A way to avoid corkage charges?

Today's wedding task was to email the venue with our wine requests. Having drunk tasted our way round New Zealand, we would love to have NZ wine at the wedding. Our venue does not stock any NZ wine.

I should say at this point that Kiwis are pretty serious about their wine (in as much as they are serious about anything other than rugby). You can't go into a bar and order a 'glass of house red,' you have to at least specify the grape variety (Pinot Noir yummmmmm). They usually have at least a dozen wines served by the glass, and all of them will be better than the standard UK options. For the same price. I love going out for drinks here!

When my parents went to view the Lodge, they spoke to the coordinator Tracey about supplying our own drinks. Obviously there is a corkage charge, which we understand. Tracey said that was fine, but suggested an alternative option which would be cheaper. They would source NZ wine for us through their wine merchant, and then we would buy it from them and just pay a single standard mark up rather than corkage.

As I've only just sent the email, I don't know exactly how much this is going to cost, but Tracey thinks it will be about £20 per person for all the drinks. (Their cheapest drink package is £16 pp, the next is £21.) I'm pretty hopeful that we'll get to have some really good wine for a reasonable price.

We've sent a list of everything we like, and are waiting to see what the merchant can suggest/source. I can recommend Lindauer sparkling wine (available at Majestic currently £8.99) - we drink that a surprising amount here! It may all go horribly wrong and we'll end up with Spanish Cava and Australian Merlot, but there are worse things that could happen!

Sneaky flight charges and the wonderful Expedia

I can't give advice on booking package holidays, as it's not something I do much of. When it comes to booking flights (and hotels/rental cars/trains etc), however, I have quite a bit of experience. We currently have thirteen flights booked - maybe I should book one more to avoid the unlucky number?!

None of these are for our honeymoon, but some of the places we're going (Fiji, San Francisco) would be great honeymoon destinations. Some are with multinational airline alliances (BA/Qantas/One World), and some are with budget airlines. I'll fly with almost anyone, as long as the price and the time is right. The exception to this (apologies to those of you in the US) is some of the American airlines. We're flying BA as the alternative was United, who have consistently failed to deliver. Having said that, I was also unimpressed with Emirates, and they tend to get good reviews. On the flip side, I've yet to have a really bad experience on a budget airline - obviously you get what you pay for, but what do you really need on a 2 hour flight?

Budget airlines get notoriously bad press, either for being late (tight schedules) or for sneaky charges. Whilst the charges are annoying, just play the game and they can be minimised (check in online, take only carry-on luggage and pay by debit card). NZ's budget airline JetStar does much better than EasyJet or Ryan Air for the latter - you can pay by internet banking which is fee-free. It works really well for flights originating in NZ, but I've just discovered that it doesn't work for flights originating elsewhere as you have to pay in the currency local to where your journey begins.

Enter Expedia. I often read reviews of new flight comparison websites, but none of them seem to work as well as Expedia. I've used them since 2002, and although I shop around every time I book a flight, over 50% are booked through Expedia. They don't charge fees, have consistently good prices, good customer service and an easy to navigate site. This time they have even managed to trump budget airline JetStar on their own prices!

They're also great for hotels, and link in to Trip Advisor's rating system. I've used expedia.com, expedia.co.uk (you can spend and receive nectar points here) and expedia.co.nz, and can highly recommend them. And before anyone asks, they haven't paid me to say this!

Whose budget is it anyway?

I have just added up Gadget's Ebay spending on the wedding. Bear in mind we are over 10 months from the big day, and there are still a lot of things to buy. Whilst I appreciate his involvement, I wish I had a bit more idea of what he's been spending - he's way over budget already.

As I've mentioned before, I'm a conservative spender. Gadget is not. He is a product of our capitalist society and consumer driven economy; he wants the best of everything and he wants it now. He doesn't want to wait and see what we already have that might work.

In the grand scheme of things he hasn't spent that much, and at least he's getting into the planning. My worry is where this will lead, and how I tell him that he probably can't have everything he wants. Whilst this sounds very negative, we both understand our financial roles - his is to spend and mine is to hold him back! This is the case for our relationship in general, and is clearly going to be true for the wedding.

It's not that he's deliberately wasting money; it's more that he can't function within a budget. Keeping track of his spending and stopping at a set limit are slightly alien concepts to him - which will make lots of sense when I tell you that his job title is "Commercial and FINANCIAL manager!"

Note: I feel the need to add that I had to check the spelling/grammar of this post title before I wrote it. Yes, I have OCD. Deal!

The Lego creep

Apparently I was too busy holiday planning to write anything yesterday! Also, did anyone notice the not-so-deliberate mistake on the engagement photos? I didn't until I printed them out - it's now been corrected!

Our lego cake topper has arrived! I'm waiting for dad to take a picture, so for now you'll have to make do with this. My dad is quite excited at the whole lego idea I think!

Official Lego product bought via ebay

How cute? It now appears that we might be having lego elsewhere in the wedding. Gadget has found lego cufflinks which are pretty awesome - they definitely fit with our fun, brightly coloured day. We also found some pictures of buttonholes with lego men in them, so we're thinking about that too. Then he wondered if we should have lego bricks on the tables - I'm leaving that one to him! The lego creep has definitely begun....

Image from Offbeat bride

http://www.melodyfarrin.com/blog/?m=200810

Image from coolquirks.com, product available from bits and badges on etsy

Honouring my ladies

I'm not having 'pretty maids all in a row'. This is not because I don't have people who I could ask to be my bridesmaids - there are several ladies in my life who merit the title of bridesmaid. These girls are important to me, and I would love to take this opportunity to show them that. (Of course they already know, but that's not the point.) But the WIC has kicked in again, and turned being a bridesmaid into a job that costs you money. That's not what I want at all, and is why I've opted out of it.

My MOH will have only two jobs - keep me and my mum laughing, and keep the little attendants from hurting themselves. Believe me when I say the first job will be harder than the last, as the last is something she does everyday and is very good at!

Back to my friends, and the question of how to let them know how much their friendship means to me. I've asked two of them (Team Warwards, the fabulous Ms D and Mrs F) to arrange my hen night. I may ask others to be involved in the day - either helping with make-up, doing a reading, or giving out order of service sheets for the church. Whilst I realise that this is 'an honour' (I was thrilled to do a reading at one of their weddings), it is also slightly nerve-wracking and is almost asking for a favour. So it doesn't quite satisfy the brief.

I'm hatching a plan that involves champagne, some awesome phrases of thanks, much laughing and some photographs, but you'll have to wait and see how that comes together!

To evite, or to invite?

Whilst I wasn't the little girl dreaming about her wedding, there were a few things I was fairly certain about. The church, the dress colour, and the invitations. Only two of these have gone according to plan.

My family make their own greetings cards, and always have done. When aunt J got married, she made her wedding invitations (although it's a standing joke that I never actually got one!). I knew I was going to make our wedding invitations.

Well, I suppose I have, but not in the way I'd imagined. I had plans for a gatefold card tied with ribbon with a vellum insert. I even ordered card samples (luckily these were free). Then I realised the invitations need to go out in January to give everyone time to book rooms (if not booked a month before the wedding the rooms are released). We arrive back in the UK on January 19th. That means I either have to make the invitations in a bit of a rush, or I have to have them ready before then.

I didn't bring my craft stuff to NZ, as it didn't make sense. I'm not buying a whole load of new stuff, and I'm not posting all the invites from here. So that leaves me with buying them, or being "tacky" and sending evites.

I have no idea why evites are tacky, but plenty of people seem to think they are. Apparently a 'formal invite sets the tone for the day.' What if the tone of the day isn't formal? One bridal forum commenter said 'it's never tacky saving trees, and saving money is just a bonus,' which I definitely agree with.

Other commenters seem to think an email is likely to be ignored, whilst an invite will be kept forever. I think these are people reluctant to live in the digital age - it's much easier to find an email than a card, and keeping cards creates clutter.

Another odd comment is that the invite contains all the information people need. How much information can you fit onto an A5 card?! It's obvious from these same wedding forums that guests want more information than a bride can possibly fit on an invite, so even if we send invites it is for prettiness only. The info would still need to be on the wedsite, and the only people that can't look at that (grandparents) already know the info and are being driven around by my dad and my uncle.

So, after a bit of internal wrestling, I have made my peace with evites. It's not like we're sending a mass email - there will be a photoshop designed invite attached to a cleverly worded email, which will contain a link to the wedsite. Then if anyone 'loses' their invite, we can just send them another one!

Fancy dress outfit for my MOH

My MOH has bought a dress! Actually, she's been very efficient and has bought almost the whole outfit in one week. More things off the to-do list, yey!

Thanks to the wonder that is outlet shopping, she got a gorgeous dress and bargain shoes at the same time. I'm sure those if you that live near York, Cheshire Oaks, Bicester etc will agree that outlets rock!

The dress is Antonia by Phase Eight, and the shoes are high and sparkly (which they weren't going to be, but look how pretty they are!).

This is actually my MOH, and the photo was sent to me by her hubby. He titled the email 'fancy dress outfit' - hence the title of this post.

She also bought a hair comb (I can't get a decent picture on here), so now we just need some bling and we're done!