I am a natural stress head, so I was very aware of comments that the week, and particularly the day before, the wedding can really test your ability to deal with tricky situations, so I made a conscious effort to try everything in my power to make the lead up to our wedding as stressfree as possible.
One of the best decisions that I made was to book the girls and I in for an afternoon of pampering the day before the wedding, and trust me, we needed it after the morning that we had!
Yes, while I'd put everything into practice to make the morning run smoothly with running sheets, table seating plans, a drawing with the layout of the reception venue configuration, dropping off wine and decorations prior to the day and asking a small army to help, setting up was still a little crazy busy!
No joke, we had about 40 there to help, which was very humbling.
We met at the yacht club at 9 to begin setting up. First things first was arranging the tables and chairs into order, which consisted of 4 x 4 large round tables for the guests, two rectangle tables along the front with the beach as a backdrop for the bridal table, a cake table to the right of the bridal table and card table to the left, and a small table for the band members.
Fortunately all Mick and I had to do was describe the layout and everyone snapped to it.
One of the longest tasks, and one that I had underestimated, was ironing the table cloths and napkins. Luckily I had thought ahead to bring one iron and an ironing board, but it didn't take us long to realise that we needed to bring in more reinforcements. By the end we had 3 people flat out ironing.
My aunty owns a wedding business so she showed two guests how to cover the chairs with the white chair covers, while she went around tying the tull sashes.
The groomsmen and groom all pitched in to hang the bunting, while I set up one of the tables with the table decorations ( a hessian runner, with a doily in the centre and 5 hand made glass jars with hessian, lace, old antique pages from books, blackboard paint and twine).
The girls then got cracking replicating this pattern on the 15 other tables.
The next big job that I underestimated was polishing and arranging the cutlery, crockery and wine glasses. The girls quickly got down to business with a concoction of water and vinegar, and tea towels to start rubbing away!
Luckily for me, another bridesmaid took charge and found the table names, compared these to our place settings, and divided the names up and onto each table so that we knew who was sitting where.
We also wrote the chalk numbers on the painted blackboard jars and hopped to it!
Before long, the place was transferred from dodgey looking old wooden tables and mismatched coloured chairs, to something out of a bridal magazine!
I think the craziest part was the bazillion questions chucked at you that was a little overwhelming at times, but without them, we wouldn't have been able to bring it all together.
After setting up for 3 hours with 40 people, we left the remaining few tasks for my aunty, the wedding decorator, and the boys went off to play golf, while us girls got ready for some seriously pampering.
Yes, I'd booked out an entire saloon for 12 of us to have manicures, pedicures and massages done while reading trashy celebrity magazines, drinking bubbles and chomping on all things junk food!
When I first walked into the saloon I was feeling rather frazelled after the mornings craziness but I put my hand up for the first massage and came out feeling a million dollars and like my head was floating in the clouds!
It was so relaxing to just sit and do nothing, except chat, enjoy the atmosphere and ambience of the candles flickering, music playing and the laughter of my gorgeous friends.
Luckily, Neats, the owner of Neats Nails, had employed a small army to look after our every needs (there were 4 girls), so we spent 5 blissful hours being pampered, and letting go of our pre wedding stress, anxieties and thoughts, to be taken to a place of total relaxation!
I seriously could not recommend doing this enough.
It saved having to race around to different beauticians and saloons to have nails done the week, day or day of the wedding.
It meant that I got to spend quality time with my girls who had all travelled from far and wide, just relaxing.
When do you ever pay to be pampered? We definitely don't do it enough!
There were plenty of laughs, love and letting our hair down!
It was well organised and they didn't even mind that we were running an hour late after the mornings proceedings!
I wouldn't have had the day before the wedding any other way. It set the tone for the whole weekend, that ended up being so relaxed and enjoyable!
I really have to say a huge thanks to Neats and her army, as the prices were super affordable, the girls were chilled out yet professional, everyone entered feeling frazzled and left feeling fantastic and it was a pleasure to have them apart of the experience.
Neats also beautified us in the morning with her make up, but I'll leave that for another blog post.
We were going to go out for tea that night but we were all so relaxed that we grabbed some pizzas, garlic bread and coke and all snuggled in back at the cottage to watch a girly wedding DVD!
Best day EVER (despite the actually wedding of course!)
Like Neats Facebook page to find our more about her business and how you can book yourself in for a day of pampering before your next big occasion.
https://www.facebook.com/neat.nails.3?ref=ts&fref=ts
Look after yourself and those around you,
Kirsty xxxx
Some snaps from the day!
Some snaps from the day!
No comments:
Post a Comment