When resentment rides high and desperation takes hold...

Honestly. I'm over a year away from this freaking thing and I want it to be over. I want to have a week where I just don't think anything "wedding" related.

I can't sleep, I can't eat, I'm an emotional wreck at the moment.

It all started off OK though. Sister and I went to a fantastic wedding show at the weekend, the Designer Vintage Bridal show, held in Edgbaston.

It was a fantastic day. Great freebies, great stands and I even bought (OK, my sister bought me something) from the fantastic Tallulah's Trinkets.

I even tried on a dress or two!

The thing is I can't do anything without crying at the moment.

Sister made me cry after comparing me to a "heifer" in a slightly meringuey dress.

I cried when I found out my dad has lied to my brother and sister about how much help I actually got at university.

I cried because I'm so mean to Gareth sometimes.

The cracks and issues in my family that I've turned a blind eye to are starting to get more and more apparent and traumatic and I'm wondering how long it's going to be before it really kicks off.

Any words of advice?

Stress: I don't want it, I don't need it, making it go away...

I'll be honest. Today has been a pretty pants day.

Nothing specific and nothing wedding related but it's made me realise how much planning a wedding can be an escapism for many in the day-to-day way of things.

Without getting into too much detail I would really like nothing more than to go home and plan wedding stuff. Even the boring stuff. Even the money side of stuff. It's been that bad a day.

So, I've come up with my top five ways of relieving stress. Whether it be wedding related stress or general, I feel like punching a puppy I'm so peeved, stress. (Nb. I would NEVER EVER EVER punch a puppy!)

1) Get absolutley rat arsed

Didn't I mention this was MY way of destressing? No..? You thought it would be all lavender and scented candles? Oops. No I would say, when stressed get a large bottle of vino. Open. Pour. Neck back. Repeat until merrily drunk. Even if you cry you'll be so distracted by the hangover and puffy eyes the next day you'll be more worried about that.

2) Smash stuff!

I'm one of these people that doesn't smash things unless I am super angry. I am always thinking about the consequences. But when I break stuff, I break stuff GOOD. Last example when G was away in Italy on a work trip I became super duper annoyed with our vaccuum and how cheap and nasty it was, how much I wanted a Dyson etc etc. Threw the whole thing down the stairs. It broke. He returned. We bought a Dyson. Hoorah!

3) YouTube cute/funny/sadistic stuff

No bad mood I have ever had has ever lasted through the "Hug Every Cat" song on YouTube, no temper has been so foul it has not been cured by typing the magic words "treadmill" and "funny", no heart has remained like ice after looking up "World's Cutest Monkey". The Internet is a powerful weapon in the throes of stress elimination.

4) Buy something frivilous

For you it may be a pair of shoes, a piece of jewelery, a DVD boxset. Me? Well it depends. I go through weird fads every pay day. Sometimes it's Lush stuff, next month it's MAC cosmetics. This month it is faux fur lined hoodies and wedding magazines. Sure you may feel guilty for a while but guilt is better than stress. It's easier to cure guilt over buying something frivolous.

5) The boring one.... sort it out. Head on.

Sadly, like many problems, they will continue to be problems unless you sort them out. This could be calling your boss and having a frank conversation with them about feeling overworked and stressed. It could be taking a step back to reassess what is important in your life, but one thing is for certain, like most horrible manky stuff if you don't sort it out it will linger and fester. Just imagine your life without that stress and think about what the worst that could happen would be. Stress is a real illness and it can lead to high blood pressure amongst other things. Nothing in life is THAT important....

and if that doesn't work
CUTE

"I will be thin! I will be thin! I will be thin!"

Like all other things bridal and girly I've never been over the top about my looks.

I'm not a bad looking girl. I have a good-ish figure if a little on the heavy side nowadays but a spot of make up and I "scrub up well" to quote G.

So after we first got engaged and after realising that I'd put more weight on than I realised I decided to go on my first ever diet in January this year.

Rather than count calories and be a complete bore (Celery is 12 calories... ) I thought I'd join a local group and try it that way. So I toddled along to my local Slimming World club run by a lovely lady called Fiona.

And, for a while, I was really successful shedding nearly two stone in about four months. My ideal weight was another 2 stone off but then things started to wane a bit. We entered the house buying process and ended up distracted and with late nights and eating take aways I bowed out of my little group thinking "I'll be fine!" on my own.

Since then I also gave up smoking. My 12 year, 20/40 a day habit that was a pain to break. Putting weight on was inevitable and shock horror last night I weighed myself to see I'd put about half the weight back on (eep!)

Now, in my defence I have carried on many of the habits that I learnt and I believe this has prevented me from putting all the weight back on. I no longer drink full fat fizzy drinks, I only eat fat free yoghurt, I drink a helluva lot of green tea, if we go to a fast food restaurant I know what I can and can't have etc.

It's just the planning that lets me down. The long day at work, come home and I can't be bothered to come up with anything so it's kebab, pizza, whatever is in the fridge again.

So with a heavy heart and dreams of getting my waistline back I am rejoining Slimming World on Thursday.

I'm a little bit nervous but I'm quite keen, particularly after quitting smoking as well. Quitting smoking was something I never thought in a million years I'd be able to do but I did.

These little changes I've all thought at the time I'm doing it for my health, long term etc etc etc and I've come to realise this morning that all of them are about the photos.

Yes, I know... shallow as that may seem but losing weight to look like a filmstar in my dress, quitting smoking is mainly so I can have dental implants... it's all because I want to look amazing in the pictures.

Maybe I'm more girly girl than I thought?

The crazy is setting in...

I know I haven't posted in ages.. things have started to pick up a bit of speed and I seem to have come down with a case of sickness....
Wedding Fever.

ME, the freaking anti-bride is getting gooey, schmultzy, and over the top about the stupides things.

I can totally understand where the whole Bride-zilla thing comes from. You totally get stuck in the moment.

I'm already struggling with budget... £3k will cover the reception venue, catering, drink and everything. Photography is costing quite a lot (I wanted a specific photographer), £250 for the actual wedding... I haven't even started on dresses etc.

I'm trying my hardest to step back and be a bit less crazy but they really do suck you in. I keep dreaming about table plans, dresses and guestlists....

If this is what I'm like now then christ, what am I going to be like in a years time. EEEP!

But it's MY day!!!!

Ok. So hot on the heels of my last post I've just had my first ever bridal breakdown.

I'm talking floods of tears, snot pouring, tantrum throwing breakdown... in my work office at lunchtime.

Yeah, good look.

Basically... and to be diplomatic as possible... my MIL to be is a lovely lady... but she INTERFERES TO HELL.

When we bought our house she kitted out our entire house, she lent me money to pay off a debt (which I am paying her back) and did all of this without any of our input.

House moved into, stuff in and we thought phew that's it.

I just got a call from her to say that she had been for a tour around the two places that we would like to get married. No indication she was going to do this. She got brochures, saw the reception areas, looked at photos and got prices.

I was fuming but could only nod, smile and thank her for inconveniencing herself to help us. So I called my fiance who, unsurprisingly, was just as angry if not more (He and his mum don't have the best relationship) and ended up calling her and having a bit of a pop.

It's a bit hard because I want to keep everybody happy and, normally, this would be the part that my mother would have stuck her oar in and stuck up for me without me saying anything to make people feel bad.

But my mum isn't here and I don't really have anybody that can do that for me other than G.

So apparently she was quite upset and stated that she hadn't given any of our details away etc etc and now I feel like shit.

The girls in the office, G and my sister have all told me not to be so silly. Better now than a year down the line but why can't I help but feel like shit. I HATE to upset people and often I may come across as two faced but it's literally because I just don't want to upset people. Call me chicken shit but I hate confrontation and I'd rather bottle it up sometimes.

So now I have a fiance who has shouted at his mum, a MIL to be that feels embarrassed and hurt (and apparently even cried a little bit) and now I feel like I can't face, my sister is bouncing off the walls furious that people are "interfering" when I know full and well she will as well, a completely apathetic father who's opinion is he'll just sign the cheques and turn up...

and I haven't even looked, let alone picked, a venue yet.

Oh dearrr...

Well that's a surprise...

We've actually started looking at things! Yay!

We've got a meeting with a potential photographer tonight. After scouring the Internet and speaking to people (and seeing a lot of terrible photographs) I've finally found one up to my high standards and we're meeting them tonight for a chat and to talk shop.

One of the things I've sat down and really thought about is the lasting things from the day itself. I've come to three conclusions of what is "important" and has longevity.

1) Photographs - My sister got married back in 1989. She had a Harrods antique silk and lace dress, she had the most gorgeous headress made from young white roses, her hair and make up were perfect. She and her groom (now my brother-in-law 22 years later...) decided to pick a photographer based on price rather than gut instinct. To this day she still regrets her choice of photographer. Personally I can't see anything wrong with her photos but she moans and complains about them quite regularly. In addition photographs will probably last longer than we will and they will be passed down through the family.

2) Wedding Rings - My engagement ring wasn't expensive. It's not diamond and it's not huge. It's got a gorgeous sapphire in it that G and I picked out together the day after we got engaged when on holiday in Rhodes. I picked it specifically because the blue of the sapphire was light and reminded me of the beach where he proposed and his blue eyes. Wedding bands do not mean a lot but they are a constant reminder of your connection to someone. Again, these will be passed down through the family.

3) The Marriage - No wedding is worth the stress and hassle that destroys a relationship. Watching countless programmes recently on Don't Tell The Bride, Four Weddings, Bridezillas etc it seems to me that so many women get OBSESSED over the minute details of their big day. The whole reason that I started this blog is that is not the person who I am... but I can see how it can get like that. Along the way I'll just have to remember that it is JUST A DAY. Yes, it's an important day. However it is JUST A DAY.

In other news I went to a festival this weekend with my best friend and came back to find my fiance hadn't realised that the oven was switched off at the wall so had been eating cold and frozen food thinking the oven was broken. And had spent a shedload of money on a vintage Vespa I didn't even know he wanted....

Needless to say he's not being left alone again for a while...

And what exact point do you start to define"being a grown up"....

Growing up. It's hard, it involves pains, hell, it even involves buying a new wardrobe and the guaranteed "I'm a goth/emo/dead Egyptian/other person who wears giant black eyeliner on a daily basis" phase.

But at what point exactly do we become a "grown up"?

People have been speaking to me recently and remarking on how "grown up" I am... look at you, you bought a house! Grown up! Look at you, you are getting married! Grown up! Look at you, you ate all your vegetables! Grown up!

So why do I still have the urge to throw a hissy fit, lock myself in my room and do nothing but watch True Blood, read Cosmo and listen to The Cure on repeat until the CD wears out.

I turned 26 the other week. I'm in that weird limbo stage of being young still but now having the weight of the world on my shoulders. One minute I'm panicking about whether or not my colour eye shadow is "on-trend" (OK I lie.. I don't worry about this at all, but you catch my drift.) and then swing to "Oh Christ! I haven't started a pension yet!"

People will gladly sell me knives, cigarettes and naughty DVDs should I wish and when small children bump into me their parent says "Say sorry to the lady..." at which point I get all huffy and think "They bumped into me!" before realising I am that "lady".

Maybe people go through their entire life waiting to be caught out. As if the whole world is merrily ignoring the fact they are actually a child in a convincing suit and haven't realised that they aren't capable of tying their own shoelaces let alone dealing with a multi-million pound accounts/world politics/other people's purchasing decisions on washing powder.

So, until anybody finds out that I'd rather be at the kids table playing with my crayons I guess I better keep pretending that I am one of these adult things. Keeps me off the streets at least...