Brides Diary

Your Subtitle text

Bridal Accessories

Bride's Diary

DIRECTORY - STATIONERY - ACCESSORIES - BOMBONIERE - FABRICS - GOWNS - FLOWERS

Courtesy of BMAG - Brisbane's Largest Lifestyle Magazine

When Prue McMillan’s fiancé proposed, she entered a different world for a year but here’s how she survived to enjoy the happiest day of her life...

He’s got down on one knee and popped the big question – you’re overwhelmed and extremely excited – you have a wedding to organise! It wasn’t until Ibegan planning my own wedding to my wonderful fiancé that I realised just how much there is to consider. Not only do you have to source a range of service providers while remaining true to your budget, as a bride you also have to consider your pre-wedding beauty, health and fitness program, find a dress, arrange fittings, select shoes...the list goes on and on!

Once the excitement of the proposal is over you will soon realise that you need to begin planning almost immediately if you want to get married in 12 months – most venues require receptions to be booked at least that far in advance, which was certainly the case for us. Although this seems a long way in advance it

meant we could pick the date and the type of reception we wanted without having to compromise.

After we set the date I put together a checklist that I referred to during the whole planning process and it really helped me to keep on top of all our arrangements. But it’s not all plain sailing and you’re likely to find yourself juggling some potentially tricky situations along the way so a talent for tact, diplomacy and patience becomes fundamental to organising any wedding.

One of the main challenges I had to overcome was finding the dress of my dreams – something I thought would be the most fun turned out to be the most stressful. The first time I went dress shopping with my mum, none of the dresses fitted me properly and I didn’t look the way I had pictured myself to look at all – I was devastated! Pressure from sales assistants didn’t help and after some tears and copious cups of tea after shopping trips with mum I even contemplated eloping as I thought it would be much easier than trying to find the perfect dress for me.

The best advice I got was to go in a completely different direction and that’s how I found Selective Fine Fabrics at Underwood, which had the most extensive range of wedding materials I had ever seen. Not only did I find beautiful fabric but I found a very talented dressmaker called Elisabeth Rosentreter who made my exquisite wedding gown, inspired by a picture I found in a magazine. So keep an open mind when looking for your dress and be sure to try on several different styles before you make your final decision.

It was very important for me to make sure that my fiancé and his family were involved in the wedding preparations every step of the way. I think as brides it’s easy to get caught up in our own self-importance when planning our weddings and so it’s really important to remember that the wedding is about two people - and boys do sometimes like to have a say in the decisions too! That way you are more likely to create a wedding day that is a reflection of what you both love.