)  I had the best time, it was just amazing.  As a self confessed Beatles fan girl it was just awesome.  Staying in the Beatles hotel and doing all the Beatles stuff.  And Liverpool is such a brilliant place.  Such characters we saw!!  But I promise I'll do a proper post on it soon with pictures and everything.

Dress is due back from seamstress in 2 weeks time, I delivered a little sparkly something to her a couple of weeks ago so hopefully that'll turn out okay along with the other tweaks.

I need to order a lace bolero but I've spotted one (on Amazon of all places!!) so will order that before the fitting (in theory!)

Andy finally bought a suit last week which is progress to say the least.  Mum told me earlier that she had bought a dress (FINALLY!!) from Vivien of Holloway no less!  Check my ma out!!

Did I do an update to say we'd bought the girls dresses?  We got them from a company based in Worthing called Courtesan Boutique.  One room of this utterly gorgeous house was given over to rails of gorgeous dresses.  We found one that looked lovely and which I'm sure will look ace in the purple chiffon.  Won't give too much away, but they're also due back in a few weeks.

Hair and make up trial had mixed results.  Make up was ace, just a bit more on the eyes and we're there.  Still not sure about lippy, I think it's just going to annoy me so need to think about that, or practice wearing it!  The base was so good it was still intact the next day (naughty, I don't take my make up off at night, I'll pay for that when I'm older I'm sure!)

Hair wasn't so ace I'm afraid to say.  It was okay, but like, it just wasn't me.  I know other brides would've loved it, very technically beautiful but it wasn't how I hoped I'd look.  So I've got a re-trial next Monday where I this I'll just go with the half-up-half-down beehive that I had originally planned for with a few fancy bits for good measure!

What else?  I'll do a post on our invites which went out about a month ago, with the evening invites going out last week.  Had lots of lovely RSVPs left (more on that another time too!) back and some ace song choices - checking the RSVP spreadsheet has really got me through at times.  Knowing that other people are looking forward to our wedding is a great comfort (!) and does make it all terribly exciting!

Cake has been ordered,  Flowers have been ordered.  Even a photobooth is now on the list!

And when I type it all out like this, it makes it all seem exciting and like I actually can't wait for it to be here.

I think I've resolved most of my body issues - i.e. I've resigned myself to being a bit of a heffer on my wedding day, but Andy loves me for who I am not what I look like.  He's attracted to me and surely I'll look ace on my wedding day regardless, as long as I remember to smile and enjoy it, who cares right!!

So that's it for now, will do some proper updates in the next couple of days (in theory!!)

More Fat Activism From Me!

I know I keep harping on about it, but this really is a 'big' issue for me.  Annabel at Love My Dress has been having a week of posts titled Laid Bare Week.  Today's was from Emma from the Wedding Reporter owning up about her drastic braces to fix her teeth prior to her wedding.  It made me think again of how brides change themselves to look better in their wedding photos.

I posted the following comment on the blog that I feel sums up my feelings in the run up to our big day:


As a 'plus sized bride', I have felt the weight of pressure to change myself very greatly.  It's now exactly 101 days until my wedding - have I lost any weight?  No.  And it's not for want of trying.  But as my day draws closer, I'm resigned to the fact that I'm going to be a size 24 bride.  On the outside I could say I really don't care but deep inside, there is that little niggle that says, "You should've tried harder."

I guess the fact is, Andy has always loved me this size, he's only ever known me as roughly this size (I was thinner when we first met - that's what a baby and comfort eating will do!)  I don't care if some of my family will tut and say, "She should've lost some weight," because they all know me at this size too and I'm not there to please them!  (Sorry for any family members reading, but please don't judge me on my one day to shine!)

My dress is going to look amazing, and I'm the bride dammit, it doesn't matter what size I am because I'm there to marry Andy and have an awesome day.  Brides always look amazing, regardless of size or shape, pick the right dress and you're laughing.

I'm sure I will look back on my wedding photos and think, "Oh dear tubby" but I guess that's where I've just got to be creative with the photographer.

Do it, don't do it.  The choice is yours, but quite frankly, I've had enough other things stressing me out than to worry about something I rarely have any control over (PCOS and comfort eating).

I know I'm probably just trying to make myself feel better for not having lost more weight but there's not a lot I can do to change it now!  I'm just going to focus on having a great day with Andy and Scarlett and the rest of my lovely family and friends and create some gorgeous memories!

Plus Size Wedding Dress Shopping

So, where do I start with the Plus Size wedding dress shopping?!  I've wanted to do a proper follow-up post on this for quite a while, and as the day (hopefully) draws closer to me picking up The One, I thought I'd take a little look back at my experiences.

I was inspired to write this based on this post on the Wedding Ideas Magazine blog and even more inspired back in November when Annabel from Love My Dress posted about the 'issue'.  Most of what follows is taken from 2 emails I sent to Annabel...

I was dreading looking for a dress and it took me 7 months after getting engaged to even pluck up the courage to phone a dress shop.  I dread clothes shopping most of the time anyway, let alone shopping for my wedding dress, the most important dress I'll ever buy, right?!  I had a rough idea of what I wanted, I knew I wanted something tea length, I had dreams of tulle skirts and bolero jackets.

So eventually I booked an appointment with a shop in Cheam Village.  I had a look on their website to see what designers they stocked.  I spotted a Chanticleer dress, well a few Chanticleer dresses, Babilee in particular, a gorgeous creation of polka dot tulle, amazing.

The day arrived and off I went to the shop with my mum and my sister.  I asked about the Babilee and the other tea length dresses I had spotted on the Chanticleer website.  The lady in the shop was very helpful but ultimately did end up pulling out a few other styles of dress for me to try.  As I had no idea what was what when it came to wedding dresses I agreed.  She was helpful and any I didn't fit into, she pinned me into with a false modesty panel.  I couldn't fit into the Babilee and so I tried on another tea length dress.  My sister immediately told me I looked like a hobbit and that the short dress made me look really short and fat.  

To clarify, I'm 5'6" and a size 24.  That's not that short and I like to think I'm relatively well proportioned so as not to look like a cube!

So, off came the tea length and on went a procession of long dresses.  I tried on a Grecian style one and a more structured one.  Pictures of all of these can be found in my previous post here.

I hated most of them, then tried on the Chanticleer Montiverdi.  The One.  Until I saw the price tag.  At £1300 it was a little over what I had been hoping to spend and so resigned myself to the fact I wouldn't be able to have it.

I put it off even more until October when I decided to make an appointment at All That Glitters at Allders in Croydon.  I cannot begin to describe how 100% unhelpful they were.  They saw me as a plus size bride and instead of listening to what I wanted, they just decided what they thought I should wear and so out came all these disgusting (to me) dresses with tucks and folds and silk roses and assymetric pleats.  One assistant, wouldn't stop talking and the other wouldn't stop rolling her eyes!  They got out their stock book and instead of listening to what I wanted, they just went through which ones they had above a size 18.  And I felt like I had to justify myself every time I said no!

Onto a second appointment on that day.  Another shop local to me in Cheam.  I had tried to make an appointment with this shop back in July when I started looked but had never heard from them despite messages and emails.  I started to feel paranoid that it was because I was plus size that they didn't want to know!  My mum eventually got hold of them and so off we went to Aurora Bride.  I was met by Natalie, shoeless and slipper socks and whereas some people might find that unprofessional, it kinda put me at ease! (Plus the carpet was so plush in there, I don't blame her!)  She told me to have a look through and use red tags to mark the ones I liked. (oh dear, this reminded me straight away of my awful experience at the Bridal Factory Outlet I visited in North Yorkshire, which I realise I didn't blog about.... another time!) and told me to put them on the dresses I liked.

I told her briefly that I wanted relatively plain, tulle skirt, sweetheart neck and she totally got it.  Within 30 seconds she had pulled out 3 dresses that were just so spot on, I was like, "Why the fuck didn't I come here sooner!" and also I thought, "Why the fuck didn't the girls this morning get it this quick?!"


Natalie was so helpful, and didn't once make comment or pass judgement on my size.  It was such a totally different experience to before.  I found two dresses that day that I was quite taken with.  But still, something didn't feel quite right.

Panicking, I made MORE appointments.  This time with shops in Bromley.  I made 3 appointments in one day!

Basically, despite my sister's original feelings about tea length dresses, after my most recent shopping trip and the cold sweats induced by it, I had decided, this was my day, my one day to look super and so I was determined to get a tea length dress.  So I went with that premise. 

The first shop had nothing tea length and was full of really very fluffy, humongous dresses!!  I did find something nice in there but it was a size 14 sample size and therefore, I couldn't get into it.  The lady did promise she could get me a size 18 sample but I left it, knowing I had two more shops to visit.  I will probably still dream of that dress, a gorgeous 1930's Art Deco inspired chiffon creation. 

Onto the second one.  I had high hopes for this shop.  Marianne Jessica in Bromley.  I'm happy to name them as Michelle was SO helpful, it was such a breath of fresh air!  I was reassured when I made the call to book the appointment.  Michelle promised that she would help me as she was plus size herself and knew how stressful it can be.  I quickly realised that probably nothing would be within my price range but I vowed to try stuff on nonetheless.  I picked out all the tulle Chanticleer dresses.  First was the full length Rosita which was lovely.  The second was the Aurora which was tea length but a bit short.  Then came the Babilee.  Oh, oh, the Babilee.  The dress I had first coveted when I looked at the Chanticleer website and which I was unable to fit into on my first dress shopping experience.  It was amazing, I was totally in love.  Michelle measured me but she did hint that the overall price would be around £1400.  Oh.  Oh dear.  I suggested to my mum that perhaps I would go half with my dad to be able to afford it.

The one thing I did learn from Michelle, is that dress shops will quite often see a larger bride and assume we want to wear something frumpy/frilly/assymetric!  She put me in something frumpy, frilly and assymetric to prove her point and it was like a bolt of lightning!  I suddenly realised that this is what every other shop had been trying to do!  And it did make me laugh and helpfully shut my mum up because she realised how stupid that kind of dress looks!

We headed on to the third shop and stood outside for a minute deciding whether or not to go in and that maybe we'd send my sister in instead of me to try dresses on for a laugh.  We got up there and it was RAMMED!  It was really really offputting.  The shop assistants were busy putting all the dresses away and the changing rooms were all tiny!  There were brides in there with 5 people in tow plus brothers and the prescence of men I found particularly offputting.  I'm not saying, ban them completely, but, I dunno, I expect wedding dress shops to be havens of female dominated serenity.  This was not and I hated it.  I asked to go round the corner to a quieter part of the shop but after another 15 minutes of waiting, the shop had emptied until I was more or less the only one in there.

The assistant seemed VERY reluctant to let me try on the tea length dress, despite me telling her quite clearly it was my desire to have a tea length dress. She put me in two other dresses, both of which I said I didn't like and I didn't even step out of the changing room.  The third was quite nice and I was almost, ALMOST tempted.  The other assistant was bringing over various dresses and when I said I really didn't like it she just rolled her eyes at me and walked away.  I did find The One that day.  However, I decided to buy it from Aurora in Cheam (bare feet Natalie, who I loved so much, and spent most of my appointment sitting on the floor talking babies with!)

I won't divulge whether I went tea length or not (I'll keep you guessing until the big day, as I know some of my readers are actual guests at my wedding!!)

However, in a further disheartening move, my usual size 24 figure was rated as a size 30 by the designers size chart.  It's meant that I've had to order a size 28, and which kinda doesn't give me much to aim for (I had been hoping I could order a '22' and have something to aim for!!)  

I've rambled and I promised I wouldn't but the moral of the story is this:

• Know what you want!
• Don't let them put you in frilly dresses that, 'hide your bulk' if that's not what you want!
• Be prepared that most shops only carry samples in a size 12/14.  Some will do larger samples but I've found they're never in the ones I liked!
• Stand your ground - You are there to pay them ridiculous money for a few yards of fabric, You tell Them what you WANT! (without being too Bridezilla!)
• Seek out the shops with larger samples - they're few and far between but they do exist.  I know a few in Yorkshire, one in Datchett and one in Catford.
• See if the shop can order a larger sample.
• Go armed with pictures.
• Stick to your budget
• If all else fails - prepare for bespoke...!  I was on the verge of bespoke, crying into my bank statement, but bespoke doesn't always mean expensive (I say this, even though I know it ain't true!)

The whole experience has made me want to start my own plus size dress shop because I think we get a rough end of the deal (and I realise, that extends beyond wedding dresses, but I won't get into my fat activism here!)  I know very petite brides get a rough deal too, but, oh woe is me, plus size brides get a harder time of it.  Oh and the other thing.  We have to pay extra for being plus size....