Blue

‘Nothing I have is truly mine’ Dido – Life for rent

My mum has been up for the weekend. Now, before I go any further, let me say I love my mother dearly. We had some hellish times when I was growing up, but I love her. But she drives me up the wall at times, like this past weekend. She treats me like I’m 15 years old again, not 27 with my own life, job, house to look after, darling fiance, etc, etc.

She arrived on Friday lunchtime and I had spent the morning running round doing the shopping, preparing dinner, cleaning the flat and generally being house-wifey (on a separate note, I really enjoyed being house-wifey.) I picked my mum up at the station and once she’d drop her bag off and given me more birthday presents (yoga mat, reflexology kit) we went off to the arena for the wedding fair. All I wanted to do was get some ideas and get leaflets of local businesses and an idea of the kind of dresses that are around at the moment. We only had about an hour in there cos we had hotel appointments at 4 and 5, so I didn’t want to take ages. As it was, it was bigger than I expected and we probably only saw about half the stands but ended up with enough leaflets for a small rainforest. We tasted some gorgeous cake (and that made me decide we are definitely having a cake and more than likely it’ll be a specially made one) and looked at a few dresses. I saw a very nice one but the staff were rather rude which put me right off the shop. I’ve been searching the net this morning trying to find something similar. Anyway, we were making good time until my mum decided to have a couple of make-up demonstrations. I tried to relax but really didn’t want to be late for the appointments, which I tried to explain to her, but all I got was “if they want our business they won’t care how late we are.” Which may well be true, weddings bring in lots of money but I’m sure we’re not the only wedding in Newcastle plus that’s just not how I work. It’s rude to be late. If it had been the other way round I wouldn’t have been impressed, but anyway.

We ended up being 15 minutes late to the first appointment but it turned out the woman had completely forgotten we were going and booked the day off work. Someone came and apologised and showed us round though. The place was really nice, which I was happy about as it was my favourite out of the two. The reception place would be split into 3 rooms, the dancefloor/table area, a bar area and a separate room for the buffet. This was our only reservation, that certain family members would just spend the night in the bar room and not bother socialising in any way. They showed us a couple of bedrooms as well, to get an idea of size, etc and I have to say I was impressed. All we have to do now is wait for their 2005 prices which should be out by the end of the month. The second hotel we looked out was nice, but I didn’t like it as much as the first. The room appeared smaller and would have contained the dance floor, tables and the buffet. There were pillars in the middle which gave the effect of splitting the room although they said these would be removed. The bar was again separate, across the reception. My mum thought this was better because it didn’t feel quite so removed, you just walked across reception to the bar which was where the toilets were as well. I felt it was worse as the bar wouldn’t be exclusively ours so I wouldn’t feel comfortable socialising with others in there and wouldn’t want hotel guests trying to sneak in for a free feed (although maybe this is just my way of thinking). Anyway, we couldn’t agree on it and ended up spending the evening going through more venue brochures we picked up at the fair. In compromise we agreed me and Duncan would look at two more places, one in Jesmond and one in Boldon, which is near Sunderland, before we made the decision. The jesmond one has the bar in the same room, but not sure about the Boldon one. We bored Duncan, poor thing, with all the wedding talk and he escaped off to the computer for the evening.

On Saturday Duncan was working and me and my mum were off to the metro centre for the initial dress search. I was led to believe that wedding dress shopping was great, it made it all feel real, that I’d look at myself and see a beautiful bride. Big fat lie. I tried on 6 dresses in all and every single one made me feel even worse about myself. I learnt that I don’t suit strapless and apparently have fat arms cos they looked so horrible in the mirrors. Corset dresses look awful on me and when I tried on the dresses in Monsoon I didn’t feel bridal at all. I felt ready to cry by the end of the trip and I couldn’t explain that to my mum. She chose the cash machine queue to discuss my size and the size of my chest (really not the place), she wouldn’t listen when I said I wanted ivory/cream definitely no colours cos despite the fact that it’ll just be the two of us at the beach I still wanna feel like a bride. By the end of the afternoon my feet hurt, my head was throbbing in pain and I felt light-headed and sick. My mum seemed to think I was just upset cos I hadn’t found a dress, but I never expected to find THE dress on our first trip. I loved the dress I saw the day before and didn’t find anything like that. Maybe it’ll be better next time. My next tack is to find dresses I like the look of, that aren’t corset or strapless and then find stockists in newcastle so I can try them on. I don’t know who I’m gonna get to come with me though. Will have to see if Mel can take a weekend to come up again.

We went out for dinner on Saturday night to our favourite chinese place and then my mum left on Sunday morning. I spent most of sunday asleep on the couch, even missing the end of the blackburn vs chelsea game. I think the whole weekend, the wedding preparations and my mum was too much and took too much out of me. Here’s hoping that the rest of the plans don’t make me so tearful and stressed.

Until there is a next time…

xx