So, as you can probably tell, the last four weeks before the wedding were incredibly hectic and I didn't get much of a chance to update this website!

Our hen and stag dos went swimmingly - Matt was pleased with the 'normality' of his night out and I was overwhelmed by the preparation that had gone into my weekend!  I will be updating the hen and stag pages on this website in the next few weeks so everyone can see photos and stories of what went on.

The wedding day is now over, and we both had the times of our lives.  Everything went to plan (except a minor speedy organ player here and Matt interrupting the vicar there!), and even the weather held out for us and the cold sores stayed away from me!

We can't thank everyone enough for making the day what it was.  Our friends and family are second to none and we are so grateful for all the time and effort that everyone put into coming to our wedding.  As I said in my speech, a wedding can happen anywhere and at any time, but it can only be a true celebration when all the people you really love are there to share it with you.  We've had such great comments from people about how much they enjoyed the day, so we're really pleased we put so much effort into it.

The week before the wedding I felt like I didn't have time to breathe, putting together the sugared almonds, making the menus and orders of service, ironing chair covers...I did give myself a lot to do but I think it was all worth it in the end!

We still have one last little surprise for people that we are trying to put together, and they will be sent out with the thank you cards in a few weeks time, but it does require lots of photos so if any of you did take pictures during the day I would be ever so grateful if you could send them to me on CD or upload them online so I can get copies!  Then after that my work will be done, though we have already set ourselves the challenge of the Yorkshire Three Peaks in October.......!!!

We're now very nearly into the month that we get married!  Everything had seemed to be going to plan until I was in a car accident at the weekend.  As I was driving my maid of honour to the train station, a motorcyclist came round a tight bend on our side of the road, so far over that he went into the passenger corner of the front of the car!  Luckily, somehow it seems as though he wasn't seriously injured, just severely concussed, so more than anything now it's just annoying without Matt and I having a car.  Fingers crossed it will all be sorted quickly as the police statements all show that it was the biker's fault, so we can get it sorted and move on.  Thank you, Anneka, for being so supportive when it happened, I think I would've fell apart even more if you hadn't been there!

Well, finally, things seem to have settled down a bit and we can enjoy all the fun things now that most bits are organised.

A couple of weeks ago I had my final dress fitting, and it fits perfectly!  I'm really pleased that we don't have to spend money on alterations!  I also had my make up trial, and hair trial, both of which I was really pleased with, thankfully.  Anneka also had a hair trial as the chief bridesmaid, so we know how they're going to look too.

Then last weekend we had our pre-wedding photoshoot at our venue with our photographer.  The pictures are now online at http://images.ajphotographic.co.uk/, just click on the link for our photos and type in my surname as the password.  We particularly love photo numbers 15 and 24!

Matt started his new job on Tuesday and it seems to be going well so far.  Fingers crossed he will enjoy it as much as we think he will.  Everything seems to be coming together nicely now, and we can look forward to a few weeks break from wedding planning!

Thank you to those of you that have RSVP'd - there's just a few more we're waiting to hear back from.  If you could send them back asap that would be great :-)

It seems like only yesterday I was writing '20 weeks to go', and now we're half way to the wedding since then!

Finally, all the invites are posted, and we know a number of you have already received them.  We've had some really good feedback on the invites which we're pleased with, as we put a lot of effort into coming up with the idea and then printing them and putting them together ourselves.  Matt did help too, cutting strips of cellotape ready for me!

The invites were the last of the 'big things' to organise, so now we've got all the fun things to look forward to in the final run up to the wedding...my final dress fitting, our pre-wedding photo shoot...so now we should have a few weeks breathing space before needing to do all the last minute bits and bobs!

I did receive 'the' call last week to say that my dress has arrived!  I can't wait to try it on, I just hope I fit into it!

We went up to Arran last weekend for a mini-break, and a reunion with some of the people we went to Peru with, one year on from when we left for Machu Picchu.  We can't believe it's been a year now since we completed the trek when Matt proposed.  Time is moving very fast!

This weekend has been the busiest planning weekend yet!

On Saturday we travelled across to Essex and had meetings with a couple of suppliers that are helping us on the big day.  On Sunday we went to Le Talbooth near Colchester to taste the dishes that we have chosen for our wedding breakfast.  Then today we had our official planning meeting at the venue, where we went through the whole day in major detail, noting the exact schedule and timings for everything!  The wedding planner at the venue, Gill, was really helpful, and it's good someone as much of a 'control-freak' as myself is getting married at a venue as organised as Spains Hall!

The bridesmaids' shoes have finally arrived!  So they just need to be tried on to make sure they fit!

For the day after the wedding, we have decided to spend the afternoon at a pub called The Swan in Thaxted, which is actually where a number of guests are staying!  We stopped off there for lunch today, and decided that would be the easiest and best place for us to go, in case anyone wishes to join us for part of the afternoon before heading home!  We will be there ourselves from around 11.30am for the majority of the afternoon, and it would be great to see people, even if it's just for a quick drink.

You might also be interested to know we've finally updated Matt's information on the 'About Us' page, which you can see here!

Finally, I've got round to updating the website with more specific wedding details, such as the gift lists, taxi numbers and other important guest information.  Please click on the links at the top of the page to find out more!

We have decided to offer two options of gift lists for any guests that wish to buy us a gift for our wedding day (we would be most grateful for any gifts, though obviously the most important to us is for everyone to be able to attend our big day!).  If anyone would like to put some spending money towards our honeymoon, there will be a locked post-box at our wedding reception.  We have also listed some of the activities we will be taking part in on the Gift Lists page, so if the money is to go toward a specific element of the honeymoon, please let us know!

We have also formed a list at Debenhams, which we completed yesterday, and it was great fun walking round the store with the 'zapper'!  There is currently a sale on at Debenhams, and almost all the items we chose to put on the list were in the sale, so if anyone is thinking of getting a gift from Debenhams it might be an idea to get it soon at the sale price!  (You can order gifts online or in store, and the best way to search for our list is by the Bride's surname:  Laskowski).  Again, more information is on the Gift Lists page.

We are getting there with the invitations, so they should be ready to post in about a week or so, although with the current volcano ash covering the country it may take a while for the invitations to be delivered!  Even though we've designed and printed them completely at home by ourselves, we're actually really pleased with how they're looking.

The only problem we seem to be having at the moment is with the Bridesmaids' shoes!  We ordered them a couple of weeks ago now and they still haven't arrived.  Apparently they keep getting 'lost in the post' so hopefully they'll reach us eventually.

In other news, I have now reduced my hours in London to three days a week, so I have two days a week to work on Aqua Rose (my own wedding business).  It's doing well so far this year and I've taken plenty of bookings for the Summer.  Last weekend, Matt's parents and my Mum and Stepdad came to visit and put up a new fence for us, take down one of the trees and generally do some work in the garden so it's now all ready for the Summer!  

The weather's getting better, so finally it seems Summer has arrived, drumming it into us even more that it's really not that long till the wedding day!

So now we're very nearly in April, and there's just over 17 weeks to go!  We'll be in Australia celebrating New Year before we know it!


We've booked and paid for the flights for our main honeymoon, which we will be taking in December.  We're heading to Australia (and New Zealand) for a few weeks, and we'll be spending Christmas Day on the beach in Melbourne, and partying away in Sydney for New Year's Eve.  Matt's been planning all the details for the honeymoon, so I'm not too sure on exactly what we'll be getting up to, but we're both incredibly excited.  It will give us something to keep on looking forward to after the wedding is over.


This week we need to decide on the food and drink for the reception, and get together all the other little details as we have our main planning meeting at the venue in a few weeks.  We've received some wine samples and spent Friday night having a little 'tasting session' to decide on the white wine.  The reds are still waiting to be tried and tested!


Over Easter weekend we're spending a couple of days in London visiting a few different friends, and we're hoping to get going with the invitations too.  They're going to take a while to put together as we're making our own, and we need to send them out very soon!

Just when we thought things couldn't get any busier, how wrong were we?!

Back in February, Matt's parents came down to stay in Essex.  It was a weekend full of appointments, and we booked all the flowers, got all the men measured for their suits, and showed Matt's parents and the Best Man around the venue.  Overall it was a fun weekend, and brought on even more excitement for the day itself.

All of the important things are booked now, so we thought we'd be able to relax a little more, but that's not the case!  We're in the middle of designing our invitations, and are hoping to get them sent out at the end of April-time.  We're really pleased with them as we think the idea we've come up with to fit in with the theme of our wedding is really good!  We've also bought a couple of other secretive items that we're quite excited about!

We've also pretty much decided on what will be happening the day after the wedding.  It looks as though we may be going to a family friend's pub in Hedingham, and there'll be a BBQ and things so for everyone that would like to stop by for some lunch to alleviate hangovers before heading on your long journeys home it would be really good to see you.  All the information will be on the invitations.

Last weekend we headed to our friends, Sam and Gary, in Norwich for their engagement party (another wedding to look forward to next year already!) and we had a great time catching up with Vicky and Gary too.   We had a look through Vicky's wedding album from last year and now I just can't wait to be married myself!  It does seem strange how the three of us girls lived together at uni, and now we're getting married in three consecutive years!

I'm getting on well with putting together our scrapbook for Peru, so hopefully that will be ready in time for the wedding weekend if people would like to see it then.  There's so many other little special things I want to get done in time for the wedding too, sometimes I wish I wasn't such a perfectionist...!

Last weekend we went away together to Daventry, near Coventry, as we came across a very good hotel deal and thought we'd take advantage and have an early Valentines.  Matt treated me to a pedicure in the spa, while he went off to watch York City play for the afternoon!  We enjoyed a good meal in the evening and it was nice to just get away and do something a bit different!


We exchanged our car a few weeks ago for a shiny new red one, and also my contract at work comes to end in March so there'll possibly be some career decisions to make soon.  I have a couple of options, it's just a case of trying to choose the right one!


I've finally uploaded my recent photos from my camera and came across the ones below of St Catherine's Church in Gosfield, the place we're getting married, that we took last time we were back in Essex.  Next week we have appointments booked with the florist and all the men in the bridal party are getting measured for their suits.  Matt's parents are also coming down to stay and we're going to show them round the venue, so it will be another busy wedding planning weekend.

We had our meeting with Father Geoff last weekend, which all went great and he was really pleased with how much we'd already planned for the ceremony.  Then on Sunday morning we went to the family service at the church, where Geoff pulled out his guitar and played a song and got a few people to make man shapes out of plasticine to explain his discussion about the bible, and we actually really enjoyed it and were so pleased that Geoff would be marrying us on our wedding day.

Then at the end of the service, Geoff dropped the bombshell that he has been at Gosfield Church for nearly six years now, and the time has come for him to move on to another church!  We spoke to him after the service and he assured us that everything would be fine, and he wanted to tell us at our meeting but he had to do the announcement to everyone at church first.  It's likely that he'll be moving on at Easter, but there's always a chance that he may be able to come back to do our wedding, so we're both really keeping our fingers crossed tightly that he can.

Everything else is moving along swiftly now too!  We've put down a deposit on the suit hire and we've had a look through our florist's portfolios to get ideas for flowers.  I stopped at my chief bridesmaid's house last night and we spent the evening with two of my other bridesmaids, gossiping about the wedding, the hen party and reminiscing about old times.  Six months and eight days to go...