Right well I am VERY happy to report there is a new item of clothing in my wearable wardrobe as from yesterday. I actually managed to be able to fit in to both my Monsoon size 14 trousers without crying, and the heavier fabric pair are now wearable!! Yes, thank you thank you. I have taken them in to the local alteration place because they need taking up but I think I’ll wear them to work on Friday.
They have what I call a ‘starfish’ across the front where they are probably still a little tight and they pull causing wrinkles of fabric to radiate out from the crotch area (nice mental image, no?) but I think after one day’s wear they will be fine. The fabric is quite heavy and stiff, kind of like gabardine or drill cotton or something so they just need breaking in. But I am SO excited about them, SO excited. I’m not sure how well they really suit me is the only thing – because they are normal length (and I am short) any shaping detail on the legs get lost on me because they have to be hemmed. They are fairly straight-legged with side angle pockets on the hips which generally aren’t flattering to anyone with hips because they stick out and thus draw attention to the hip area. So I’m a little worried that they will just actually make me look short and wide. But I don’t care, they fit they fit they fit.
The lighter fabric ones are still not wearable and I can’t really tell any difference from last time I tried them on. There has to be a difference but in any event, they won’t be worn until well after we come back from Boston. My Zara cord skirt I couldn’t be bothered doing up (the zip is a little wonky) but I put it on without zipping it up and it still feels too tight across the hips. My ZB suit pants are almost wearable though which came as a real surprise. In my mind, they were a good size below the ZW pants that I am currently wearing (in how they fit that is as they are both 14s) but clearly there is not that much in it. I can’t wait to be in these trousers as they are much more flattering and better cut for me than the ZW ones. Not sure when that will be but we shall see. My black ZB suit skirt also now fits again (size 16 but it really is a small size 16) although it fits around the hips and thighs and is too big really around the waist. Wearable though.
I tried on other items as well which you will hear more about in the future. My size 12 James jeans are still not close to doing up (either side of the zip don’t even MEET let alone do up), my Glassons ‘city shorts’ size 12 go on and do up but not close to wearable (they’re supposed to be reasonably baggy and sit low on the hips). My two DvF wrap dresses (US size 8) don’t cover my chest when I put them on and they are very unflattering around the hips so I can’t even wear them with a tank top underneath. I hope to wear the long sleeved one of these dresses to the wedding I’m going to in July in NZ. I think a US size 8 is a UK size 12 but I’m not sure if the DvF sizes run smaller than normal or not, being designer and all. My size 12 Max white/pink/blue skirt goes on and does up but is not wearable. This is the skirt I was wearing when I got engaged and I would have been a good 5kg smaller then, so this is not surprising – well its surprising it goes on and does up I guess.
So those were the results of the March try-on. I may or may not have an April try on depending on how I’m feeling when we get back from the US. We’re back on April 1 but I will probably be feeling bloaty and disgusting so there may not be much point. Maybe I will try on a few things that weekend, giving me a few days to de-bloat. We’ll see.
I actually went to Next at lunch time to see if I could find some plain black work type trousers. I thought if I fit the 14s I would get them (petite size, not normal size as can’t be bothered getting them hemmed). I tried on 2 size 14s and they were just a tiny bit too snug – both gave me a starfish and because they were snug they sat quite high on my hips rather than lower down where they should be so they were shorter than they should be and just a little bit too short. So I decided not to get either pair I tried on. I didn’t bother trying on the 16 as I think they would be too big and I was only going to get them if the 14s fit. But I am in serious need of work trousers as I only have my ZW suit pants (and now my size 14 monsoons). Today I am wearing my size 16 Wallis grey stripe pants that are baggy in the gunt area. They aren’t fitting too badly but they are too baggy and they’re fresh out of the wash so they’re not going to get any better.
I need to get on and start thinking about a personal trainer too. I had a look at a few advertised at my gym when I was there on Sunday (oh yes, briefly my weekend went fairly well, I was under 1.5points for the whole weekend, I had 13.5points in alcohol for the whole week and managed 3 gym sessions for the whole week. Sadly I weighed in at 67.9kg on Sunday morning and this morning so that’s a bit of a worry) Anyway, personal trainers, I had a look at a few advertised and some refer to weight loss and toning as one of their specialties so I guess I’ll go with one of them. They are both guys and weirdly I am feeling a little squeamish about that – I think I would prefer a woman and that is weird because normally I don’t care about stuff like that. But anyway. There seems to be some sort of ‘tier’ system with personal training and one on one sessions start at £25 and go up to £45. Not sure what the difference is so will need to enquire. I probably should do that and make an appointment before I go away to Boston just in case there is a waiting list or something when I get back.
Wedding-wise, after all the excitement of getting my save the date cards back from the printer I haven’t bothered doing anything with them! We gave out 3 to the people we saw in Brighton on Saturday and I just wrote their names on the envelopes and they were well received (cue more ‘oh I’m not sure if we can make it’ crap from one of G’s good friends – will go in to that later). They thought they were really lovely and well done so I’m pleased with them. The main concerns I have with them is how to address the cards. We won’t be putting guests’ names on the card themselves, only the envelope, but it’s the style of writing I’m concerned about. I have a calligraphy pen and originally thought I would do fancy sort of calligraphy writing but I’m just not that good at it. And I’m worried the ink will all smudge and I’ll make mistakes etc etc etc so I’m putting off doing them. I then thought well maybe I should just address them in normal neat handwriting with a black ink pen but that doesn’t look very good either. So its all very confusing.
And the other thing I’m wondering about is whether we put our return addresses on the envelope. The cards say:
Please save the date
For the wedding of
WideBride and G
On [date]
At [venue, New Zealand]
Invitation to follow
They use only our first names and are going out to everyone, including far-flung relations we haven’t seen for years and years – some of whom wouldn’t even know who G was (or who I was, in the case of G’s relatives). My problem is I can just imagine some of the recipients receiving the cards and going ‘hey Ethel, we’ve got this here ‘save the date’ card from WideBride and G’ – just who in the heck are these people?’ (I don’t know why in my mind my relatives have American hick accents when they will all have eye wateringly strong Kiwi accents, but hey its MY imagination). So in order to save confusion, I’m wondering if we ought to put our full names and addresses on the backs of the envelopes so the relatives can easily figure out who we are. That means a LOT of writing though. Sigh. It’s a pickle.
So I’m quite nervous about getting started and I’m REALLY nervous about making mistakes on the envelopes and stuff and then trying to find some way to cover up the mistake, thus making it worse etc etc. We ordered 100 cards and envelopes for what we think were about 86 recipients (some being couples, families etc so they will get one card between them) so there are a few spares but its not doing a lot to ease my nerves. But it will be great to get them away anyway.
In other news, have had to put a deposit down for the videographer - $NZ900.00. But because he doesn’t have credit card facilities, I had to do an international bank transfer. Sweet lord how expensive does THAT get? You can actually do it online via personal banking but it costs like an extra £30 in charges which is the equivalent of about $NZ60. Highway fricking robbery. But no other way to do it other than asking my retired parents to pay the deposit and I’ll pay them back in cash when I see them next in June – and I just couldn’t handle the thought of the two of them going without food for months because it was their life savings (it wouldn’t really be the case but it’s a lot of money to ask people to stump up). So needs must.
So, so far I have booked the following – venue (which includes onsite catering and wine although paid for separately), photographer, videographer, first night accommodation, DJ, sting quartet, cars, flowers, hair and makeup. We have paid about £2000 in deposits (including also the save the date cards) but not all of those suppliers have required a deposit. Its an expensive business this wedding caper. But I think that is pretty much everything booked, except the cake maker who we will sort out when we are over in July and the celebrant (I think I mentioned that my Uncle is an Anglican Priest in Wellington, NZ and I hope he will marry us – we will ask him in July). So we are pretty far on track really.
While we were in Brighton we were catching up with two friends of ours, R and S who got married over here (they’re English) in September. When I told them that pretty much everything had been booked they were AMAZED and reinforced what I had already figured out really – its probably easier to organise a wedding from a different country because you don’t have as much choice as you would if you were there – you just have to book people on a leap of faith really, rather than ‘interview’ 15 florists or cakemakers or whatever. They were telling us what a shocker they had with their florist who basically ignored everything they wanted and then 2 weeks before the wedding announced that as they no longer had a business relationship with their venue they couldn’t do the wedding (they did in the end but it was a very stressful week while it was all getting sorted out). They ended up with lots of pink in the various bouquets which was the one thing the bride stressed she did NOT want so they weren’t very happy. From memory, the flowers were beautiful from my point of view but then I wasn’t paying for them. They also had an interesting experience with their DJ who interviewed THEM to see if he was interested in doing their wedding! The DJ said he would play the music they wanted ‘even if he thought it was rubbish’ but if a guest requested a track and he didn’t like it, he wouldn’t play it. Contrast this with DJ Chuck Woollery who seems will be falling over himself to make this ‘our special day’ (gag) and I think despite it all, we have the better deal.
To be honest, so far the wedding planning has been nothing but fun. I love researching all the different suppliers, and looking at different ideas and pulling it altogether. I’m sure this halcyon time won’t continue and the three weeks before the wedding are going to be hell on earth, but so far I just don’t really get what people complain about! (cut to fate really kicking me in the butt).
So this Thursday is the one year anniversary of our engagement and to celebrate we are going out for dinner (I’m getting a steak!!). I will also be presenting G with his engagement present (its been a long time coming!) which will be a rather substantial ‘blank cheque’ to spend at Berry Bros, a fine wine merchant in London. We have long lamented that we don’t have any decent French wine for cellaring so I think that’s what he is likely to choose. We’ll go along to the store on Saturday probably and G can pick out what he likes and we’ll either get them to store it for us or bring it home and cellar it there (God I hope they store it as we seriously don’t have a lot of room in the house). I think he’ll be really rather happy with that – and the best part is, I get to share it all, ahahahhaaa (evil villain laugh).
So this time next year we will be in NZ and no doubt feeling very very excited. As I said to a friend of mine, this time next year I will be about to get married and I will be THIN – and I think I’m more excited about being thin. Kidding! (Sort of…)
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