Wedding Planning - What I've Learned So Far

So, I think as women we can all (well, most of us) can admit we have watched our fair share of wedding shows over the years. We have all said to ourselves 'I can't wait to plan our wedding' and that 'it will be so easy' and 'I won't get stressed like ya one on the tv'. Or at least I did anyway hahaha.

I have been planning our wedding now for just under a year and I have learned that it is not as easy as they make it look on TV, especially when your other half is hands off and lets you make 99% of the decisions. Sean is happy for me to make the plans and take them to him to see if there is anything he would like to include or change, he always said he did the hard part of proposing so its down to me now! Some may be offended by this but after seeing all the effort he put into our proposal and knowing how long he was planning for it, I just want to give him the wedding he is happy with and will remember for years to come. You can read all about Seans Disneyland Proposal here.

So you may ask 'how' when I say Sean is 'hands off'. Well he would like me to have the wedding of my dreams so he is happy to go along with anything I want and  agree with almost everything (so far there is not too much he has wanted to change or tweek). He leaves me to keep track of the budget and just asks if we have the money to do it. 99% of the time this is a blessing, but not so much when you want another persons input.

So, back to the point of this post, what I have learned a year into the planning process.

                                                       

1. Pinterst is my best friend! When you start planning you will be overwhelmed with the amount of information on the internet and magazines. I found that I was trying to remember all the different places I had seen things I liked or I was emailing links to myself so I didn't lose them. Pinterest has been a life saver for me. My biggest piece of advise if you don't already have a pinterest profile is to get one. This way all your ideas are in one place and you always have them to hand if you are thinking of something.

                                                       

2. Budgeting is key. There are so many ideas out there and things you will see and would love to do and I can see how easy it would be to spend an absolute fortune on your wedding day. There are days where I have to remind myself that there is a budget that both Sean and I agreed on and I won't go over the budget. Sure one thing may come in under budget and I will use the savings somewhere else but I would not increase the bottom line. Maybe that is the accountant in me. I had no idea where to star with a budget so we were lucky one of our friends sent us their budget template and in the template there was a lot of things I did not even think of. So, when we were setting our budget we googled the average prices of tings like suits, flowers, etc. and this has set us up with our budget. Remember, you don't have to go into debt to have the wedding of your dreams.

                                                         

                                                     

3. A lot of people will tell you what you should be doing. I think no matter who you are or ow close your family are you will always get told 'if you invite them you will have to invite these too'. I can say I have had a good bit of that over the year but recently I have made it clear that we don't have to invite anyone at all. This is the truth, you and your other half should have who you want there! My worst nightmare would be on my wedding day having people I don't know come up to me and I don't know their names. This is your wedding, who cares if someone thinks you should have ribbons or certain people there, you are the one paying and the one who will remember this days forever so make it perfect for you and your partner.

4. You cant please everyone. There is always going to be someone who does not agree with your guest list, or location, or choices for the day so stop trying to please people and just make sure what you have is what you and your partner wants. You are not having this wedding for other people, you are having it for yourselves so quiet frankly Feck em!

5. If you know what you want, book it! For some this is very easy, for others this is a hard decision. I think the fist thing to do is settle on a date and see venues, if you see a place you like and it is free it is ment to be, if it is not available for your date then it's not the venue for you. I was quiet lucky I always knew what church I wanted to get married in and where I wanted my reception, so one of the first things we did was book our dream venue. You will know when you find the venue that it is the right one for you.

6. Remember it is your day. Always keep this in your mind. You are having this day to celebrate the love between yo and the person you have decided to spend the rest of your life with, As long as you are happy with the day thats what matters!!

Kayliegh's Getting Married!!!!!!

So here I am with another life update, I told you I would be back with more!
So from the title you can gather I am engaged! After 8 years together Sean finally popped the question in the most romantic way I could ever think of!

For my birthday Sean told me he was taking me to Paris. Paris is somewhere I had always wanted to go. The culture, the food, the romance and of course Disney land! Knowing I was getting to go to a city I had always wanted to go to was the best birthday present I could have ever imagined. So we sat down and decided we were going to go in April over over the easter weekend. At this point we had not even thought about getting a house but that chance popped up after we had booked everything.

Forever Home!!

Well we sat down in January of this year (2019) and we decided to apply for a mortgage. We figured we had been through so much with the long distance for years , his summer in Chicago with his friends and we finally knew we could live with each other. So in January we decided to start the process and within a few weeks we had been approved and we went on the hunt for a house.
I knew I could never really settle in Dublin coming from a town. Dublin always just seemed so busy, open and loud, it was a shock coming from a small town where I could walk down the street in the middle of the night and feel safe. We lived in Malahide so it is not like we did not live in a safe area, it was just I have grown up in Dundalk and I know what to expect. t sounds crazy but I just cant explain, but I am sure it is the same for anyone if they grow up in an area they feel so safe and when they move they don't know what to expect. I know its crazy!
So, anyway back to the mortgage. I never thought Sean would want to move from Dublin but when we started to look at houses and the prices he was up for looking in commuter towns. to say I was shocked is an understatement. As I said I have grown up in Dundalk and all my family is here so it made sense for us to buy here. It is only 45 mins for me to get to work and Sean can get a local bus which gets him to the city centre in an hour.
We decided to move into a new build house in the estate I have lived in with my parents for the last 15 years. Some people would look at it as I did not want to move far from my parents but it is such a safe and family orientated estate with lost of open space for children to play in the summer.
As we have purchased a house towards the end of our 20's we know this will be our forever home and we are taking a view on it that this is the house we will be bring our children up in and our grandchildren also.

So, any advise for couples buying a home??

Cauliflower soup

This is one of the most tasty and simple soups you can make, especially if you have a handy soup maker like me. If you don't have a soup maker you can also make it in a pan so do not fret over the cooking of it.

Now I can not take credit for this recipe as it was another member of my Slimming world group that introduced us all to it. She made it for one of our taster nights and we have all fallen in love with the soup.

This is not only a warming and filling soup it is also a speedy soup and only takes to make as long as the cauliflower takes to cook! What more could you ask for????