8 and a half months

That's it, I've almost hit the 8.5 months mark! But at the moment panic has not kicked in, we've had a pretty organised weekend, very productive if I say so myself. We bought wedding bands, booked the honeymoon,and paid the deposit for booking the florist.
oooh and ordered the bridesmaids dresses too!
But theoretically when you hit this poiint in planning there are a list of things you should have accomplished and shold be taking care of - booking cake, ordering stationery, booking flowers.....but it just depends on the bride and groom to be in all honesty. Here at Guide to Being a Scottish Bride, we are a firm believer in the thinking that if you want to be ultra organised then go ahead, plan as much as you can and do what you can when you can. Yes these lists are a great starting point, but don't feel obliged to stick to them.

Gift Lists

We dread them, we hate them and worst of all a lot of us end up having one!

I always said that I didn't want to have a gift list for our wedding, but because we live together it makes sense to make a list of little bits and pieces that people could get us if they wished to avoid the sterotypical 3 toasters, 2 kettles and 12 sets of towels (mind none of that goes wrong).

So lets consider the options of gift lists, you get the traditional store lists in the likes of John Lewis, Debenhams etc but you can also have then in the likes of Argos - it really depends on the budget that you're working with.

You can request "gifts" or contributions to your honeymoon on some lists, as well as making a charity gift list where instead of buying you a gift friends and family can buy things like a goat for an African community etc

Once you've decided to set up a list, you have to consider what to put on it, for us this has been the hardest thing. We couldn't decide what to ask for, then once we decided we didn't want to have anything too pricey to avoid family thinking we were being cheeky.

So far our lists comprises of both necessary items and silly items:
* various plates and bowls from the dinner set we got as an engagement gift
* wine glasses
* vases (that way he's got no excuse not to buy me flowers!)
* bedding (it never goes wrong)
* pans
* posh cutlery
* table cloth and napkins
* place mats and coasters
* towels
* coffee machine
* toaster
* photo frames
* a bathroom set (soap dispenser, toothbrush holder etc)
* mixing bowl and kitchen scales
* a rolling pin and various baking trays and tins
* chopping board, cookbook stand, chopsticks and a knife set
* a wine rack
* an ice cream maker
* cookbook

See you can list various things, some of ours are things that we think we might 'put past' for future use ie the table linen as we don't have a diningroom table at the moment. There are things that are purely silly on there like the rainbow chopsticks and corkscrew, tin opener and bottle stoppers but adding little bits like that shows people that we're being light hearted about it.

We've also made sure that we said to people not to feel obliged to buy anthing at all from the gift list, we're more than happy for a £10 gift voucher or if they want to buy a similar present from elsewhere, but if they do would they try to stick to the colour etc we have asked for ie can we have stone coloured towels/white bathroom set etc etc

Gift lists are notoriously difficult and depending on how your family are likely to react to it, they can be an absolute nightmare. I've recently seen a list with very extravagent things listed, 50 inch LCD tvs, Le Creuset pans at £56 each, a washing machine....in all honesty I looked at it and laughed! There's no way I'd be buying something off that list, but at the same time for some people looking at it they may think those are legitimate, regular things to ask for......it just depends on your family and remember that sometimes people will "club" together to buy things - in our case it's more than likely that aunts and uncles will buy pieces from the dinner set we want together rather than each set buying their individual presents.

It's worth having a think about what you would really like and appreciate as a wedding present. Why not have a think and make up a list of things you might want, like bedding, towels, a dinner set, a fancy pan, a food processor....etc and then see where you think might offer the best service. Look out for places that offer free delivery, otherwise your guests could find a delivery charge being added on to the price of their gift.

And don't forget to send thank you cards for all the presents, donations and gift vouchers!!!

Honeymoons

It's the bit that you look most forward to after the wedding because it's your down time and you get to relax. But 'honeymoon hunting' can be quite stressful for some couples. The best advice I can give is to make a list of the places you both would like to see and things you would both like to do. For instance say you fancy an adventure holiday, but the other half would prefer to relax in the sun...why not consider a cruise? That way you get adventure on onshore excursions and the other half can sun themselves on the days at sea.

If however you're like us and have no idea where you'd really like to go then go and speak with your travel agent for some ideas. We found that because we're getting married in April and having the honeymoon just after the wedding we were limited to where we could go and what we could do because it's just at the end of the winter holidays and just before the summer ones begin so in our case a cruise was the prefect option and to make sure we cover all the destinations we both want to see we're taking a 14 night cruise round the Med.

It's best to consider if you want to travel straight after the wedding in your married name or not. Because in Scotland the laws are different from the rest of the UK, you need to apply to the passport agency in advance using your married name and fill in a special form that states you would like your passport post dated and you must get this signed by the celebrant conducting the ceremony.