Oh dear, as part of the after effects of the tragic earthquake that hit Chile earlier today, they are now expecting a tsunami to hit Hawaii!

We are getting married by a beach on the North Shore of Oahu in 2 weeks time, and apparently all coastal areas of all islands of Hawaii could be hit quite hard. This could leave us without a wedding venue...

I know this is a small problem in comparison to the tragedy that has struck so many in Chile, but I can't help but be concerned. If our venue is hit hard, we will be up a certain creek without a paddle.

I doubt highly that we could postpone it to a later time, as most of our guests won't be able to afford to make another trip to Hawaii. Some of them have already left to go to our wedding. Even postponing a day would mean some people wouldn't be able to make it as we have several guests flying out the day after our wedding date.

We could try to find another venue at short notice, possibly the Trump Tower in Waikiki where we are staying. But it is a hotel without any outdoor space, so it would have to be an indoor wedding. It would feel a lot like there was no point going to all the trouble and expense to plan our dream wedding if we just ended up having an indoor ceremony with a package hotel deal.

Our wedding insurance also doesn't cover fire, flood or acts of God, so if things do go pear shaped we won't even be able to get most of our money back.

We are keeping a careful eye on the tsunami as it approaches Hawaii, it is due to hit in 2 hours time. Fingers crossed it won't be too bad!

Like most women, I love buying shoes. I think a beautiful pair of shoes is one of the most fantastic things in the world. I definitely wanted a really special pair of shoes for my wedding. I have several pairs of Manolos but had never owned Jimmy Choos, and I was dying for a pair. So when I managed to get my wedding dress at half price, I immediately put the remainder of the wedding dress budget into the shoe budget and started shopping for Jimmys!

Unfortunately, I wasn't too enthralled with the Jimmy Choo bridal collection. I thought they were lovely and well made shoes, but unfortunately not what I was looking for. To me they were just a bit too plain and ordinary for what was supposed to be such a special day. I looked elsewhere, considered Christian Louboutin and Manolo Blahnik, but just couldn't find the right shoes.

I never gave up on the idea of Jimmy Choos though. I spent many hours trawling the internet, hoping to find a pair somewhere out there that were special enough, with a little bit of sparkle and just the right colour. All to no avail mind you, but I kept trying. And finally, on about my 100th internet search, I stumbled across a small article about how Jimmy Choo "lost" his name. Apparently the actual man himself, Jimmy Choo the shoe maker, sold his rights to the ready to wear Jimmy Choo stores and returned to his real love - designing and hand making beautiful shoes.

I nearly passed out from the excitement. The answer to all my prayers! Not only could I get a pair of Jimmy Choos, but I could get them from the REAL Jimmy Choo himself AND get them handmade exactly how I wanted them! I looked up Jimmy Choo Couture in the phone book and rang them straight away to make an appointment.

The experience was just wonderful. In Jimmy's lovely boutique in central London, your design ideas are discussed and you pick out styles you like or don't like from his look book. Then sketches of several designs based on this session are drawn, and you choose the design you like best, with any tweaks you desire of course. Your feet are measured exactly, all over, so the shoes fit perfectly. The level of detail is amazing, from the design of the back of the shoes to the material to cover the heel. They even matched the silk to cover the leather of the shoe to a swatch from my dress. Then a mock up of the shoe is made for you to try on and adjustments are made to it to ensure a perfect fit. Then they start to hand make the real shoes. You come in for two or three fittings, then the shoes are finished and yours to take away. It takes roughly 4 - 6 weeks in total.

My design involved intertwined ellipses partially adorned with clear Swarovski crystals, on both the front and back of the shoe. I opted for a 3.5" heel as I knew I'd be on my feet for such a long time on the day and wanted to be as comfortable as possible. The shoes fit like a dream, and they are so incredibly comfortable to wear! I've been wearing them around the house (with socks over them to keep them clean) for a half hour every day to break them in, and it almost feels like I'm wearing flats.

Thanks to the increased shoe budget, I was able to afford them. If my wedding dress hadn't been miraculously reduced by 50% there's no way I could've bought them. They were NOT cheap! But if there was ever an occasion to get custom designed, hand made Jimmy Choo shoes, this is it! Most brides are adamant about getting just the right dress that fits perfectly, so why not do it for your shoes too. Your day won't be marred by painful stilettos and you'll have a pair of stunningly gorgeous shoes that will last a lifetime, and unlike a wedding dress, that you can wear again. Believe me, they are totally worth it!

I love these shoes so much, they are unique, one of a kind, and so beautiful :)

I was quite surprised at how hard choosing the wedding favours for our guests turned out to be. It was probably my own fault, I was extremely fussy! I wanted to give everyone something that they would actually want to keep and/or find useful, as they were coming such a long way to attend our wedding in Hawaii. I definitely didn't want to hand out those candied almonds that were so popular at weddings when I was a child -  I hated them! I also didn't want to give chocolates, as I wanted something that would provide a lasting memory to our guests.

I have now visited just about every website that sells wedding favours about 20 times. It was quite frustrating and tiring! I finally chose some little manicure kits for the ladies and sterling silver key rings that had bar tool implements (like a bottle shaped swiss army knife, see pic below) for the men. But then we decided NOT to have a seating plan, we would just put guests on tables but not tell them where on the tables to sit. This posed a problem as there was no way to guarantee that a guest would sit at a seat with the correct favour for their gender.

So it was back to the websites to find unisex favours that everyone would want to keep! Unfortunately nothing was grabbing my attention. We considered beach themed picture frames, double happiness Chinese candles, sterling silver fortune cookie knick knacks, personalised shot glasses, but none of them seemed like things that every guest would actually want to keep. At one stage I thought about combining my Chinese heritage with the destination of our wedding, Hawaii, by getting mini bamboo steamers (they are so cute, see the picture below!) and putting pukka shell necklaces in them, as they are unisex accessories. But I thought about the guests going and realised not many of them were the pukka shell necklace wearing types.

But then we decided to have one long rectangular table, which is what I'd actually initially wanted but we didn't think we'd be able to fit it under the marquee. But once the RSVPs were in, we were 10 guests less than our highest estimate, so the one long table was back in play! This also meant assigned seating, which also meant gender specific wedding favours were back on the table (so to speak).

However, I also had very specific favour boxes in mind. I wanted them to be square, aqua blue, with white ribbon around them, and a foam frangipani flower attached to the top. Which sounded beautiful to me! HOWEVER, the manicure kits and the box the bar tools came in didn't fit into the largest aqua blue box we could find! So back to the drawing board again!

I really couldn't find anything else for the men that I liked, so we ordered one of the bar tools, took it out of its packaging and tried it in the favour box. It fit easily! One problem solved.

I spent WEEKS agonising over the womens favours (mother of pearl trinket boxes, silver cased mirrors, glass coasters) then hit on the perfect idea - sterling silver frangipani pendants. I spent ages trying to find some that were pretty, not cheap and tacky looking, not too small, but around the same price as the bar tools. I eventually found a wholesaler that could do them at a reasonable price, only a few cents more than the bar tools. This is what they looked like on the website:

But the wholesaler didn't take non-US credit cards! So we contacted our wedding planner (who does have a US credit card) and got her to order them for us and add the cost to our bill. Unfortunately we couldn't order just one, so we ended up ordering all 25 sight unseen, which was really risky as we didn't have the budget to order something else if they turned out to be awful!

I still haven't seen the pendants, our wedding planner received them a couple of weeks ago. But she assures me that they look great and not cheap and tacky - let's hope so!

One other thing we are providing our guests as an added little gift are some beautiful rice paper and bamboo parasols to shield them from the sun. Asian Import Store sells some really lovely ones, and the more you buy, the cheaper it is per parasol. They had some amazing colours and patterns, but in the end we decided to keep them clean and white. Here's the ones we chose:

After coming down from the high of getting engaged, the first thing I started to do was look at wedding dresses! I bought loads of wedding magazines and looked on the internet and started to get an idea of what kind of dress I wanted.

One thing I knew right off the bat was that I didn't want a huge, puffy, wedding cake dress. I prefer a slim silhouette, something more fitted, and strapless, cut straight across the top rather than a sweetheart neckline. I also wanted to have some kind of beading or crystals to make it look like a real wedding dress and not just a white evening gown, but not too much, just a little big of bling.

One thing became apparent to me straight away. If I wanted to wear a dress with a slim silhouette, I was going to have to lose some weight! So I started an exercise regime and changed my diet to eat healthier food (see my blog post on Wedding Weight Loss). After several months of this, I felt slim enough to try on some dresses!

The first place I went to was Pronovias. They have a fantastic flag ship store in London where you are given your own consultant and glasses of champagne - lovely! They had some amazing dresses, but nothing that quite fit the bill. The dress I liked the most was the one below shown on a model, it had some great embroidery work on it and I liked the interesting neckline, but it had a large poofy skirt and was REALLY heavy, I could barely move in it, so I decided against it.

I then went to the Vera Wang sample sale at Selfridges. I found a dress that was almost perfect, and at half the regular price! That's me trying it on in the picture below. However, being a sample, it wasn't in the best condition. Some of the beading was coming off and it would need a lot of altering. The bust was too big and the length too long. There was some intricate beading from about half way down the skirt to the hem which would make taking the dress up really difficult. And even though it was half the price, it was still quite a lot to pay. I could get a brand new dress from a decent designer, made to fit me perfectly, for less. It was a really hard decision to make, a Vera Wang dress for a reasonable-ish price doesn't come along every day, but in the end I decided to be sensible and didn't buy it.
Having got a taste for Vera Wang, I made an appointment to look at their new season collection. It was a fantastic experience, the dresses were AMAZING. But again, not quite what I was looking for, and at £5,000 for the cheapest one, way out of my budget.

I came across a picture of a Stephanie Allin dress which I quite liked, and found a stockist about 10mins away from me, Fleur Bridal. I went over and found Fleur to be an absolute gem. The dress I'd originally liked didn't turn out to be so nice in real life, but Fleur was an expert in choosing dresses that would suit me. She is a truly lovely lady and I enjoyed shopping with her a lot. I ended up really liking another dress, and went back several times to try it on. It was Stephanie Allin's Gina dress, pictured below (that's not me in it obviously haha!).
It was a beautiful dress and was quite flattering on me, but I wasn't 100% sold on it (about 89%). I wasn't so keen on the sweetheart neckline, and there was no beading or crystal work on it, plus I'm not a big bow person.

I tried on this dress by Essense at another store which my friends quite liked, but I wasn't so sure. The colour wasn't right, and again it had the sweetheart neckline.

I think wedding websites are a really great idea. Especially for us, as we had guests living in England, Scotland, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Africa. It is such a quick, easy, and cheap way to keep guests informed, not only about the details of your wedding, but also about any pre-wedding events, changes in plans, and what's going on with the planning. It's also a great place to put up photos and provide simple ways for people to get in contact with you.

Nick and I made our website together. There are lots of free wedding websites out there, but they didn't offer the flexibility and designs we were looking for. There are also lots of paid for wedding websites, which are pretty good too, but can be costly and again don't allow you complete control over design and content. So, being IT geeks and in my case a design freak, I designed the site and Nick coded it in php.

I incorporated our colour scheme and frangipani theme, and tried to give it a really fun, fresh, beach feel. We bought the domain name charmayneandnick.com to make it easy for guests to remember, or find, our URL. I did all the content and added loads of information, here's a screenshot of the homepage:

We sent out traditional RSVP cards in our invitation suite but also added the URL to the online RSVP page of our site to the cards - almost everyone used the online RSVP. On the online RSVP form I also added fields to RSVP to our pre-wedding Welcome Luau and asked guests to request songs to be played on the dancefloor at the wedding. People really loved that they had a say in the song list and everyone requested at least one song. My maid of honour's fiance loved the idea so much they are going to do it too for their wedding. I think it's a great idea as that way everyone will hear at least one song they like and will want to dance to.

I found a great free photo album plugin called phpGraphy and we put up pics from our engagement, engagement party and pics of our wedding venue. Another great free tool I used was MJGuest which is a really nice guestbook. I also added a Google calendar from our Google account to show different events and important dates for the convenience of our guests. I researched what airlines fly to Honolulu from each country that our guests would be coming from, and approximately how much flights would cost and put that in the Travel to Hawaii section. I asked our wedding planner to recommend some hotels in Waikiki and added those plus others to suit different budgets on the Accommodation page. The Coach to Venue page shows pick up points for the coach we will be providing to take our guests from Waikiki to the wedding venue (as the venue is about an hour or so away from Waikiki). I created a map in My Maps in our Google account to show the exact pick up points, which I embedded in the page. The Fun Things To Do section has some ideas of activities to partake in on Oahu such as surfing lessons, snorkelling, the best beaches to visit (with another of My Maps from Google!), places to shop and eat, and sites to visit like the Pearl Harbor Memorial. There is also a weather widget showing the current weather in Honolulu.

Our guests were impressed at the wealth of information on our site and have found it really useful - it's been a great way to communicate with our guests. We'll keep it up and running after the wedding as well and we'll add some photos from the big day. I think the website will serve as a great momento of our wedding!

As I write this blog entry, it is 13 February 2010 - exactly one month to go till the big day!!!

Anyway, back to the story of our wedding.

After hiring our wedding planner, Christina, we went over to Oahu for a week to meet with her. We had already had several phone calls and emails with her where she suggested several venues, vendors and suppliers. We narrowed down her suggestions to one or two and she arranged for us to see the venues and meet the vendors during our trip to Hawaii.

We went in March time so we could see what the weather would be like for our actual wedding a year later. We were a bit concerned when we got there as it was REALLY windy, but almost all the locals we met assured us it was unnaturally windy for that time of year and we should be okay (fingers crossed).

We met with photographers, cake makers, florists, stationers, caterers and looked at venues. By the end of the week, we had made all our choices. It was a very very busy week! Most of our choices were actually really hard to make, as the vendors we met with and venues we saw were all so fantastic.

The photographer we have chosen is Visionari. We met with Jon and he was so great, and we felt really comfortable with him. Nick is a keen amateur photographer and they had a chat about lenses, which Nick loved. Jon also showed us some of their previous wedding albums which were all really amazing.

We are going to have three photographers on site, with one photographer solely dedicated to backing up the pictures so nothing is lost. Having two photographers is great because they get several different angles of the same moment, and if one photographer misses a moment, the other one usually gets it.

Many people who know I have my own cake business ask if I'm making the cake for our wedding. I'm not - making a wedding cake is always really stressful and involves a large amount of work in the 3 days before the wedding and even on the day of. I want to be as relaxed as possible for my wedding day. Also, I don't have access to a kitchen with a large oven over there, and bringing over all my equipment just isn't feasible. Nick also banned me from doing it, as he said he would hate to have to put up with a mega stressed Charms just before the wedding!

Our cake is being made by Tiers of Joy. The owner/operator, Leigh, is a fellow Aussie and makes really yummy cakes. We are having 3 tiers round, a coconut cake tier with milk chocolate mousse filling, lemon cake tier with lemon filling, and chocolate cake tier with raspberry coulis filling. Leigh uses a rolled buttercream rather than fondant (aka sugarpaste in the UK), which I like the taste of so much better (the only fondant I like the taste of is the one I make myself!). I will be making the sugar flowers to decorate the cake as I can do that months in advance.

Leigh has also very kindly agreed to make my favourite cake, Pavlova, which will be served as dessert. I really wanted pavlova at my wedding as I love it so much, shame it isn't suitable to be used as a wedding cake!

The florist we are using is Yvonne Design, who I've mentioned before in my blog post Our Aqua Blue and Frangipani Wedding which also has some pics of the sample centrepieces she made for us. She is a truly talented florist.

I've also mentioned our stationer before, Bradley & Lily Fine Stationary. Stacey is lovely and a real pleasure to work with (and also very talented). You can see the pics of the wonderful invitations she made for us in the Our Aqua Blue and Frangipani Wedding blog post.

The caterer we chose is Memoirs. Chef Peter invited us to his house high up on Diamond Head crater. It has an amazing view! He cooked for us there and his food is so delicious! He and his business manager are both really great, and we are very happy with our choice. We will be having several food stations at the wedding where food is freshly cooked to order, rather than a set meal. So guests can eat courses at their own pace and have as much or as little as they want. We are having some really fantastic food, here's a link to a PDF version of the menu:
http://www.charmayneandnick.com/docs/Memoirs_menu_v3.pdf

The venue choice was really hard. We had 2 venues we really loved, but in the end we chose Loulu Palm Estate because it is more private and has a later finishing time than the other venue. Loulu Palm is just gorgeous, it has it's own private beach and a vast green lawn, coconut trees, and a cute colonial style house. Here's a picture of it from our last visit there in January 2010:

I can't wait to see all of it put together in one months time!

I wanted a wedding that was outdoors, fairly laid back, beautiful, and fun. I'm really not into traditional weddings with lengthy church services and receptions that follow the same formula - boring and not funny speeches, a set schedule of events that MUST be adhered to, and an air of stiff formality. To be fair, there are probably lots of weddings that have church services and traditional receptions that aren't overly formal or boring, and I have been to some like that, but the overwhelming majority unfortunately weren't.

I looked through tons of bridal magazines for ideas on reception decor, table settings, ceremony venues, etc. I cut out all the pictures I really liked and kept them in a folder to show our wedding planner, Christina.

I saw several things I really liked the look of. Some of the outdoor weddings just looked lovely on beautiful green lawns with white marquee tents and lots of gorgeous flowers. One table setting in particular caught my eye, it wasn't set outdoors, but I loved the blue colour and the lovely ivory and white flowers with hints of yellow. So it was from this table setting that I decided on the colour scheme of aqua blue, white and yellow.

One of my favourite flowers is frangipanis aka plumerias. I grew up in Papua New Guinea where these flowers are abundant, and many associate them with the tropical paradise that is Hawaii. They are white with a large splash of yellow in the centre, which matched the inspiration picture above perfectly. So I decided I wanted to have a theme of frangipanis, but a more subtle theme, where frangipanis would be used quite sparingly, but would still appear throughout our wedding.

For the wedding ceremony, I loved one particular outdoor setup I saw, which I am hoping to emulate (with different flowers though, and using our colour scheme):

For the reception, we are having a white marquee tent with draping, and one really long table for our 40 guests. The table linens are a crisp clean white, with an aqua blue table runner. There will also be tall vases of flowers alternating with shorter vases of flowers running down the length of the table. It turns out that fresh frangipanis are not the best flowers to use at a wedding as they brown very quickly once cut. So frangipanis in my bouquet and table centrepieces were out. I opted for ivory roses and other flowers with yellow throats such as white orchids and lilies. We are using a really amazing florist, Yvonne Design, here are the sample tall and short centrepieces she made up for us (the aqua blue table runner in the picture is the same as the ones we'll be using for our reception):

The frangipanis are to put in an appearance on the table as part of the favour box decorations. The favour boxes are going to be in the aqua blue of our theme with white ribbon tied around it (very Tiffanys!), and a fake frangipani on the top made out of foam latex. These fake frangipanis are really realistic looking, unlike silk ones.

The foam latex frangipanis also put in an appearance on the exterior of the pocketfold for our wedding invitations, which I designed by borrowing bits and pieces from other invitations and making something I liked. It was put together by Bradley & Lily Fine Stationary in Hawaii. Here is the outside of the invitations:

The invitation itself and the insert cards were designed by a really lovely and talented stationary designer, Stacey from Bradley & Lily. She used our aqua blue, yellow and white colour scheme and a double frangipani motif for all our stationary. Here is the inside of the pocketfold of our frangipani invitations:

The invitations turned out amazing, and I was so thrilled with them. Almost all of our guests complimented us on them, saying they were the most beautiful wedding invitations they'd ever seen :)

Let's hope the actual wedding is just as breathtaking!

When I got engaged I actually weighed the most I've ever weighed in my life (to date anyway). Living in London for 6 years, I had stacked on the kilos thanks to lots of drinking and lots of take aways, and the lack of nice weather meant very little outdoor activity or the need to squeeze into a bikini. So I hadn't really noticed how much weight I was putting on. My BMI was just over 25, which technically put me in the overweight category. I didn't look obese or anything, and I was quite good at dressing to hide most of my flaws, so people didn't really notice it, including me.

However, there is nothing like the daunting task of wedding dress shopping to make you realise you need to lose weight. I wasn't foolish enough to think I didn't need to lose a few kilos if I wanted to look great on my wedding day (and in those all important photos), but I hadn't realised how much I would need to lose. After I got engaged, I stepped on the scales for the first time in a long time, and I was horrified to see them tip at 63kg. I am only 5' 2" with a small frame, so for someone my size, this was BAD.

So I made a plan to get in shape and most importantly, be healthy. It wasn't about starving myself so I could fit into a dress, it was about changing my lifestyle to be fitter and healthier, and in the process, look better - a long term change rather than a short term quick fix. The wedding was a year and 3 months away, and I hoped that by starting so early, the changes I was making would become a way of life and continue past the wedding.

I enrolled in a pilates gym as soon as I got back to London, taking two 1 hour classes a week, for toning and muscle definition. I started using a cross trainer machine for cardio sessions of 30 minutes three times a week. I stopped getting take aways for lunch at work, and started to cook dinners at home. I still ate as much as I wanted, but because the food was healthier and less fattening, and I was exercising, I didn't pile on the pounds. Besides, home made chicken tikka masala with light coconut milk is delicious, and so much better for you than one from your local Indian! Just ask Jamie Oliver :)

I did still treat myself to a take away once a week so I could have a relaxing evening without cooking, but to balance that I cut out daytime snacking. No more crisps, chocolates, donuts. If I had a craving for chocolate, I'd have something small and lower in calories like a fun sized Milky Way, or a small packet of crisps once every few weeks. But to be honest, I found after a month or so of not eating junk, I didn't really miss it or crave it anymore.

I also more or less stopped drinking alcohol, just for the rare special occasion. Not only was this a great detox for my skin, but it was also a big help in losing weight. Alcohol is really calorific!

The one thing I didn't give up as quickly was my greatest vice, Coca-Cola. I was still drinking around a can a day, but as I got closer to the wedding, I started cutting it to one every other day, then only on weekends, then finally none at all 3 months before the wedding. It's now just lots and lots of water to help hydrate my skin.

I did hit a slump after about 6 months where I stopped going to the gym for a 3 month period. My cake making business was picking up and I was so busy and exhausted from doing that that I didn't have time to exercise. But because it was such a physically demanding job and I was on my feet for so many hours, I didn't put on any weight! I was still going to pilates twice a week, but no cardio sessions. Once I got my life back under control, I started the cardio again. I didn't give up and think, "I've ruined my weight loss plan, no sense in continuing".

After about 8 months (including the 3 months I stopped exercising), I'd lost 10kg. I was ecstatic when I could fit into a pair of jeans I'd bought 6 years ago that were too tight at the time. I'd bought  them as an incentive to lose weight but never did (gaining weight instead), so I'd never actually worn them. Until now!

I took a break from diet and exercise for 3 weeks over Christmas and New Year, then got straight back on it. After the New Year there was only 3 months to go, so I stepped up the cardio workouts to 40min sessions 3 times a week and switched to a more intensive pilates class twice a week. It really helped shift the couple of kilos I'd put on over the Christmas period, plus more! With a month to go till the wedding, I'm continuing to lose weight!

I cannot say enough good things about pilates. It really helps to lengthen, define, and tone your muscles, and is so good for your core area (especially your stomach!) and your posture and general well being. I've lost weight before, but thanks to the pilates, I'm more toned than I've ever been. I've dropped 2 dress sizes, and for the first time in a long time, I'm not afraid to wear a bikini!

So I'm losing weight and feeling great. Here are some before-and-after pics:

BEFORE
Here I am at my heaviest, just before getting engaged.

Wedding planners are awesome! They know exactly what to do to plan a wedding (as well they should, seeing as it's their job). They know all the good vendors, so you don't have to go looking for any as they present you with 2 or 3 of the ones best suited to you in each category and help you decide which one to use. They know all the equipment you will need and know where to hire or acquire it at a price to suit your budget. They know all the little details that you probably won't until it's too late. They also keep you on track budget and time wise and make sure everything is on schedule. If they do their job right, they take a lot of the work and stress out of planning a wedding.

I attended a few wedding shows/fairs/fayres in London and one in Essex the first few months after we got engaged and decided on Hawaii for our wedding in 2009. Wedding shows are a good starting point for planning your wedding. You get a lot of ideas and find things you didn't even realise you would need!

I went to the Designer Wedding Show, the National Wedding Show, and a small wedding fayre by the sea in Essex. The Designer Wedding Show was the first one I went to, and it was a good one to start off with as it wasn't too big and overwhelming. They had some really great wedding dress labels like Pronovias and Jenny Peckham on display. I recommend going reasonably early in the morning to the first catwalk show of the day, there's a lot less people there so you can get a seat and a good view. The space for the catwalk show is relatively small and you sit really close to the catwalk so you can see the details on the dresses quite well.

The program they give you for the show is really useful, it had details on each designer and pictures of each dress with space to make notes, so bring a pen.

There wasn't much for the grooms at that one, so I was glad I went with a friend and not my fiance. There was only one cake stall, Peggy Porschen, who is just an amazing cake maker, and it was easily the most popular stall there. I hadn't realised up till then how amazing wedding cakes are, how beautiful each creation can be. I've always loved baking and making cakes, but I hadn't realised you could make them look like works of art!

There were also some stationers there, who I left my details with to be sent samples, and not a single one of them sent me anything! Not impressed (and obviously, I didn't end up using any of them for my wedding stationary).

Oddly enough, any stall owners that "harassed" me when walking by ("Hello, do you need this that and the other? We're really great" type thing) were not put off by me saying my wedding was in Hawaii. "Oh, Hawaii, fabulous, we can easily ship our tables and chairs over there for a small fee". Yeah right! I was only there to gather ideas and look for a dress, not pay a fortune to ship over the entire wedding!

The National Wedding Show was HUGE!!! It was a lot of fun, there were lots more stalls and booths and LOADS of freebies! Free chocolates, cake samples, make overs, magazines, sweets - it was great! And also a good one to bring the fiance to. He loved all the goodies and was very patient with me while I had a free make over and tried on several different hair combs and items of jewellery, bless his little cotton socks. There were also lots of stalls with mens suits, which he hadn't even started to think about so it was good for him to see the different options available and get him thinking.

(BTW, here's a tip for you. Grooms usually tend to leave their suits to the last minute, ladies, some advice, don't let them! They often don't realise how long it can take to get a suit made or ordered. Many of them leave it till quite late, then the suit doesn't arrive till the week before the wedding! You don't need that extra stress so close to the day, believe me!)

The catwalk show here was a much more glitzy and showy affair with lots of lighting and effects, and accordingly, a lot more people watching it. We didn't even get vaguely close to the catwalk, so if you really want to see it properly, get a seat early because standing at the back, you really don't see very much at all!

There were several cake stalls which again were very popular, especially since they had free samples! And again got me thinking, I'd like to try making cakes like that.

Confetti also had a massive area and sold lots of really useful bits and pieces, I bought their wedding organiser folder, a good buy that's been really useful. Many of the stalls also had deals available only on the day, lots of bargains to be had.

Other exhibitors included limousine companies, stationers, string quartets, wedding favour suppliers, dresses, honeymoon travel agencies, photographers, videographers, venues, event decorators, jewellers, toast masters and so much more. Definitely worth going to, and if you are only going to one wedding show, I'd say this is the one you want.

One to avoid was the wedding fayre I went to in Essex. I attended this one because I was going that way to visit a friend, and she took me to it. The name escapes me now, but it wasn't worth the trip out there! A really small number of stalls (about 10), a terrible catwalk show (does anyone really want a groom in a shiny gold morning suit???) and possibly the worst wedding cakes I've ever seen. Even the free cake samples were awful! In fact, it was this wedding stall that made me start to think seriously about starting my own cake business. If they could have a business with such a terrible product, surely I could have a business too, with a much better product! I now do have my own cake business, Delicious Cake Design, so I guess going to the show was probably worth it after all!

Picking the date for our wedding was relatively easy. Choosing where to have it was a lot trickier. For a many people, that's not too much of a burning issue. You usually start looking for venues in your town or city, or maybe the neighbouring town or city. But for us, we had to start with the question of which COUNTRY to have our wedding in. I am from Australia and Nick is from New Zealand and we both have a lot of family and friends in these countries. And of course Nick and I live in London, where we also have a lot of close friends.