READY, SET, PLAN

County Wedding Magazines editor Melissa Barker shares her wedding planning journey

Hello to all my fellow nearlyweds-to-be! My wedding is just over a year away, and as much as I hate to admit it, I’m officially a bridezilla! I’m obsessively organised at the best of times, but knowing we have a whole day to plan with all eyes on us has sent my OCD into overdrive. My fiancé, Dave, calls it ‘wedding brain’ and likes to tease me about my folders and schedules, but keeping everything neat is definitely helping reduce my anxiety. Obviously, I have ages until our big day, but I find myself dreaming about silly things, like the wrong flowers turning up, Dave forgetting his suit (a strong possibility) or my dress not fitting. Some of my friends tying the knot have admitted to being the same, so if you find yourself worrying about trivial details, don’t panic, you’re not alone!

FOOD, GLORIOUS FOOD

As some of you may know from last issue we’ve booked our gorgeous venue and were beginning to think about the best part, the food! Like most venues, ours has a list of caterers that we were asked to choose from for the wedding breakfast. We’re complete foodies and were excited to go through the menus and make a decision – even though the process did make me snack constantly and ruined my wedding diet. We needed to confirm a company without tasting anything due to lockdown restrictions, which the control freak in me found pretty stressful as we didn’t want to make the wrong decision. So before committing, we researched the companies, looked at reviews, compared prices, locations, COVID-19 policies and the menus until (finally) we had a winner. To keep things relaxed, we’ve decided on a barbecue instead of a traditional three-course meal and have booked a tasting for later in the year – hurrah!

PRETTY AS A PICTURE

Due to 2020’s wedding wipeout and the increase of rescheduled weddings to an already busy summer wedding season, we started looking right away for our photographer before they were all booked. I’ve worked at County Wedding Magazines for almost five years, and during that time, I’ve seen hundreds of amazing weddings, which made finding the perfect supplier feel really daunting.

We started by looking through wedding magazines and Instagram and narrowed down our list to five potentials. We found that most photographers don’t generally include their pricing on their website, so we emailed all of them and asked for their brochures and price lists. Once they’d all responded, we looked through the images and decided on the style we liked (the fun part) and how much we wanted to spend (the not so fun part). We organised video chats with two of them, and Dave, who is very decisive, felt an instant connection with the photographer who was recommended to us by a friend. He was lovely and put us both at ease right away. I made a list of questions to ask him (colour-coded of course), and he answered each one effortlessly. He had great reviews online, and we felt really confident about booking him. We’ve organised a pre-wedding shoot later this year, which will hopefully make us feel more comfortable in front of the camera!

Next issue, hear all about our flowers and my hunt for the perfect dress. If you have any tips you’d like to share, I’d love to hear from you. Drop me an email at Melissab@kdmediapublishing.com

Melissa. x

I’m hoping to grow my hair longer for the big day, so I can have loose curls with a beautiful hair piece.

A room full of candles is a must! Our venue has a lavender field nearby, so we’re planning to have our pictures taken there.

For my wedding ring, I’ve decided to have a row of diamonds that match my engagement ring. We’re not sure if we’re going to have wedding favours, but if we do, we like the idea of something like this.

I never wear make-up, so I’m planning to go for a very natural look.

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