It has been a nightmare to find a bridesmaid dress that I like. If there was actually one I like it would be the wrong colour, or too expensive. I’ve been through every shop available, online, all of them. Finally I found one! Well within budget, the right colour, the perfect shape. Only it was by catalogue so no idea if it was really what it seemed to be or if the fabric was nice enough.

Well Sophie ordered one to try, we went visit this weekend, and… !!!!!!!!!!!!! It is even better than I thought! The shape and colour are perfect and the fabric is much better than the very expensive ones I saw. So today I ordered the other two and we will see if the sizes are good. If not we can always send them back. So happy! And so jealous! I have to buy one for myself!

So got what I wanted: a beautiful dress that they can wear again, comfortable and within budget. That and the jewellery will be my gifts to the bridesmaids Still searching but have a pretty good idea about what I will get. The shoes, I’ll leave it up to them. Having very sensitive feet I know how much comfort is important so they can choose whatever they like. Make up and hair, well they can talk to each other and see if they want to have them the same or not.

It was a fantastic weekend. I had some appointments to try on wedding dresses and Sophie, Sue (Russ’s mum) and I had so much fun! The conclusion was that The One is still The One! Tried it on again and the feeling was the same. The others don’t even compare.

We then carried on, all of us girls, to town to search for shoes and accessories (while the boys went shopping for groceries and baked some nice pastries). Didn’t find the shoes but found my jewellery :D. It is gorgeous and so cheap as well, special price. I even got two sets to have a choice on the day all below budget. It was a great weekend and we girls had a lot of fun. Should do it again soon!

With all the depression news and after becoming more aware of how much wedding stuff costs, budgeting became an important part of our lives. I was the main budgeter but after a few arguments on how much money we really have I decided to pass the burden to Russ. IT geek as he is, he found a software that keeps everything in order. I was happy to realise that all my previous hand-made budgeting was correct and I may have found a new career .

Anyway, the news are worrying. We are going to struggle to pay for the wedding. We already reduced the guest list to a minimum, trying to not alter our idea of the wedding we want. We are now reducing everything else but still I may not be able to get The One dress :-(  We will still have a fantastic wedding though, I’m sure! It’s all part of the fun  and budgeting is still one of my favorite activities (and now Russ’s as well) and nothing like a good challenge to keep things interesting.

Let’s hope things improve, keep your fingers crossed