MY BEST FRIEND’S WEDDING

I can’t believe in two days time my best friend will be married. After 26 years of friendship, the day has come for me to play my role as Maid of Honour.

On the 2nd April 2015, James popped the question to Becky over a champagne picnic in the lakes.  I was at work when my phone started ringing… and I know that when Becs calls me during the day its a call I need to answer!

Becs: “I’M ENGAGED”

Me: “OH MY GOD! WAHHHH, how did he propose? whats the ring like? where are you? OH MY GOD. I knew it. I’m so excited!!! I’ll call you after work and tell me ALL!!!”

We always knew between us that we’d be each others Maid of Honours due to our long standing friendship.  The countless sleepovers we’ve had growing up are good memories of dreaming up our ‘dream man‘…

… he needs to be tall, dark hair, nice eyes, nice teeth, slim, funny, romantic, caring, loving, faithful, good dress sense, sporty… (the list went on…)

But now, I can faithfully say that we have both found our ‘dream’ men and I can’t wait to be by her side on her big day.

It’s thanks to Becky and James that I have found my other half Scott and also found new wonderful friendships.  It’s such a lovely thought to think that between us both, things have worked out so perfectly and we have such an amazing friendship group. I know that our friendship will never ever fade.

I haven’t attended many weddings and so being MOH was a bit of a daunting thought at first but with my passion to organise I’ve enjoyed every minute!  Planning Becky’s hen party in London was like a dream come true and I wish we could do it all over again!

The way I see the role of MOH is just to be there every step of the way.  Be a sounding board, be available, be honest and be a true friend.  In my eyes it’s nothing you would do different from just being a best friend.  When Becky asked me to be Maid of Honour, I stopped to think, do I actually know what I need to do?? And so google came into hand and so here is my advice…

Listening to the bride, making her laugh, and offering emotional and logistical support are all part of your MOH package. Here’s what’s expected:

• Plan the hen party
• Help the bride find her dress and attend all the dress shopping trips
• Help select the bridesmaid dresses
• Attend the fittings
• Help the bride choose her accessories
• Be the bride’s right-hand woman throughout the wedding planning and on the day
• Be a sounding board for whenever the bride needs you to listen
• Be honest and provide help and support
• Coordinate the bridesmaids on the day
• Ensure the bride has the most stress-free morning
• Help arrange her something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue

Wedding planning up until the big day can be stressful.  There’s so much to organise and so its important not to forget that the morning of the wedding is probably going to be when everything comes to a head. So its the MOH’s role to make sure the bride has a stress free morning and soaks in the moment.  Add these to your wedding morning to do list:

• Keep everyone on track – the MOH should receive a copy of the timeline and familiarise herself with the morning protocol, including hair and makeup appointments. That way, she can keep everyone on schedule and get them to the ceremony on time.
• Act as the point of contact – The MOH should give out her phone number to all of the key individuals in advance so she can help field any questions for the bride that morning. This will ensure that the bride remains relaxed and stress-free on her big day and that everything goes smoothly.
• Feed the bride (okay, not literally) – The morning of the wedding can be a fast and frantic experience and some brides simply forget to eat, the day has to start with good health and nutrition, as blood sugar levels can run low, resulting in irritability and the bride feeling tired.
• Be on drunk patrol – If you plan on enjoying some bubbly with the girls while you get glam, it’s your duty to try and keep the bride and bridesmaids to a one to two glass. It’s never a good idea to let the champagne flow without a good amount of getting ready munchies around.
• Help her get dressed – Getting a nervous woman into possibly the most expensive, elaborate dress she’ll wear in her life is no small task. You’ll want to be certain everything is laid out in advance, from undergarments to shoes to jewelry, so there’s no last minute scrambling.
• Be at her beck and call – While your BFF sits for hours getting gorgeous, she’ll need your help fetching things, dealing with her phone and generally calming her nerves the whole time
• Act as a gatekeeper – If there are family members or friends that are known to seriously stress out the bride, it’s your job to keep them away from her, as best you can.
• Make sure the bridal suite is spick and span – Technically, this will happen later on in the afternoon. Once all of the bridesmaids are done getting ready though, it’s the maid of honor’s job to make sure they clear their stuff out of the bridal suite so that the bride and groom don’t return to a messy room at the end of the night.
• Carry her essentials – The bride doesn’t usually carry a handbag so make sure she has a bag on hand that has any essentials she’ll need throughout the day such as make up, tissues, her mobile phone (and in Becky’s case, a supply of mini eggs).

If you’ve been asked to be Maid of Honour, you’re considered as one of her closest friends and so you’ll know her inside out.  You’ll know how to be there for her in the best way you can.

Becky to me is the most kind hearted person and the most wonderful friend I could ever wish for.  I’m glad I met the girl in the red polka dot dress in nursery and we’ll continue to have years and years of friendship between us. I can’t wait for the day we grow old together and our children become BBF’s!

I’m so happy she has found her perfect match and I am so incredibly excited to see them become husband and wife.

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MY TRUE BEST FRIEND

There’s been so many times when I needed you as my friend, no matter what the reason is you’ll be there till the end.

Every time I need to talk or I’m sad and feeling blue, you understand, you’re honest and you’ll give your point of view.

You always put me first if I need you to be there, I appreciate you doing this it shows how much you really care. 

Your unconditional friendship showed me the person I am inside, and just to be myself is something I never have to hide. 

If you ever need anything, anytime day or night, I promise I will be there to try and make it right. 

I hope I can do for you all the things you’ve done for me, a true friend is what you forever will always be. 

Kimberley Anne 

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Wedding Planners in Delhi

Ten Tips For a D.I.Y Wedding

Weddings can be expensive. While planning our wedding I noticed as soon as the word “wedding” was mentioned, the price of things seemed to double. We had never wanted to spend a lot of money on our wedding, we just didn’t see the sense in it for one day. However, the costs soon add up. We have received a lot of comments about how wonderful our wedding looked on a budget so I thought I’d share my tips with others in the same boat.

1. Use Pinterest for inspiration to choose your theme 
   
   and colours. It was an excellent resource which I used a lot during planning. We had decided on a country/vintage theme, which seemed to work well for our budget. By using Pinterest, we were sure of the look we wanted and what we would need to purchase to achieve it. Make sure you love your theme and colours before you start buying anything. Changing your mind with themes and colours can end up costing you a lot of money! Someone I know changed their colour scheme mid-planning and spent a lot more money than they had budgeted for.

2. Make your own Save the Date cards and invitations. I spent many hours designing ours on Photoshop, then we printed them ourselves. We hand delivered as many invitations as we could to save on the cost of postage (apart from the interstate ones, of course!). The cost of our invitations worked out to be about $3.50 each. If you aren’t any good with Photoshop or designing, Vista Print also have a great range of invitations ready to personalise and order.

3. Book everything and pay early. This will help with your budget. We booked everything in the beginning of our planning phase. Make sure you have the money for any deposits businesses need before booking as they usually only give two weeks to pay a deposit. By doing this we knew how much money we needed to put away every week to pay for the necessities. Things were paid off early which left more money in the final week leading up to the wedding – you just never know when an extra expense is going to pop up!

4. Enter competitions. You have nothing to lose and every little bit of help you can get will save you money! I entered a lot of competitions and was lucky enough to win one! It was a $100 voucher to get personalised glasses for our bridal party. Instead of costing us a fortune, we paid $6.50 for five personalised glasses.

5. Hire a community hall. Just as long as it suits your theme. We hired our local community hall, costing us $150. We had the hall for the entire week leading up to the wedding which meant we had ample time to set everything up ourselves. The hall had tables and glassware that we used which meant we didn’t have to hire. We saved a lot of money by hiring the hall and it suited our theme perfectly.

6. Ask guests to pay for their own meals. We have lived together for a long time and had everything we needed so we asked guests to pay for their own meals in lieu of gifts. We supplied the alcohol, soft drink and punch so our guests were not up for an expensive weekend to celebrate our special day with us. By asking the guests to pay for their meals we saved ourselves $1500 and guests didn’t need to stress about what they were going to get us as a gift!

7. Use recycled goods. Our centrepieces consisted of old books and glass jars. The great thing about doing the vintage/country theme is that most of what you need can be purchased from a tip shop, as some of our old books were. The glass jars we used were recycled jam and sauce jars which were decorated with hessian, twine, lace curtain material and ribbon. Other purchases from the tip shop included apple crates and doors as extra decorative pieces.

8. Hire the extras. We hired table cloths for every table for $6.50 each, chairs for every guest for $5.50 each and a wine barrel as a cake stand for $55. It works out to be a lot cheaper than having to buy it all yourself. And the added bonus at the end is that you don’t need to store it or sell it!

9. Have a lolly buffet. Our lolly buffet was our thank you gift to our guests. We purchased glass jars and utensils for serving from discount stores and Kmart and the paper bags and lollies were bought in bulk. It ended up costing under $10 per guest with the cost of everything included.

10. Get others involved. We are very blessed to have the friends and family that we do. They were all willing to help out in whatever way they could. A few family members grew roses for us for our centrepieces and other decorations. I can’t even imagine how much money this saved us as my bridal bouquet, the maid of honour’s bouquet and four roses for my hair cost $250 from a florist! We also done a lot of crafting of decorations with family so not only did we save time with more hands, it turned a job into fun!

We achieved the look we wanted and my expectations for how I envisioned our wedding day were exceeded. Our day could not have been more perfect and it was all done on a budget!

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Wedding Planners in Delhi