This whole getting married business is very exciting, and despite my best efforts not to, quite frankly I’m a bit obsessed. I browse marriage blogs daily (Love My Dress is a big favourite) and buying wedding magazines is becoming a bit of an expensive, and entirely unnecessary, habit. If I included every cool or quirky idea I’ve seen my own wedding will end up being a cluttered mish-mash and everything will be lost in the chaos. Not to mention costing a small fortune. So I’m trying to reign in my imagination, I’m collecting ideas and hopefully as the months pass (only 9 and a half months to go!) I’ll be able to pick out the best, and most achievable ones. 


All that said, one thing has already been decided. Yesterday I bought a wedding dress! A few weeks ago I went on my first dress shopping expedition. Along with my mum and bridesmaid Claire I went to two dress shops whilst at home in Blackpool. Although I found a couple of dresses I quite liked the selection was pretty uninspiring. There are so many similar dresses that it feels like everything is just a variation on a theme. I had no real idea what I was looking for but I knew that these dresses weren’t it. In all my wedding research I’ve been drawn to the vintage style weddings. You know the thing – floral tea cups, retro sweeties, VW campervans and candy coloured cupcakes. It will come as no surprise to those who know me that we aren’t having a church wedding and we’re just after something a bit more informal…


So, I knew I wasn’t going to settle for one of these off the peg dresses before I’d investigated some vintage possibilities. Which is how Claire and I found ourselves heading down an alley off Argyle Street in Glasgow yesterday to find Dragonfly Dress Design. We were quite early for our 11am appointment and so were delighted to discover the Hidden Lane Tearoom and had plenty of time for tea, and cakes too of course! 


We managed to find Lisa’s studio through the winding corridor of a bright yellow painted building and in her tiny studio where she not only sells and reworks vintage dresses but also makes bespoke creations I found what I was looking for. Or rather, and here’s the magic part, I found what I was almost looking for.  And after some discussion with Lisa she explained exactly how she’ll be able to turn my original 1950s wedding dress into exactly what I’m looking for. Obviously I’m not going to give too much away here but by completely removing, recutting and rebuilding the top of dress before putting it all back together again I’m going to get the dress of my dreams. And what makes it even more exciting is that it’s a dress that no-one else will ever have had. I’d love some way to find out who wore the dress originally and what their wedding day was like, but even though the dress belonged to someone else and has seen one wedding already, by the time Lisa has finished working her magic it’s most definitely going to be MY dress. 


Anyway, that’ll have to do for now. It’s a school night and it’s past my bed time. I’m counting down the days until the summer holidays (only 10 school days to go). I can’t wait for the last day of term to get here…despite the fact that it means I’ll be unemployed. On that note however, I’ve got two more applications in the pipeline at the moment so we’ll have to wait and see if I get anywhere with those – fingers crossed please, dear readers!