Back Down To Earth

It's been two weeks now since my wedding day and I have to say things are totally and utterly back to normal. You would almost think the day itself never happened except for the massive collection of photos which we are still waiting for (!) and the abundance of cards which I am today determined to take down.

My wedding day was as close to perfect as I could have hoped. The presence of thirteen children under the age of ten meant mega chances of things going wrong. But no. The food was all lovely, the magic knickers combo which I decided in the end to wear worked like a charm (no point feeling virtuous when no-one would know what I was wearing under The Frock apart from me - even lovely husband was cleverly deluded by my quick change in the bathroom before bedtime from parachute harness into delicate gossamer underwear with zero capacity to hold in, push up or smooth. By then it didn't matter!) Although I find myself stuffing random food into my mouth ever since the big day in the manner of Cookie Monster from Sesame Street (remember him?) simply because I CAN, after three months of watching every calorie in the interest of looking like a goddess for a day. Hopefully this impulse will subside soon before I put back all the baby weight I lost!

The only thing that marred the day was a moment of stress with my mother, who halfway through the evening approached me to ask angrily when I was going to sit with her. Lovely husband and I, along with new mother-in-law were taking turns to do half-hour shifts upstairs watching the small one sleep in a travel cot and so when I was around at the evening party I tended to be flitting from one person to the next. As I said to my mother, I has assumed she was fine with the group of friends I'd invited that are her friends really, not mine. But unfortunately it seemed not. I ended up overreacting totally and spending my next upstairs half-hour in tears. As my best mate said to me the next day, it wouldn't be a wedding without an argument, would it. The whole thing was made worse when next day my mother rang to apologise and confessed that she had lost my bouquet, which I had asked her to put on my dad's grave. I told her it didn't matter, as she was so upset. But to me it does matter, and I am still striving to move on from this.

I have smoothed things over with my mother, and things are back to normal. Except that I feel more than ever that the quality of my relationship with her was dependent upon the presence of my father. And this does worry me.

But enough of the downside, I am now happily married to lovely husband and had the happiest happiest day. Photos on their way, as soon as I get my paws on them!

Nine Days To Go...

As I write this I look like I should be attending a glittering red-carpet premiere or glossy Hollywood party rather than looking after a house and a toddler. At least that's true from the neck up, as I'm wearing my usual jeans and T-shirt combo. This morning I had my wedding hair trial.

I am one of those people who never likes their hair when the stylist has just cut and blow-dried it. In fact, I have never had my hair cut before and not immediately gone home and washed it and restyled it myself. This is no reflection on any of my hairdressers (there have been a few), and I always compliment them and tell them I love it, it's just that I never really feel like me when they've finished. I don't know if anyone will relate to this, or if it's just particular to me, but it's just the way I am. The current trend for use of straighteners has made the problem worse, as my hair is quite thick and even when I straighten it myself it still has a bit of bounce. But when straightened professionally at the salon after a cut, in its perfect glossy state it just looks to me as if it's had every ounce of life ironed out of it.

Therefore I approached this morning with a certain amount of trepidation, since I am relying on Sam the Hairdresser to make me look like a goddess on the big day, and there will be no washing and re-doing myself this time. But there was no need to feel stressed! I now know that my years spent striving for straight hair out of my nightmare tresses (not curly enough to be properly curly, but wavy enough to be a right mess when left untamed) have been misdirected. All this time I should have been having some kind of perm!

I decided I wanted loose waves putting in, in an effort to look glamorous but still recognisable as me. I hardly ever wear my hair up, and so there's no way I was going to start on my wedding day when everyone that knows me will be analysing me from all angles. Sam got her straightening irons out (how is it that straightening irons are now THE thing to use for curls?) and within the hour it was finished. She pinned up a couple of strands 'for height' and put in a couple of these hair jewel things and I swear a miracle had taken place. I look like I belong on a film set and now I've stopped feeling relieved, I am sooooo excited. All I need to do now is hold firm, keep away from the chocolate and cakes for only another week and I should be home free!

Two Weeks To Go

I cannot believe how quickly it has arrived. I now have exactly fourteen days to fine-tune and perfect every aspect of my wedding plans before it is too late. I thought I was doing really well, had everything under control and was totally calm, however my subconscious obviously feels differently as I had a horror dream last night in which everything that could go wrong did go wrong.

In my dream I was in the bridal suite at the hotel getting my entourage of small children ready for the bridal party and was inexplicably unable to locate the small one's dress. Lovely fiance's mother was saying soothing words along the lines of allowing the small one to follow me down the aisle in vest and bloomers while I tore the room apart looking for them. This was followed by the venue manager throwing open the doors of the ballroom (where we are to be married) to reveal a church organ playing the bridal march. As my sleeping brain comprehended that we are not being married in church, the music suddenly shut off and was replaced by scrabbling sounds as the iPod (which should and will be playing our chosen song) failed followed by the sound of my mother getting to her feet and bursting into song.

I woke in terror and have spent the morning desperately going back over the wedding plans and writing reams of instructions for the venue manager in order to avoid such an occurrence. As I said yesterday on the phone to best friend, who is attending with her husband and four children under 7 (how does she do it?), I have to relax and accept that everything cannot possibly go to plan when the guest list includes 13 kids, three of them under 2. I also questioned her on the concept that it isn't possible to get drunk on your wedding day. Someone told me this before my first wedding back in 1996 and sure enough, I put away a large amount of gin and tonic plus wine and was still totally lucid and sober on that day. However she brought me back down to earth by saying 'if you drink a lot of wine, you will get pissed', and pointing out that on her own wedding day she vaguely remembers taking her stockings off in front of someone, but she can't remember who, she just knows it wasn't her husband.

I will be pacing myself with sparkling water.

Swinging The Lead

Eleven-year-old son's successful integration into the new secondary school hit a hiccup yesterday when I received a text from his father (it was the kids' weekend with their Dad and he takes them to school on the Monday morning) informing me that son had 'cricked his neck and can hardly move'. I dutifully rang the school to inform them and then waited for an update from ex-husband's household as to son's condition. Eventually I heard from son's stepmum (so confusing all these relatives!) that she'd called the doctor out as he was in so much pain. At this point I bundled the toddler into the car and drove over there to see for myself. At the back of my mind was son's amazing oscar-winning ability to act sick at will.

On arriving there, the doctor had just left and stepmum informed me that son had pulled a muscle in his neck and it would take a couple of weeks to fully subside. Apparently he would need a few days off school and plenty of rest. Despite bowing to the doctor's greater medical knowledge I couldn't help noticing that son, though lying flat on the sofa, was still in full possession of the TV remote and immersed in 'My Name Is Earle'. As I watched he chuckled at the TV. Alarm bells began ringing.

After helping the poor invalid from the sofa and supporting him to my car, I drove the three of us back home and settled son in the lounge with a hot water bottle. The small one was enchanted to have him home with us for the day and pottered about the room. As the day wore on it became gradually clear to me that, in fact, there was very little wrong with him. He was miraculously still able to operate the laptop for example and claimed he can use the PS3 because it demands he sit up straight.

When I used to work, the children had to be dying before I would let them take a day off, however the knowledge that I am at home all day with the small one seems to have affected their immune systems because they claim to be sick far more often these days than they ever used to. Son has been dispatched back to school today on the basis that if he can sit at a desk with a laptop, he can sit at a desk in a classroom.

The First Week at Secondary School is a Success!

With the first week of his secondary education just about over, eleven-year-old son seems to be settling in well. The mile long walk to school resulted in his arriving home ten minutes or so after I myself got in from picking up nine-year-old daughter on the first two days. As I opened the door he fell in gasping for air and moaning that he was 'exhausted...need a drink...' The last two days however, he has been sitting on the wall waiting when we arrived back in a cheery mood and announced that he thinks the walk 'is doing me good'.

The lessons themselves have drawn a mixed bunch of reviews. He liked Science, as the clearly savvy teacher had picked as a first topic Forensic Detection, extremely interesting for the kids seeing as half of them are probably watching CSI regularly. He wasn't keen on Religious Studies, mentioning that the teacher had gone around the class one by one and it turned out that no one in the room believes in God. And I read his first effort in his English book 'About Me', which describes his home life. He mentions my divorce in the first sentence and goes on to say that he has two extra parents, one for his mum and one for his dad, and lots of extra siblings, four from Dad and two from Mum. Two of these six siblings are nine-year-old daughter, who has apparently been counted twice as she shares the same parents as him! All very confusing.

The only negative I've heard so far is that he 'doesn't get the maths' and when I questioned him further he said 'you have a sum and then they add in a letter n and I don't understand it!' Lovely fiance pointed out that it is called algebra, and I experienced a horror flashback to my own maths class, where my brain (clearly inherited by eleven-year-old son) struggled to grasp the concept. I comforted son with the statement that he won't be the first kid that has trouble with that, and neither will he be the last!

Less Than Four Weeks To Go... Aaargh!

After nine months of that lovely warm feeling directly resulting from the knowledge that lovely fiance loves me and my insane older kids enough to want to get married, it is now suddenly replaced by nerves and terror at the realisation that there are less than four weeks to go until the wedding. I still haven't found a pair of shoes I like, I haven't lost the last few pounds that would mean I can wear the delicate lace underwear rather than the magic knickers/ultimo bodysuit combo, and tomorrow I am booked in to go handbag shopping with my mother who can instantly bring me to the edge of my sanity with nothing more than a well-placed comment.

As a (dare-I-say-it) welcome diversion from all this, I have eleven-year-old son's first homework project to deal with. After his first three days at secondary school, he seems relieved that the onslaught of homework that he and his friends had hyped themselves up to expect has yet to materialise. I read his homework diary yesterday in order to sign and confirm that he'd completed all tasks set, and saw that of the two outstanding tasks one of them is for next week's English class and is to 'bring in a book or magazine'. No wonder the education system is on its knees.

The other outstanding task has now been added to my own 'to do' list. I found him on this very laptop on Friday in a savage mood because his Spanish homework (mildly impressed that he has Spanish on the curriculum) requires him to 'decorate Spanish exercise book with Spanish themed stuff', and in attempting to print vaguely Spanish pictures from the internet he realised (apparently for the first time) that our two year old printer does not print in colour. His insistence that 'everyone has a colour printer' was met by my own insistence that no they do not, and the argument reached a crescendo with his use of the below-the-belt 'Dad has got one'. At this point I am ashamed to say I degenerated into snarling fishwife mode and with my customary immaturity during these moments suggested that he do the homework at Dads' then.

As is usual after any loss of temper with elder son or daughter (less so with the small one as I seem to have more patience with children who can't yet talk) I beat myself up for the rest of the evening and tried to make up for my childish outburst and rubbish parenting skills by absurdly overcompensating with the homework assistance. This is why today I am going into town to the travel agent to pick up a couple of brochures for Spain, plus a roll of that sticky-backed plastic book cover stuff which my own mother never bought for me and which meant my French book at school was covered in kitchen clingfilm and looked absolutely rubbish next to the rest of the class's efforts. I will however restrain myself from actually cutting out and sticking the pictures on son's behalf, and will therefore still be able to kid myself that when I tick off this particular task in the homework diary it was completed by him!

The Look Of The Blog is A Work In Progress!

I am currently attempting to make my blog look more like the delicious ones I keep coming across while reading through the carnival results, with reference to Insomniac Mummy's fab list of sites. However a little knowledge really is a dangerous thing so please bear with me while the blog looks like a mish-mash of styles and colours and it hurts your eyes to read it! Give me a month or so and I might have mastered it!!

Father Of The Bride Problem Is Solved..

Today I can relax. As much as is possible while minding a fifteen month old who has discovered how cupboards open. But still compared to yesterday I am practically serene. Eleven year old son turned up yesterday at 3.30pm on the dot having managed the first day at secondary school despite his obvious nerves. I'd never seen him so touchy as he was in the morning, even when I moved both the older kids to their new school two years ago following my divorce, before the small one was even thought of and when lovely fiance was still lovely boyfriend. They both coped so well with all the upheaval while I beat myself up daily at what I was putting them through. But it seems the prospect of the huge secondary school after his village primary was a far more scary prospect to him. Or perhaps it is just that he is that much older and able to worry more like an adult. (Not sure I like that really, although it must be inevitable).

The other big stress of yesterday was the venue meeting for our wedding next month. But having spent an hour with the hotel manager ironing out all the details of our day, I came away totally confident that even if it doesn't run smoothly we will still have a fab time. He didn't bat an eyelid at the number of children in our party and made it sound like he organises these things every day. I guess he probably does. Best of all he made a suggestion which has made me feel better about the one secret upset I've had about my wedding day.

My lovely father died two years ago very suddenly of liver cancer, and while I am generally used to it now, I still feel a massive gap where he should be at certain times. A constant one of these times is whenever I look at my smallest daughter and know how much he would have adored her, and she him. But with the wedding coming ever closer I find I miss him for the role he would have taken, and the reason I am secretive about it is because I can't help but remember him on my first wedding day - how he made me feel calmer, how proud he was - and my first wedding day is really not a subject I could ever visit with lovely fiance without being incredibly insensitive and crass.

Instead I have made my feelings known in a less mature fashion, basically by being a pain about bits of the proceedings that would have involved Dad. I have insisted that eleven year old son give me away, for example, despite the fact that he really isn't keen on the idea and would rather sit in the background. I have chosen him because he is the one person who couldn't be construed as a father figure but who is also a close male relative. The bigger issue though, is being driven to the ceremony. At my first wedding my father waited alone with me in my parents' front room for the white rolls royce we'd hired. He poured me a sweet sherry and told me that was what my Mum's father had done for her on her own wedding day. He was so nervous about walking me down the aisle. Those few minutes we waited were some of the sweetest of my life. I have been adamant that I don't want anyone else to drive me to the venue to marry lovely fiance. Lovely fiance is mystified by this, and insists that the idea of me driving myself in the peugeot 207 in full wedding outfit when I could be driven by his own father in his ribbon-bedecked porsche is ludicrous. For lovely fiance it is all about the car. He doesn't see that I don't want his dad taking my dad's place in even the tiniest of ways.

The fabulous venue manager has solved this problem unknowingly and effortlessly by offering me the honeymoon suite from the day before the wedding right through until the day after. I can take all my garb to the hotel, drive myself and elder daughter there wearing jeans and t-shirt, and get dressed on the premises without having a moment where my father should be and isn't. For this I am so grateful. And the only thing I have to put out of my mind is how much Dad would have approved of the free bar and remember that where he is, all the drinks are free.

Happier post tomorrow, I feel.

A Stressful Week Ahead

After a lovely quiet bank holiday weekend, I now have a stressful week to face. First and foremost the older two kids go back to school tomorrow, but the whole thing is intensified by the fact that this will be eleven year old son's first day at secondary school. There is an air about him of being on death row. I am contending with this, combined with the other big event tomorrow (WHY did I book it in on the same day??) which is our last meeting with the venue manager, at which we tie up all loose ends and finalise all details of our wedding before the big day in (stab of nervousness) less than five weeks' time.

None of the kids' new school uniform has yet been named, lovely fiance and I are unable to agree on a main course and vital questions keep coming to me at random moments, such as the need to find out how many highchairs the hotel possesses for our army of child guests. The randomness of these thoughts makes me nervous, as I just know I am bound to forget an important detail. And I know I must be fully organised as lovely fiance cannot be relied upon to take control of the venue meeting, except possibly as regards the menu on the day (the suggested meal is Beef Wellington, but lovely fiance detests mushrooms and it seems they are a vital ingredient of this dish. When our best man suggested he 'just scrape off the filling', lovely fiance pointed out that 'it is my wedding day and I will not be doing any scraping'. We cannot agree whether a wedding menu should be chosen because it includes dishes you like yourselves as the couple to be married, or whether you should pick crowd-pleasers).

However, I think I was coping admirably with all these things, maintaining a calm mummy exterior, until that one final thing pushed me over the edge into snarling fishwife mode. What is this thing? Quite simple. In the thick of all the organising and planning I find I have forgotten to buy more baby wipes at the weekly shop last Friday. When do I discover this fact? When the small one is lying on the changing mat with nappy half-off. I am at that point where I have gone too far to just reseal the nappy tapes until I can go and find some alternative cleaning materials. I have no choice but to tackle the nappy at that moment. I use the last remaining wipe in the pack, thinking as I do that I might be able to perform the whole job using just one instead of my normal handful and wondering about the associated money I could save by doing this at every nappy change! Of course this proves to be completely wishful thinking. The small one had picked the worst moment to produce a particularly resilient nappy. Holding her down with one hand I scrabble through the basket of baby paraphernalia we keep in the bathroom with the other, in search of cotton wool, stray wipes, anything, but to no avail. I try hollering for lovely fiance, first in a mild voice, then with gathering momentum as the small one decides it might be a fun plan to see how far down her body she can get her hands. Without an answer I raise my voice to a level which might even have sent the next door neighbour scuttling for baby wipes, should he possess a pack. But to no avail.

To cut a long story short, when hoarse from yelling for any member of my family to assist without success (I spend half my life with one or other of my older kids invading my personal space but when a moment arrives when I need their help, both seem to inexplicably disappear), I eventually wrap the small one's lower body in a towel, which depending on the aftermath I will either wash or bin, and decamp to the kitchen where I am able to mock up baby changing kit using kitchen towels and water. The small one remains remarkably well-behaved throughout this, obviously tuned in to the fact that Mummy is at breaking point and one wrong move could send her over the edge.

Crisis over I add a visit to the supermarket to my 'To Do' list and face up to the rest of my stresses, which are all still there. I cannot help wondering how on earth previous generations coped before the invention of the baby wipe, but resolve not to question my mother about this as I feel the answer when delivered in her inimitable style may well challenge my already shaky belief in my own parental ability. I will content myself instead with buying in a sufficient stockpile of wipes to service a whole gang of babies for the next six years.

A Trip To The Dr Who Exhibition

It's actually a real challenge to come up with new places to go and things to do which please all my three kids at the same time. Although as the smallest one is still only fifteen months old what I really mean is things that please the eleven and nine year old and to which the toddler can be dragged along without much grief.

Therefore I was congratulating myself in anticipation of our visit to the Dr Who Exhibition in Cardiff this week - since Dr Who is probably the one show on TV that we all drop everything to watch. How could the kids not be impressed? However nothing in my life ever goes that smoothly, I should have known, and I draw a lesson from it to lower my expectations of my impending wedding day.

The idea itself was a good one, and lovely fiance reckoned the journey would take about an hour and a half in the car - if timed to coincide with the morning nap time of the small one this would work well. But we unfortunately didn't take into account the fact that there seem to be roadworks on every motorway in the country at any given time, and thus large portions of the M4 in both directions were cordoned off with bollards for no apparent reason, as we counted no workmen whatsoever during the entire journey. The built-in satnav in lovely fiance's car tried to calculate a new route 'to avoid delays', however I find it so hard to trust the thing when the road at the time of the announcement is clear and virtually empty. And so you continue past the junction and hit the queue a mile or so later, cursing yourself for not relying on the robot, who in our car is known as 'Lara' after Lara Croft Tomb Raider, don't ask me why.

We eventually arrived at the Dr Who exhibition, which proved to be really good, full of costumes, memorabilia and buttons to press for interactive moments. The kids loved it. Unfortunately it also turned out to be really small, something not mentioned on the website. You would be hard-pressed to get more than an hour out of it, I feel. We managed to fill up another couple of hours by wandering a bit aimlessly around Cardiff Bay, occasionally pointing out one of the Torchwood locations and taking photos of each other. And then we had pizza at Bella Italia before heading home. Ever the optimist, lovely fiance stated that the road had seemed pretty clear in the direction of home, however he was quickly proven wrong and we spent a further two and a half hours in the car. During this time, the best-behaved child in the car was the toddler. The older two whiled away the time by bickering and then degenerating into a more physical playfight game which brought out the hostility in me and eventually forced even lovely fiance, the most mild-mannered person in the universe, to demand peace and quiet. I made my usual threat to remove the scart cable from son's playstation 3, and calm quickly followed.

Despondent at the failure of what I had thought a dead cert for parental points, I have resolved to take them all swimming next time - the only surefire crowd pleaser, but which unfortunately requires me to wear a swimsuit in a public place, something I detest doing. However the following day, with the memory of the horror car journey beginning to dull, elder daughter gave me a cuddle and said the day before had been great and the exhibition was 'so fun'. And I heard them both telling a friend about it enthusiastically. So all is not lost, and maybe any family time spent venturing outside the box is always worthwhile.

Baby Photos At The Supermarket!

While the older two kids were away on holiday, lovely fiance accompanied me to our local Morrisons to do the weekly shop instead of doing what he normally does, which is leave it to me to trawl around with the toddler in the trolley while he has a round of golf. On this one occasion we are accosted as we walk through the door by a smiling young man offering to take our small daughter's photo (for a local radio competition) and take advantage of an associated offer of prints at a fixed price. Looking beyond him I could see a tiny area in the supermarket foyer where he'd set up his kit, with the obligatory fluffy blanket on a table on which he presumably expected the small one to sit still. Mindful that our small daughter has to be restrained to keep her in one place longer than a few seconds, I immediately politely refused without even stopping the trolley, however my words 'no, thanks', were still hanging in the air when I heard lovely fiance agree to take up the offer and turned to see him lead the way towards the mocked-up studio. (When questioned later about his blatant disregard for my refusal, lovely fiance cited the fact that the guy had used the word 'free' when speaking to us and so he chose to overrule me!)!

The photographer lost no time in taking our details and indicating that we should plonk the small one onto the furry table. As lovely fiance lifted her from the trolley I noticed a stain on the front of her dungarees obtained earlier in the day at lovely fiance's mum's, where she had spied an opportunity and absconded with one of the chocolates from a box that had been left open on the table (you can tell this was a toddler-free house). I chose not to point this out though, secure in the knowledge that our daughter would never sit still for long enough anyway that the guy could take an adequate picture of her, and that in five minutes we would be back in the salad aisle.

How wrong I was. The guy was truly gifted. The small one looked at the fluffy rug underneath her with interest and within seconds he launched into a quickly improvised game of peekaboo, using one of his promotional leaflets and much repeating of her name. The small one smirked, then grinned, then (even now I can't believe it) leaned into the camera and smiled adorably. Lovely fiance and I were both awestruck. In two minutes it was all over, and she was back being held down in the trolley while he showed us four perfect shots of her on his computer. We were told to come back in a few days' time to choose the pose we wanted entered into the competition, and to take up our option of purchase of further pictures if we wished.

Yesterday we went back for our viewing and have returned home with a selection of fabulous pictures in which our insane toddler looks totally angelic (except for the chocolate stain). When it came to selecting the pose for the competition, lovely fiance showed exceptional interest, adamant as he is that his daughter is the most beautiful child in the UK, until the bloke mentioned that the winner would be chosen 'at random.' On questioning him further it turns out that in previous competitions, certain families have fiddled the phone vote by calling multiple times for their child, and so it's considered fairer to do a random selection! Lovely fiance was aghast, intending as he had to call multiple times for his child. So now we await the random result which should be revealed later this week! I will keep you posted if the small one turns out to be a winner!

Back To Normal - Almost

The older two kids have been back for less than 24 hours and already the house is a sty! I am still in the rosy stage where I can remember clearly how much I missed them so I am letting it go for now. By the end of the weekend though, the end of my tether will probably be reached.

On collecting them from ex-husband's house (their father), eleven year old son lost no time in telling me about the apparent infestation of various insects at their holiday accommodation. He can be given to exaggeration so in reality there were probably a couple of ants in the bathroom, but son made it sound like he'd spent two weeks in a Thai prison rather than a villa in La Manga. Both kids complained about earwigs in the bedroom and son claimed that he could 'only sleep with a blanket over my head or wearing swimming earplugs in case an earwig crawled in my ear in the night'. They both declared themselves 'glad to be home'. In son's case this meant disappearing to his room for the next 3 hours to update himself on the world of the PS3, while on entering the house and before even putting her bag down nine-year-old daughter insisted on baking a cake. At 4pm with the dinner on and the toddler to feed I felt it better to wait til the next day, but it seems she had spent the whole two weeks planning a cookery session as soon as she was back under our roof and I just didn't have the heart to try and talk her out of it.

Baby daughter was thrilled to see them and was immediately changed into the pink fringed 'La Manga' t-shirt dress they had bought for her. And son presented lovely fiance with a Ferrari keyring so that 'even though you don't have one, people will think you do'. I was amazed at how well the kids know him. Lovely fiance was delighted.

As I write this both the older kids are still in bed and the house is still fairly quiet as I am feeding the small one's current obsession with 'In the Night Garden' while I have a cup of coffee. I am enjoying the calm before the storm as when I mentioned that I'd found the perfect wedding shoes for elder daughter (bit of a heel so she feels grown up, but sensible enough that she still looks like a child rather than a nightclubbing teenager) she requested that we go and try them on today. This can only result in an argument of mega-proportions for which I am bracing myself, as her yardstick for wedding shoes seems to be whether or not they would be worn by Sharpay in High School Musical.

Overall though, as I said to lovely fiance last night, I'm happy because all my babies are back under one roof. It's just a question of how long the parental patience I've built up in their absence will last me!

Family Of 3 Become 5 Again - Hurray!

Today my older two kids are coming home from their two week holiday in Spain with their father. As I write this they are currently airborne. For two weeks lovely fiance and I have only had the baby with us and at the beginning when I dropped the older kids off I was thinking it would be an enjoyable time and we should make the most of being just three. However as each day has gone by I realise more and more clearly how fundamental each of the kids are to our family life.

The small one seems oblivious to their absence and has simply been her normal demanding but delicious self. Lovely fiance I have no doubt has enjoyed the peace and quiet, although he's had to put up with me pining for them both. And I really should have enjoyed having the house tidy for a change and not having to turf eleven-year-old son off my laptop constantly. Nine-year-old daughter is the messiest child in the universe and I should have made the most of not having her raking through my make up and clothes as well as not having to have Disney Channel blaring Hannah Montana out on a loop.

However I have found that without them these things are what I miss most. The things that cause us to interact, admittedly the things that at times drive me up the pole. But the house has seemed quiet and too well-behaved without them and so I am filled with nothing but excitement at the prospect of collecting them later on and I am cooking roast chicken with all the trimmings (lovely fiance rolled his eyes at this as it's the middle of summer and mid-week) because it's their favourite meal and I imagine they must have lived on fried food throughout their holiday.

Give me a week and I will be snarling at them in my normal way when I have to ask son five times to do something before he actually does it, or when I find yet another outfit worn for five minutes then discarded on the floor by elder daughter. But for now let me enjoy this moment of clarity of just how much I love them both to pieces and how our lives are all the richer for their chaos.

What Does Your Car Say About You?

Last night lovely fiance and I are discussing friends that we have invited to the wedding when lovely fiance passes comment on their car. Not particularly remarkable you might think, except that for the first time it dawned on me that this is a surprisingly common theme.

For example I could mention someone I've met and blather on about where they work and what they look like etc etc, and lovely fiance will inevitably ask me what car they drive.
'Hmm, not sure,' I say, 'Mercedes?'
'Never been keen on the Mercedes,' he will say. 'Nouveau riche.'

When I first met lovely fiance he was driving a very sleek Audi TT. We had a few outings before baby daughter arrived where the elder two kids were squashed complaining in the back of it. But to his absolute credit he quickly stepped up to the plate and offloaded the sports car for a big Audi A4 as soon as he realised he wanted us all to be together. This has not, however, affected his ongoing interest in cars, or changed the fact that his view of people is influenced by the model they choose to drive. Lovely fiance definitely has a taste for the top of the range Porsche as well as something called the Alfa Spider. Whatever that is. Sometimes we will be driving along and he will mutter the make of the car in front under his breath, or tell me to 'check out that Bentley. Seventy grand that must be.'

All of this has never really crystallised in my mind as something I could relate to, however following our conversation about friends and their cars I realised that I do exactly the same. Only it doesn't relate to cars, in my case the yardstick for my judgement about other women is their clothes, their handbags (I LOVE handbags) and especially how thin they are. I distinctly remember thinking when I met the girlfriend of one of lovely fiance's friends recently that her Prada glasses were a bit in-your-face and showy, and wondering if that meant she was too. So it seems lovely fiance and I are not so different after all.

The Non-Surgical, Non-Cosmetic Makeover

Lovely fiance and I went shopping in Bath at the weekend. Two reasons for this, one was to collect lovely fiance's wedding ring, which was initially too large and needed altering. The other is that elder daughter and son are still away in Spain and the opportunity to shop without them was too good to miss. Much as I love them both I have no desire to trawl around Game shops for cut price Playstation 3 games, and then should a suitable game be found and purchased put up with eleven-year-old son's ongoing requests for updates as to when we will be going home. Once his mission is accomplished he loses all interest (I hope this isn't a trait that will carry on into adult life.) Nine-year-old daughter loves to shop but can be relied upon for challenging my taste in suitable clothes for her up to the point where an argument is inevitable, and we all end up returning home in savage moods.

Anyway, lovely fiance and I, with toddler in tow, duly collected his wedding ring and then prepared to do a spot of shopping, and he lost no time in dragging me into Currys to look at cameras. Now we already have a few-months-old perfectly good camera, bought in the Christmas sales, which has the ability to produce excellent pictures. However despite my protestations that we really don't need another camera in our life, it soon became clear that lovely fiance had his heart set on a smaller pocket-size camera for the more impromptu candid snapshots when out and about. I had to agree that our camera is quite bulky and does demand some forethought when going out (firstly to remember to bring it and secondly who is to be lumbered with carrying it). Still, it did seem like a bit of an unnecessary purchase when balanced against my ever-increasing wedding budget.

But how glad I now am that lovely fiance stormed ahead and bought the thing! On getting it home and trying it out, lovely fiance discovers that this camera has something called a 'Beauty' mode. We are initially mystified as to what this could mean (lovely fiance is one of those people who never reads instruction booklets, he prefers to feel his way around the product until it refuses to perform correctly). However, when lovely fiance does a 'before' and 'after' shot of me with this function first switched off and then on, I am dumbstruck by the results!

In the first shot I look old and haggard, every wrinkle, line and bag highlighted by the daylight flooding through the kitchen window. I can't even blame the fact that I'm wearing no makeup or have just got up, as it's in the middle of the day and I have a full face of slap on. But when at the click of a button we look at the next shot, the difference is unbelievable! I look like I've stepped off the set of one of those L'Oreal adverts. My skin glows, any uneven skin tone or redness has been ironed out. Wrinkles have disappeared and my eyes sparkle. I am rendered temporarily speechless. Quickly regaining my composure I force lovely fiance to take lots more pictures of me in various poses. In each one the same thing - I look radiant and ten years younger with no kids! (I will post a before/after shot on here at some point when lovely fiance has felt his way around the camera enough to find out how you download pictures from it, and then you will see what I mean).

Finding the magical quality of the gadget hard to believe, we take the camera to lovely fiance's mum's house the following day and try it out again. The results are truly amazing. Lovely fiance's mum looks glossy and airbrushed, like she's spent the weekend at a luxury spa and has then had her makeup professionally applied. The camera is passed around in awe.

That evening I instruct lovely fiance that all future photographs of me are to be taken only on this camera in the 'Beauty' mode, especially those of me on my wedding day. It is only later that it occurs to me a depressing pattern is emerging here. It seems I have passed the milestone at which I need rely only on a bit of makeup to get me looking half decent. In order to look my best now I am having to depend on external inventions such as magic knickers (see my earlier posts) and now photographic technology. Where will it end?

The Buttonhole Debate

I've just got back from the local florists where I've managed to tick off another item on my endless wedding 'to do' list by ordering the flowers for the day. These comprise only bridal party flowers and buttonholes for some of the guests as my marvellous venue throws in (yes, throws in!) flowers for the ceremony and on the tables for the wedding breakfast. I have in front of me the florist's price list for providing these venue flowers and trust me, this constitutes a big saving.

This means that for £105 I have been able to order a bridal posy for myself and two smaller posies for the older two bridesmaids. I toyed with the idea of some kind of floral item for the two toddlers to carry, but based on the fact that the maximum length of time my small daughter will hold an item when passed to her before throwing it across the room is roughly ten seconds, I felt I would be more likely to retain my sanity if I just let the two small flower girls look cute without any floral enhancements. Also included in the £105 are eight single rose buttonholes and one double buttonhole to single out lovely fiance as the one I am actually going to marry. This is not as daft as it sounds as we are not having matching suits or anything for the men at the ceremony, so lovely fiance will otherwise blend in and I will have to spend my life pointing him out as the groom when I show people my wedding photos.

I am especially relieved to have finally placed the order because of my growing awareness of the minefield that is the subject of wedding buttonholes. I should add that this only becomes a contentious issue if you decide not to provide buttonholes for the entire guest list. A lot of brides do, I know, and therefore go on to get married without experiencing the stress that results from only having these things for the core members of the wedding party. Because by only providing buttonholes for the select few it then introduces a certain status for those who are included on the list, and more importantly can be interpreted as making a statement about those who are not.

Lovely fiance and I initially intended to have a buttonhole just for him and one for eleven year old son who is giving me away. By doing this we save rather a lot of money because the cheapest carnation spray our florist offers is £2.50. Multiply this by our fifty guests and you have over £100 - a tidy amount to save when you are trying to navigate the expensive waters of the wedding budget. Lovely fiance then suggested that we also include a buttonhole for the parents - this would be his mum and dad and my mum. All seems fine until we realise that really then the best man should have one in order to signify that he has 'a role'.

My mother further muddies the waters by pointedly saying that when she has her hair done on the day she will 'just pop in to the florist next door to the hairdressers and pick up a buttonhole for your brother, he should have one as he's family'. I realise that if I allow this to occur then my brother will undoubtedly stand out as his buttonhole is bound to be mismatched with the rest. I am left with two options therefore: I either bring my mother back into line or I add my brother to my own buttonhole list. I take the coward's option as I cannot cope with confrontation with my mother and it would threaten my general stress level (which is already being compromised by the buttonhole debate itself). I add him to the list.

Lovely fiance unhelpfully points out that if my brother gets a buttonhole then his sisters ought to have one. At this point I realise it's getting out of hand and so justify my brother's inclusion on the basis he is a witness (with 'a role')and the sisters are not. Lovely fiance then surreptitiously adds his youngest sister's name to the list as she is going to be the other witness.

The complexity of this entire argument makes me wish I'd just paid the extra money and got buttonholes for everyone. However we have finalised the decision by following this formula for whether you get a buttonhole - in order to qualify you must have 'a role'. As a result we add the names of two of lovely fiance's mates to the list as they will be acting as ushers. I have now put in the order and so to my relief the subject is closed, but I do think it typifies the stresses and strains of wedding planning. I find that the slightest tiny detail is never straightforward and often will be interpreted as speaking volumes about the personalities of lovely fiance and myself. I also find that families are prone to taking offence at the slightest thing. Or am I over-analysing? Probably...

Songs To Walk Down The Aisle To

When I married for the first time thirteen years ago things were very different in terms of venue to what is available now. You either got married in traditional fashion with a church ceremony, or you had the civil wedding which took place in a registry office. My first wedding was in a church, partly because I wanted the formality of the service, but I have to be honest and say the only available alternative option had an impact on my decision. This was the rather grubby local registry office opposite a greasy spoon, which left a great deal to be desired.

My first wedding was very traditional in terms of music. We had the ever-popular Bridal March as I walked down the aisle on my father's arm. And then we each chose a couple of hymns for during the service.

For this wedding, choosing the music has been a whole different ball game! As we are getting married and then spending our reception all at the same venue, as many couples do since the introduction of the marriage licence for stately homes, hotels etc, we essentially get the civil wedding ceremony but with far more trimmings and scope for choice than the grim old registry office ever had. The only restriction upon us is that we cannot choose any music with religious connotations. But this didn't bother lovely fiance and myself as we dug out our mutual record collection!

Checking the format of the wedding ceremony, we were surprised to see just how much music is required for the day. You have to note on the form the titles and musicians of all your intended choices, as they have to be approved by the Superintendent Registrar, and the form demands music for before the ceremony (about twenty minutes' worth), music for the bride to walk in to (it specifically requests a VERY short piece of music), music for the signing of the register (about ten minutes) and music for the newly-married couple to leave the room to. Lovely fiance and I needed to find (and more importantly agree on) about forty minutes worth of records. A test of the engaged couples' ability to argue and reach a compromise if ever there was one! I might add at this point that my musical taste is absolutely perfect whilst lovely fiance has a bit of a sad disposition to the Eighties.

Interestingly, the twenty minute requirement before the ceremony was the easiest decision we made. Early in the debate lovely fiance suggested we 'just bung on the Best Of ABBA' and I thought this would be a really good choice. Everybody loves ABBA, everybody knows ABBA, and as long as you don't listen to the lyrics too much (such a lot of it is about the misery of failing relationships disguised by a tune that makes you feel cheerful) it generally makes people feel upbeat. In backing up my argument I hold up the film 'Mamma Mia', the biggest feelgood film in years.

On a roll, we moved on to the bridal procession music, where I enter the room accompanied by my entourage of four children. Here it all falls down. Lovely fiance requested 'Zoom' by Fat Larry's Band, an eighties anthem which everyone in their thirties or forties have at some point smooched to at the youth club disco. However I couldn't help feeling that the bridal music reflects to a certain extent on me (possibly I'm analysing this too much) and I find the record bordering on the cheesy. I therefore suggested an alternative 'My First, My Last, My Everything' by the marvellous Barry White. This song is so well-suited to a wedding, listen to the lyrics and you will see what I mean. Lovely fiance also likes this choice so I feel we are making progress.

A quick play of the Barry White option however threw the question back open. It is such a jaunty tune that I found it impossible to walk to it without starting to jig about in a very non-flattering manner. Plus the fact our toddler daughter loves a good beat and drops everything to bop around whenever suitable music comes on the radio or TV. I cannot risk her deciding to perform a dance routine in the middle of the aisle. Play it and you will see what I mean, it's infectious.

After much debate we move Barry White to the position of exit music, for us to leave the room as husband and wife. I think this is a good choice as it should make everyone feel very happy and upbeat and ready to hit the champagne and canapes. We eventually decide on 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow' by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole for the bridal entry music. It is just so lovely and it goes slowly enough for me to walk in an attractive manner rather than demanding that I sashay down the aisle to keep up with the beat.

Moving on to the final choices, this is about ten minutes' worth of music to cover the signing of the register and associated activities such as posing for pictures holding the pen. Mindful of the need for compromising in our soon-to-be legalised relationship, and in the knowledge that so far I've pretty much managed to lever in my own choices, I get myself some points with lovely fiance by not just suggesting but writing down 'Zoom' on the form as the first record. We are left with two records to choose and I feel I must include the Beatles at some point as I do love them, and so do elder son and daughter who have been indoctrinated by me during many car journeys when I've refused to let them turn off the CD. Lovely fiance on the other hand doesn't 'get' the Beatles and makes a face at my choice of 'When I'm 64'. The ensuing discussion simply results in him washing his hands of the issue and telling me I can choose the last two records. There is no malice in this, lovely fiance really IS lovely. I know him well enough to see that his interest in the wedding music has reached it's limits and his hand is inching towards the TV remote. I lose no time in writing down my Beatles choice and adding 'The Wonder of You' by Elvis. So that would be four out of five choices going my way. A healthy indicator I feel as to the balance in our relationship. Start as you mean to go on!

A Visit To The Registry Office

This morning saw lovely fiance and myself taking ourselves and the baby to our last meeting with the Registrar before the Actual Day. This is basically a planning meeting where we hand in and discuss our (completed) form of choices for the ceremony wording, then fork over a cheque for four hundred quid for marriage fees.

The two older kids have now left for a two week holiday in Spain with their father, but this doesn't mean calm is upon us. All it really means is I grouch around the house and constantly check my phone for texts because I miss them. Oh, and the house is abnormally tidy. Otherwise all is the same. We still have the constant demands of the most energetic toddler in the universe to cope with, and trips out are actually harder work without elder daughter, who never gets tired of amusing her. Therefore I made sure I packed a couple of biscuits with which to occupy her at the Registry Office whilst lovely fiance and I concentrate on the legal details of our wedding.

On arrival we were shown into the office and the lovely female Registrar gamely lugged in a plastic box of toys to amuse the small one. Clearly toddlers running amok and dismantling the office is a common occurrence down at the Registry. Within minutes our daughter had tired of the coloured plastic and was investigating the photocopier buttons (unfortunately within reach), and I resignedly unwrapped the digestives and passed them to lovely fiance as a bribe with which to keep her under control.

The meeting went quickly with few of our arrangements worthy of being questioned by the super-experienced Registrar. Notably these were our lack of readings/pieces of music, and also the order in which I would be entering the room with my entourage at the beginning. I will take these issues one at a time.

There are three points in the ceremony at which you can choose to have a reading or a piece of music, basically it is a way of personalising the proceedings a bit - because to be honest unless you write your own vows the ceremony wording is pretty predictable. (Lovely fiance visibly paled when I mentioned writing our own at the outset of our planning, so we have chosen to stick to the prescribed vows). I dutifully asked lovely fiance for any choices of readings he might like and following his blatant lack of interest came up with a poem that I myself like and that is suitably romantic. It's that Shakespeare Sonnet, you know the one, 'Let not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments blah blah..' I then rang up best friend and thought she would be delighted and honoured by my request that she stand up and recite the thing in front of a group of fifty people, most of whom she has never met before. I must admit I was a bit crestfallen when she said she would need to 'think about it', but when she came back to me and gave reasons for declining I have to say I could see her point. She is the mum of four children under seven (again I say, how does she do it?) and felt that her two-year-old might need physical restraints and gag in order to stop her disrupting the proceedings were she to stand up at the front and start speaking.

Lovely fiance informed me that his sister 'would probably do it if we are desperate', but I rather felt that missed the point. I wanted people to be enchanted at my request and rush to the front of the room in order to entertain our wedding party, but I now see that in reality most people do not enjoy public speaking and do not wish to be asked to do so by someone to whom they will then feel obliged to say yes. So I therefore let them all off and cut any readings out of the ceremony. Though the Registrar questioned me on this, she didn't press the point too hard.

She did, however raise an eyebrow and venture advice on the question of the bridal procession. The form asked who will accompany the bride into the room, and I duly wrote son, aged eleven. My father, bless him, died two years ago and therefore son has stepped unwillingly into the breach, but that's another story which I will no doubt visit later. She pointedly wrote his age on the form, and then asked about bridesmaids. The toddler by this time had finished both biscuits and was lobbing fabric covered squashy bricks around the room. I indicated that she would be entering the room before me along with her nine-year-old sister and her two cousins aged eight and one. The Registrar took a deep breath and spent the next five minutes convincing me (it didn't take much to be honest) that to have them enter the room first would be a mistake of such magnitude that the success of the ceremony hinged upon it!

I see her point. I will just mention at this moment that initially I only wanted to have my two daughters as bridesmaids, seeing our wedding as a small and intimate occasion not needing the presence of a bridal entourage to equal that of a royal wedding. However lovely fiance really wanted to include his two nieces, and they are both lovely kids. It would have been unfair of me not to agree, but I did (and still do) feel a degree of trepidation as to how this will pan out. It also adds a heavy burden on the day, as getting all of them dressed, ready and poised to enter the room looking simultaneously perfect is no mean feat (and one, I might add, that lovely fiance will have no part in achieving.) But I digress.

My plan was to have the girls enter the room before me, and precede me down the aisle. The Registrar lost no time in pointing out the holes in this plan. In her experience small children when the doors in front of them are flung open to reveal a roomful of scary people getting to their feet, accompanied by loud music, generally choose to either run in the opposite direction, refuse to move forward, or burst into tears. Family and friends, she says, then add to the chaos by shouting encouragement to the small ones to 'come on, come to Daddy, Granny, Grandad etc etc' resulting in bedlam. I must have looked horror-struck at this prospect because she wasted no time in outlining a solution. She suggested that unless the older two girls were prepared to manhandle the toddlers down the aisle should they need it, then the bridesmaids should follow me in, as she has found that small children are generally quite happy to follow, but not to lead. And there we have it. She suggested I might like to think it over before changing my planned entrance, but I could see out of the corner of my eye the small one now sitting in the toybox, having distributed the contents around the room, and I lost no time in agreeing the changes.

Driving home lovely fiance mentioned how he feels the unpredictability and charm of children will add to the relaxed nature of the day. I didn't answer him as I was too busy wondering how I could maintain my Audrey-Hepburn poise if the toddlers at the ceremony decide they'd rather run round the room than walk down the aisle. I'm sure it will all be fine...

The Night Before The Wedding - Superstition Versus Reality

Lovely fiance and I were talking last night and he casually slipped into the conversation the question of where he would be sleeping the night before our wedding. I say to this blog what I replied to him - in all honesty, I had assumed he would be in his normal place next to me.

Nine-year-old daughter reacted in horror at the portent of doom which would be inflicted on our family by the groom seeing the bride before the wedding. She really needs to watch less television. I pointed out to her that I think this particular superstition has more to do with him seeing me in The Frock than seeing me in my normal grim condition before I've had the chance to put on make-up and tame the fright wig that is my bed hair. Since he sees me looking my worst every morning on the pillow next to him, I can't see that one more time before we marry will make any difference. However in the interests of tradition, I mentally explore the possibility of him taking up a room at our hotel for the eve of the wedding, or perhaps staying the night at his parents' home. ( The prospect of me spending the night at my own mother's is not something I wish to consider even hypothetically, as I would be likely to have a nervous breakdown before morning).

I don't have to take this fantasy too far before realising that whatever bad luck and gloom could be inflicted upon us by his flouting the rules of superstition, it has to be weighed against the stresses and strains which would be inflicted by my having to cope with the three kids alone for the morning on a day when I must be at my most calm, elegant and well-groomed in the history or future of our entire relationship.

I wanted all the kids from the outset to feel positive about this wedding, which essentially turns us into a step-family and turns lovely fiance into official stepfather of the elder two. They are all extremely happy with us all living together so perhaps I was underestimating them by thinking they might feel anything other than positive about our formalising the relationship. But you never know, do you? Consequently I have allowed them to have quite a lot of input into what they would wear, the food, the stationery etc etc. To be frank eleven-year-old son showed minimal interest in anything except the cake and would without question wear whatever I give him. But nine-year-old daughter took enormous interest from the outset in every detail. It has been a hard feat to convince her that I would not look good in an enormous crinoline pink dress ('like Jordan's') in which I would need to be heaved through doorways and would have to hold lovely fiance's fingertips as he could get no closer to me. On the morning of the wedding I imagine she will be so excited that she will be bouncing off the walls.

I take the children one at a time. Son, aged eleven, would be the easiest of the three. Firstly he can be relied upon to sleep in to a decent hour every day. So I could expect to see him surface around 10am. At this point, if I were to throw him a bacon sandwich and lift the usually imposed Playstation 3 usage restrictions (he's allowed a certain length of time each day on the thing in my constant battle to keep him in the real world rather than the virtual one) I know I wouldn't see him until half an hour before the ceremony. Admittedly I would then have to threaten him to get him in the shower but after that I could then give him his suit and shirt and tell him to get ready, and know that he would.

The baby. If I keep the fourteen-month-old to her usual routine, things might be okay up until the last hour or so when I would be needing to get myself dressed and ready. She doesn't need constant supervision at home because I'm with the plot and have toddler-proofed the house within an inch of its life, but she still needs a close eye on her. Clearly putting her in her cream-coloured dress and bloomers too early would be a BIG mistake (she only has to look at food for it to inexplicably end up smeared upon her). But I could get lovely fiance's mum to dress her for me at the last minute and take her to the venue and then I would be left with maybe as much as an hour to get myself looking perfect (or as near to it as I can with the materials at hand).

Nine-year-old daughter. This is where it all falls down. She has stronger opinions on clothes and hair than anyone else I know. I have yet to buy her wedding shoes and this is predominantly because we are unable to find any middle ground between what she wants (platform skyscraper heels which would be fine were she 18 and going to a nightclub) and what I want her to have (ivory satin flat ballerinas). We are unable to compromise because my offer of the low-heeled occasionwear teen shoes offered by Next or BHS do not meet with her requirements (her yardstick seems to be whether or not Sharpay would wear them in High School Musical). I have for now left this particular argument to be resolved at some point in the future, namely when it is so close to the wedding that I've had enough and impose the shoes upon her rather than letting her have any choice.

Without doubt, my beautiful nine-year-old is likely to be at her most challenging on the wedding morning and, even were the other two to behave perfectly, I will still be unable to sit at my own dressing table because she will be sorting through my make-up bag in search of lipgloss. I know myself well enough to say that the following events would be ugly, and would undoubtedly involve me snarling at them all like some fishwife rather than maintaining the elegant Audrey Hepburn-style countenance I am aiming for.

I give up the fantasy and face facts. I need lovely fiance on the premises on the wedding morning. If it results in bad luck, how much worse could it be than my own sanity pushed to breaking point by the three of them in the few hours prior to the ceremony. Too much is at stake. I will take my chances with the superstition!

What Does Your Wedding Cake Say About You?

This weekend's wedding project is to order the wedding cake. This is the pinnacle of many weeks' debate and discussion, not only between lovely fiance and I but also between the two of our three kids that can talk, who see this as a crucial decision. (I get the impression that the one child who can't yet talk would also have a strong opinion on this point if only she could make it known). Having looked into the subject in detail I cannot help but feel that the Wedding Cake has in recent years been bigging up its part in the whole affair.

My own feelings on the Wedding Cake subject are that I could quite easily do without one and not miss it at all. When I married for the first time thirteen years ago the standard policy was to get a two or three tier fruitcake with white icing, the top tiers of which would be handed out in tiny morsels to guests who would generally leave it half-eaten or untouched on tables or take it home in small boxes where it undoubtedly ended up in the bin. The bottom tier was kept in a cupboard until you had your firstborn child and then resurrected and re-iced as a Christening Cake which was probably eaten with even less enthusiasm based on the fact it must be at least a year old in most cases. Therefore when you cut to the chase the point of the cake was little more in my opinion than an expensive photo opportunity, as these cakes did not come cheap even then. However lovely fiance has surprisingly strong views on the presence of a cake at a wedding and sees it as essential and non-negotiable. And so I looked into it.

How things have changed. The style of wedding cake you now choose has psychological meaning, communicated silently to all your guests, relating to the kind of people you and you partner are. When making the decision you no longer just have to refer to costs, numbers, and what decorations you will have, you have to think about what this cake will say about you!

Early in our wedding planning we went through a phase of visiting wedding fairs at the weekends. For those not in the know, these are big gatherings, normally at hotels, of every kind of wedding supplier you can think of, from hairdressers to photographers to florists to balloon suppliers, all peddling their wares to the unsuspecting newly-engaged. One particular fair sticks in my mind because it relates to the cake decision. On this occasion we recklessly took all three kids with us and among the various food stalls at the fair was one for a chocolate fountain. Since that day the cake hunt was over for the kids. All other options discussed since have been dismissed as inferior. On the table at the stall stood a five tier waterfall of molten milk chocolate, surrounded by bowls of marshmallows, strawberries and other soft fruits. Assuming the role of competent wedding planner I held a conversation with the fountain owner who informed me that chocolate fountains are THE thing to have instead of a traditional wedding cake and that the thing could be mine for the day, sweets and fruit and chocolate included, for a mere two hundred and fifty pounds. I turned to see son and daughter, aged eleven and nine, cramming chocolate soaked marshmallows into their mouths and preparing to start on the strawberries. The delight on their faces was such that for a moment, just a split second, I almost saw myself booking the thing. I imagined the little ones at our wedding (of which there are to be quite a number much to my increasing trepidation) beside themselves with glee at the prospect of unlimited access to melted chocolate sweeties.

Fortunately my senses soon returned, not least by the cost of it - I mean two hundred and fifty quid for a bit of chocolate and some fruit! I had no idea then that for a wedding cake option this was pretty competitive. But the deciding factor was arriving home, laden with brochures and business cards, to find that both the older kids had chocolate stains on their clothes, as did the baby who was strapped in her pushchair at all times but still inexplicably managed to access the marshmallows. Bad enough, but on checking my own cardigan I realised I even had chocolate on me, and I didn't taste a single morsel (ever mindful of the impact the slightest mouthful would have on the fit of my wedding dress even then!). The thought of all that melted chocolate flying about when everyone is dressed up to the nines and my own and the baby's outfit are both cream-coloured filled me with dread and the subject has since been closed, though the kids have been endlessly confident of talking me round.

However I digress. The insane choice of chocolate fountain would have labelled lovely fiance and myself as fun and relaxed parents who are prepared to bend to the will of their kids. An alternative choice I have come across in the quest for the perfect cake is a towering stand of individual cupcakes. Apparently a year ago this was THE cake option to have, cutting edge and out there. However, googling it recently it seems to have been usurped by the latest thing, a towering stand of individual moulded jellies in the colours of your choice! Yours for around five hundred pounds depending on numbers. Having this would paint you as funky and modern in the extreme. There are many more choices, one of my favourites being an enormous pile of Krispy Kreme Donuts, which had to be dismissed as it just doesn't fit with the 'fine dining' theme of the wedding breakfast and in lovely fiance's opinion has 'no class'.

Our final choice of wedding cake seems a bit disappointing and mundane after having trawled through all the colourful and exciting (and prohibitively expensive) options. But it works for us and it pleases the kids. We have gone for a three tier chocolate cake with chocolate icing, the one in the photo, made by the fabulous Marks and Spencer, orderable online and collectable from our local store. Expensive for what it is (just a cake after all!) but undercutting the bespoke choices by enough for us to feel virtuous. And they do make a great cake! Everybody's happy!

RSVP No Longer Has Meaning

I write this post and genuinely wonder if other wedding and party planners have experienced the same thing or whether my social circle consists of ill mannered or at best forgetful social inepts.

I have this week witnessed the death of the RSVP, that traditional abbreviation which demands social etiquette when receiving party or event invitations - for those of you who don't know (which apparently includes the majority of my wedding guests) this means 'Reply S'il Vous Plait', or 'Reply Please'.

The RSVP is so deeply ingrained in wedding tradition that when you order invitations it is ALWAYS already there, in its little place at the end of the wedding details, and all you need to do is insert your reply details and wait for the flood of responses which enable you to move on to the next step in your event plan - ie finalising table plans, the most potentially explosive (and fun) part of the organising! It also allows you to finally meet with your venue and pinpoint costs, menus etc. So those four letters are pretty damned important really, aren't they?

Lovely fiance and I are having a pretty small wedding, and we have space for fifty for the sit-down wedding breakfast. We therefore have an A-List of fifty potential guests, who have all received invitations, and a B-List, the contents of which is shrouded in secrecy, and from which a guest will be selected to receive one of the coveted all-day invitations in the event that a negative RSVP is received from an A-Lister. It all sounds very complicated, doesn't it? But basically it means we need to know pretty sharpish if anyone from the A-List can't attend because we need to get another invite out to fill that place. Anyone left on the B-List once the fifty places are filled will get the consolation prize that is the Evening Invitation. As a result we can't send out any Evening Invitations until the all-day places are filled.

Our RSVP details gave the guests a variety of options for replying s'il vous plait. They had our home address, home phone number or (how out there we are technically) lovely fiance's e-mail address. I expected (how wrong I was) to receive by return of post a small pile of cards stating the intentions of my older A-List guests, plus a couple of phone calls or emails from the more hip and technically adept crowd. I sent the invitations out 3 weeks ago now and so far we have received two emails and two cards. The number of guests covered by this is eleven.

Taking stock, lovely fiance and I were able to add family who we knew would be attending to the list, but we are still left with more than ten people who might or might not be coming, and whom we don't see often enough to pre-empt. One of these is an old friend of lovely fiance, who we invited along with his wife and two children (to add to the eleven other kids on the list, more of that later as the horror of having so many gradually dawns on me). When lovely fiance followed up our invitation (why should we have to? why? why?) with a telephone call, he said he wasn't sure yet if the kids are coming. Er, excuse me? Lovely fiance then pointed out that we need to know ASAP because the kids non-attendance would free up two more places for other people. It still took him another two days to inform us that yes they are coming after all.

What strikes me about this is that he obviously thought it would be perfectly fine to just turn up on the wedding day without the kids, without having the courtesy to let us know. At sixty quid a head (halved for the kids) I would have been absolutely savage at such an occurrence. Am I missing the point here or are people just incredibly rude?

To check out whether lovely fiance and I just have a lot of ignorant friends or if this is a more universal phenomenon, we ask lovely fiance's recently married younger sister, whose wedding was a showcase that all inferior brides-to-be, such as myself, can only aspire to. Weddings as fabulous as hers just do not happen to people like me. She says our situation is not out of the ordinary. She only managed to circumvent the RSVP issue herself because she learned from her own best friend, who apparently had to ring up her entire guest list after having sent out her expensive invitations to confirm numbers. What a waste of time and money! Lovely fiance's sister received a stack of lovely RSVP cards through the post - and why? Because she had the foresight to enclose a stamped addressed envelope with each invitation. I am outraged at the decline of social wedding etiquette and basic good manners. But at least I now have my guest list finalised.

We live and learn.

The Ghost of Weddings Past

It occurs to me today that as a second-time-bride to be I have a wealth of experience and knowledge of wedding planning that I am unable to allude to or use to back up my opinions because my former wedding day is a taboo subject. The number of times that wedding discussions have been underway and it's been on the tip of my tongue to say 'well last time I did blah-blah'.

Perhaps it would be okay if lovely fiance had also been married before. (Image in head of us putting our heads together and discussing our past nuptials in a civilised manner). However he hasn't. So the last thing he wants to consider when organising what should be the happiest day of his life is that a) I have done it before and b) when I did I must have at least been under the impression that I was happy with that other man. As a result I find I talk to him about our plans as if I'd never in my life before considered the pros and cons of having a toastmaster, or a free bar. Of course I looked into both in minute detail the first time around and now have the benefit of that experience to draw on. (Not having a free bar for first wedding was in my opinion a big mistake). But instead I debate it like a blushing first-time-bride.

It doesn't get any better when discussing plans with mother-in-law to be, or other members of the family. To sum up, it just isn't DONE to mention a previous wedding when you are in the thick of planning a new one, however much your experience might help.

On a similar subject, we are constantly referring to other weddings that one or both of us have attended, particularly that of lovely fiance's youngest sister, who tied the knot eighteen months ago. That wedding was planned perfectly down to the tiniest detail and would have passed muster as one of those feature weddings in the bride magazines (which I normally read through in the knowledge that nothing I had a hand in organising could possibly turn out that well).

As a result I find myself surreptitiously distancing our own plans from hers as there's just no way we can possibly compete. And a lot of our guests will have attended her wedding too. So where she had a professional photographer and film-maker, we are going to bung lovely fiance's nephew a few quid to take informal digital snapshots which we will then make into a montage. And no video - I hear the camera adds ten pounds and my dress does not allow for this. Where she had a harpist for the entrance music, we are considering Abba. And where she had a theme for her wedding stationery and matching colours for everything, we had those Hello Magazine style cards done cut price on Moonpig.com for our invitations and are intending to get nine year old daughter to put together the table plan for added charm (at least I hope that's how it will look).

As a result, our wedding should be so far removed from any other that there will be no cause for comparison and thus it can only be judged on its own merits! Mission accomplished - I hope...

The Wedding Dress Diet Plan Peaks Too Early

With ten weeks to go until I need to look like a goddess I find that the diet/fitness plan I embarked on with enthusiasm and determination is losing its charm. I began six weeks ago after buying my wedding gown on a basis which I had sworn (both times around, incidentally) that I never would - knowing that its magical ability to transform me into the perfect bride is dependent upon my losing half a stone.

Don't get me wrong - the dress fits me well enough and it looked fine when I tried it on in Ghost. It is clearly an evening gown rather than a wedding dress (I picked it out in a nod to the fact that a full-on virginal white wedding number might invoke a few laughs among my guests, in light of the fact that I am to be preceded into the ballroom where our ceremony is to take place by my three children, two of whom are from my previous marriage). But it is still beautiful, elegant and suited to the occasion, in a deep vanilla cream colour. However...looking fine just doesn't cut the mustard when all eyes are going to be on me from all angles for the best part of a day. In order to really do it justice and most importantly for me to feel like I look great, there is no way around it, I need to lose those last seven pounds of baby weight that have stubbornly stayed put for the last fourteen months.

My diet plan is simple and is one I picked up with a quick Google on 'lose a stone in a month'. Basically I eat my normal toast for breakfast, then I have a wholemeal bun with a slice of chicken for lunch and some carrot sticks at 3 pm. I also do 20 minutes on the Wii Fit once a day. I figured that if do this and just eat a smallish portion of whatever we are all having for dinner, I can then have a glass of wine in the evening and even some chocolate buttons and still come in under the calorie limit for the day. And so far it has worked! Three weeks in I had lost four pounds and was beside myself with smugness. How easy it was! By then I'd got used to not snacking throughout the day as was my previous habit, and I didn't really mind the grim lunch and carrot sticks as long as I didn't have to give up my daily glass of wine.

But now I find it begins to unravel. I have now lost five pounds and seem to be stuck at that point. Over the last two weekends I have put on at least two pounds and then had to spend Monday and Tuesday getting that back off before I can progress. The Wii Fit told me smugly this morning that I 'failed to reach my goal' and perhaps a 'more realistic goal' should be set. The food is starting to become boring and lovely fiance's constant bag of Haribo in the cupboard is beginning to make me obsess. I realise I have peaked too early.

Today I face facts. I have a friend with four children under seven (how does she do it?) who recommends magic knickers for instant transformation without the grief. I confess I have bought a pair which look unrealistically small, like a pair of flesh coloured leggings for my fourteen-month-old daughter. I have heaved myself into them and tried on the gown, and I swear a miracle has taken place. Wobbly bits are smoother, chunky bits are lifted and I have the tummy I had before I became a mother! In the wedding gown I look as I knew I would do after losing the half stone, but without actually having to achieve it. Problem solved!

And then I remember the wedding night. These scary things are passion killers in the strongest sense. Therefore I am left with three choices:

1. I look like a goddess throughout the day and then at a late stage when everyone is too drunk to notice that everything has suddenly drooped, I change into sexy bra/knickers/stockings combo in preparation for bedtime.

2. I continue with the diet plan and just wear the sexy underwear for the whole day (I would feel smug in the extreme if I could achieve this!).

Or 3. (and I cannot help wondering if this should be some kind of compulsory test for the newlywed husband of their commitment and love for you) I wear just the magic knickers, look fabulous and feel great all day, and then hope he doesn't mind them at bedtime. Hmmmm...

Welcome to the Ten Week Chaotic Wedding Countdown

Welcome to day one of my blog. Do you know how hard it is to find a willing victim to whom you can chat at will about all things wedding without them making a break for freedom at the first opportunity? I do.

Mothers can be handy for just this function, indeed it is part of the job description that as a mother of the bride you must immerse yourself fully in your daughter's up and coming nuptials and all the minute details associated with it. However I find as I get older that my own mother rather than calming me down has somehow developed the ability to increase my stress levels to breaking point, sometimes just by speaking. Add to this the fact that she has done the whole 'Mother of the Bride' thing with me once before in 1996 and probably thinks her work on this subject has long been done. Therefore as a perfect substitute for the mother of the bride figure in my up and coming wedding plans, I intend to make use of this blog!

I rub my hands in glee as I contemplate that I can pass my opinion on all the minute challenges heaped upon me by family, friends and wedding plans as my transformation to Mother in Step Family hurtles ever closer. And best of all without having to subject any of my poor family to my grouching. Let's begin!