More guest posting - this time on name changes!

So, I completely forgot to actually post this on my own blog. My life, she is busy. Anyway, I seem to have kicked off a series of feminist musings on marriage over at the wonderful Bad Rep. My second post is about changing your name - one woman's dream and another's pet peeve. Where do you guys stand?

A small rant about prices

ARGH. Seriously, wedding people, why do you make this so hard? Why do you cause so much stress? Why are you such tools over what is meant to be the happiest time of my life?

It's not about you charging too much, although most of you frequently do and it's just bollocks. But SO MANY of you don't even have a price list on your website!

How the hell am I meant to know if I'm allowed to fall in love with your floral arrangements, or photography, or your whatever, if I don't know if it comes within my budget? Please tell me that. No, I don't want to email you with my details to get a price list, because then I get emails FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE and if I'm super lucky, phone calls. I just want you to tell me how much you cost.

And no, don't pull that old 'bespoke' shit with me. No, I don't care if you treat every wedding as a tailormade experience blessed by god and showered with kittens, because you don't. It's a lie. Sure, you'll accomodate a bride's wishes to have her picture taken with both her aunts, fine. Yes, you'll go with tulips instead of roses. But don't tell me that this hasn't been asked for before and that you haven't got an idea of what this costs before I contact you.

Just give me different package costs. Tell me what the core of it is and then any extras. Don't take the piss with extras, though - I've seen wedding albums charged at £900 and I can tell you right now, they don't cost that much, even if they were made by Mulberry. Just give me honest, transparent details about what I might be expected to pay to have you involved in my wedding. If you are expensive, that's fine. Just be honest about it. It's the duplicity and the manipulation that's so irritating.

Please, wedding suppliers. Can we not just have a nice, open discussion about your value? Why are you so afraid to proclaim it on your website? WHAT ARE YOU HIDING? Because it seems like you are hiding something. I don't want any hidden costs, I want upfront VAT inclusion. That makes my life easier, which in turn is more likely to make me hire you, which then presumably makes your life easier.

See, wedding vendors - transparency is a win-win situation. Please look into it, pun intended.

Wedding blogs

I don't have time to visit all the wedding blogs I would like to visit. I sometimes don't know which ones are for me - there are so many of them! And while some of my faves are listed on the right of this blog, I thought I'd do a handy link to the top 100 wedding blogs: http://www.weddingblogs100.com/.

Bookmark, explore and enjoy!

Compromise Out of Catastrophe

A while ago I blogged that we'd found our venue, Syon House. I was avidly awaiting its opening day of 2 April so I could book, and begging the event staff for the 2013 prices so I could put it in my spreadsheet. 2011 prices had been £8k - steep but ok. 2012 were £7k as they needed to fix the roof. I thought I could cope with a 5-10% increase in costs and continued planning merrily.

So I wasn't expecting the bitch-slap of a £10k price tag. That's a whopping 25% increase in a recession and with nothing extra to show for it. I cried. I literally closeted myself in a room at work when I saw the website (funnily enough I never got the call about the new prices) and bawled down the phone at my fiance and mother.

I have since regrouped. And guess what - we're looking at venues again. Huzzah. We've already looked at Eltham Palace (nice but cold and a weird mix of Tudor and Art Deco) and are off to Nonsuch Mansion this weekend. I've basically bitten the bullet and started looking outside of London to find a venue. We'll just use the money we'd save by hiring a coach to drive our London friends to and from the venue! I'm still not sure how I feel about it all, but what will be will be.

It's frustrating to have your plan wiped out by a number, and even more frustrating to have to change your idea of your perfect wedding. So much of wedding planning is about compromise - and sometimes you have to compromise on your dream location.

Wedding Belle Sneaks Off...

... to Bad Reputation for a guest blog! Check it out here - a post about how to retain your feminist identitiy in the face of so much patriarchal tradition at weddings.

Perfectly Normal Madness

Ever since we got engaged, Future Husband has been annoying me. The loo seat gets left up more now, or his loudness is extra jarring, or his loving looks make me feel panicked and trapped. I put it down to stress and then as it went on, got more and more concerned. Why did I feel like I wanted to push him away? Why was the fact that I'd agreed to him being the only man in my life for the next 60 years freak me out so hard? I was getting terribly, horribly worried I had agreed to marry him only to fall out of love with him.

It was fair agony being in my head. Because, of course, I do love him. I'm so happy with him. Yes, he's not perfect. Neither am I. Yes, he irritates me a fair proportion of the time. I'm annoying as well. I was really wondering what was going on when a friend said 'Oh, you have first-year itis a bit early, that's all.'

What on earth was that? I research and Lucy Mangan explained it all. Many newly-weds settle down only to find themselves horrified by the fact that they have made a legally binding and public commitment to another person - and one that chews with his mouth open to boot. The slap of reality after the romance, if you will. She explained so clearly exactly what I was going through that the relief felt like someone rubbing my shoulders while monks chanted softly in the background.

I wasn't going mad. I wasn't falling out of love with my finace. I was just reacting fairly normally to the lifelong commitment I was planning on making and my brain was assessing this and testing for holes.

Anyone else out there experience this when they got engaged?

Always be aware of behaviour

So I submitted my own tale of Etiquette Hell to Hell's Bells a while ago and it was finally published!

It is the sad tale of when bridesmaids are complete bitches to other friends of the bride, I guess because they feel they are 'better' because they are the bridesmaids. It didn't impress anyone and left a very bad taste in the mouth of most of the attendees of the hen party.

So remember to pick your bridesmaids carefully and ask them to think of others before planning the hen do!

Girls, get a fucking grip

I'm sorry, I'm in a rage. I'm reading the latest issue of Perfect Wedding, a magazine I usually enjoy as it's a little different from the others. But they have a 25 Reasons You'll Love Being Married and it's making me want to vomit.

Number 13: You now know that there will always be someone on hand to change a tyre or check your oil.

Oh. My. God. Women. Seriously. If you don't know how to do either of these and you are a driver, you need to learn. Both of these things are not hard and your life will be made easier when YOU DON'T HAVE TO RELY ON MEN FOR SMALL MATTERS. Jesus Christ, learn some self-reliance and don't get married until you have grown up.

Number 14: Marriage means one extra piece of pretty jewellery to wear on your finger.

If this is your reason for getting married, you need actual psychiatric help and your husband/wife needs a very good lawyer.

Number 18: You will gain a superior knowledge of sports and computer games thanks to prolonged exposure.

We're not all Kim Kardashian-worshipping, Friends-watching, Heat-reading girly girls, you know. Some of us may even own an XBox. What is wrong with you? Stop perpetuating gender myths!

Sigh. It's things like this that make me so happy we're not having a stereotypical wedding and I'm not marrying a wanker who thinks that I wouldn't be able to change the oil in my car without his help. The rest if the list are things that basically would show up on a list of Reasons to Enjoy Having a Live-in Boyfriend so clearly nothing much changes when you get married, according to Perfect Wedding. What a pile of fetid anti-feminist shit. Happy 2012.