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A frock fit for that winter wedding I never had, maybe?

PREVIOUS IMAGINARY WEDDING OUTFITS:

Well, that's it. The last post is up. My reign as UK guest editor of A Practical Wedding is officially over. Sob.

If you've been missing your regular dose of my wit and charm (and really, WHO WOULDN'T?), I'd recommend popping over to read my posts on APW. Even if you're not a regular reader, or a bride, or a woman, or a person who gives a shit about weddings, there's something you'll enjoy. Probably.

Here's what you've been missing:

1. A British Person's Guide to American Weddings. The comments started off well, then rapidly declined into a convoluted discussion about jam. I'm still trying to work out how that happened.
2. Jane and Peter's Misty Rooftop Garden Wedding. Short-haired bride, baby in a kilt, amazing shoes. Need I say more.
3. Hats for wedding guests. Prices range from £29.50 to £1,285. FOR A HAT. If you can spot the expensive one without peeking, you get it for free!*
4. What happens when your friends don't like your partner? I didn't write this one; Anna K did. It makes me feel uncomfortable, and that's a very good thing.
5. Lillian and Leonard: A Love Story. Because there's nothing I enjoy more than making wedding photographers feel intensely awkward.
6. And right now, RIGHT THIS VERY MOMENT, it's APW Happy Hour. Which means some highlights, some links I've found around the web, and booze. You should totally come.
7. BONUS: I've been at the helm of the APW Pinterest account for the last couple of days too. Highlights include a wedding bus, an amazing beard and a dogs wearing a flower crown. What's not to love?

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Life has been a little overwhelming lately. My thoughts, and my words, have been elsewhere. I'm trying to find space to write something for you that's not related to poetry or chocolate, and in the meantime you can find me in one of two places:

LOVE MY DRESS

First, the lovely Annabel has been plastering me and my nonsense all over Love My Dress in the last few weeks.

A couple of months ago (alright, it was April, I've been busy) she was kind enough to invite me to a party celebrating the launch of her new(ish) book, Style Me Vintage: Weddings. I basically spent the entire evening in a corner talking to the three people I already knew and drinking rum, but that's my idea of a good time, so I thought it was fabulous. Annabel shared a film of the event here, in which the eagle-eyed among you might spy me, my amazing skirt and my terrible posture. Really should work on that.

Then a couple of weeks ago, Blonde Bridesmaid's wedding was featured in all its glowy, wintery magnificence. Those of you who followed my obsessive pinning sprees might recognise a few of the details. I'm especially proud of the purple cows. (There are actual purple cows, that is not a description of the bridesmaids, JUST TO BE CLEAR.)

And remember this sneaky peek? Well, you can see the whole shebang on Love My Dress right here, along with an extremely waffly description from me of every tiny detail. I'm nothing if not an overthinker. In case you can't tell from the post, I'm ridiculously glad to have been a part of it. Everyone involved put so much effort into making the shoot something really special. Yay Edinburgh.

A PRACTICAL WEDDING

And now, APW UK is happening, and I'm in charge. Which might be why I'm so tired. And have so few words to spare.

For those who don't know, APW is A Practical Wedding, a huge American indie wedding blog. I may have mentioned it once or twice. While everyone stateside is doing whatever it is they do to celebrate Independence Day - fireworks? Aliens? Who the hell knows - I'll be making sweeping generalisations about British people and quietly panicking. The party starts on Thursday at 7.30am.

Send help.


Images: 1. Golden geometric hearts papercuts card by Owly Shadow Puppets 2. Lauren McGlynn Photography 3. Hart & Sol West, taken on the Brooklyn stop of the APW Book Tour

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Today, I had the pleasure of doling out advice to an Alabama couple planning an Edinburgh elopement, for East Side Bride. I've waxed lyrical about my love for ESB before, so I won't bang on about it. Suffice to say, she's ace, I'm honoured, my post kind of ended up being about five million words long.

If you'd like to read my recommendations for a low-key, hipster elopement to Edinburgh (and let's face it, who wouldn't), I'd encourage you to go and read my post right now. And if you know of any other top secret, badass venues hidden away down Edinburgh's back lanes, I'd love to hear about them. The current ratio of country houses to murder-ridden caves in the Scottish wedding media is just not good enough.


P.S. If you're visiting here from ESB for the first time, I should probably plug the wedding stuff. But truthfully, I think you might prefer the posts filed under 'Don't be a dick'.


Image: shot by David Wickham and styled by Bijou Bride for Vogue Italia, via Love My Dress. I like to imagine this is how our Alabama bride will emerge from her plane upon arrival at Turnhouse. Totally feasible.

Typical. You wait 29 years for a heart-thumping creative project to arrive, then two come along at once.

Last Friday saw the launch of Jane Gowans' nautical-inspired Captain Collection for S/S13. Once again I was at the helm (see what I did there? Helm! Nautical! I'm so hilarious) when it came to creating and styling the lookbook and I'm pretty thrilled with how it turned out. The images have been featured in some fancypants places and most importantly, Jane is a happy girl. She even went so far as to describe me as a styling superstar. I knew I liked her.

I'll share a behind-the-scenes take soon (I wasn't hung over this time! And I was marginally less terrified! Victory!). In the meantime you can see the full collection and admire the lookbook here.

FYI: that's not me up there. Unfortunately. This is me:


Always with the booze.

As if the launch of Jane's collection weren't enough to have me bouncing off the walls, on Tuesday Lillian and Leonard posted their photos of Blonde Bridesmaid's wedding. When I saw Cara tweet about it, I nearly passed out at my desk from sheer excitement. Instead, I ran to the "fun" computer (the one that doesn't block everything non-work-related that could therefore be vaguely interesting) and looked at every single photo. Twice. In the middle of a weekday morning. Sometimes, you just have to prioritise.

There is so much I want to tell you about it, but my words can wait. The pictures say plenty for now. Go, look, enjoy. Drool.


(Okay I will just say one thing. Wasn't my friend a smokin' hot bride?)


Top image: What Kristen Saw for Jane Gowans, styled by me. Bottom image: Lillian and Leonard.

Earlier this week I wrote a post for Any Other Woman's A-Z of Getting Married, called M is for Mrs. (If you haven't read the post yet, go and do it now. I'll wait.)

It's a little-known fact - and by little-known, I mean it's probably only known to me, my husband and a handful of internet shopping database administrators - that I am not a Mrs. I am a Ms. Well, I'm a human being first and foremost, but if you wanted to write me a letter or invite me to a party or sue me, Ms is how I would prefer to be addressed.

I used to be a Mrs. When I first got married and took Fin's surname, I changed my title to Mrs at every single one of the 6,745 different places I had to change my name. I just didn't think about it. I was married, I'd changed my name, I was a Mrs. We even had Mr and Mrs his'n'hers mugs. What's to think about?


And yet, every time I saw those three dreaded letters before my name, I winced. Something about it just felt wrong. In my mind, "Mrs" was only for teachers and mums. And "Mrs MyNewName" was specifically for Fin's mum, who also happens to be a teacher, thereby confirming my hypothesis. A 26-year-old with no children and a six-week backlog of unironed washing in her spare room had no business being a Mrs. No business at all.

I thought I'd get used to it, but instead I found myself disliking it more and more until one day, boom. There it was. The solution had been staring me in the face all along, right there in every drop-down box on every website that had ever guzzled up my personal data for its own nefarious purposes. All I had to do was scroll past 'Mrs', and click 'Ms'. Sweet, sweet relief.

So now I'm a Ms, and I feel like me again. I wish I could give some deeply feminist reason for the change, but the truth is that "Mrs" just made me feel old and frumpy and uncool and all those other sexist adjectives we tend to dump on wives and mothers. Ms, on the other hand, is sassy. She's sophisticated and a little bit mysterious: is she married? Is she single? Is she a SPY? Oh, the intrigue!


Of course, in choosing Ms for myself, I pass no judgement on women who embrace their Mrs-ness. I hope we know each other well enough by now for that to go without saying. And the reason my decision to be a Ms is little-known is because WHEN DO YOU EVEN USE YOUR TITLE ANYWAY? Never, that's when. Or only when buying fripperies on the internet.

In other marriage-related news, Blonde Bridesmaid's wedding is now just two weeks away. Two weeks! Squeal! So this weekend will mainly be spent on bridesmaid duty. I'm sure you’ll all be delighted to hear that The Giant Pineapple Dress Of Doom has arrived and been trimmed within an inch of its life. I no longer resemble any type of fruit in it, which is all you can really hope for in a bridesmaid dress, isn't it?

Happy weekend, folks.


Lara Stone does sexy housewife, shot by Mert & Marcus for Vogue US September 2010 via Fashion Gone Rogue

Here's how it works:

If you're single, you're a Miss.

If you're married, you're a Mrs.

If you're a big hairy feminist, you may be a Ms, but this is best avoided.

We moved out of our flat yesterday, into a temporary place while we wait for our new lease to come through. The days leading up to this one have been horribly, overwhelmingly busy, culminating in me sobbing over the phone to a bemused letting agent five minutes before we were supposed to hand our keys in. We finally closed the door on our flat nine miserable hours later.

Did you know Blonde Bridesmaid is actually having two weddings? One of them is taking place on the cusp of winter in a country house in deepest Perthshire. The other is taking place entirely in my head. Or rather, on my Pinterest.

I can't tell you much about the first, because it's not my story to tell. I will tell you that two of the loveliest photographers in Scotland will be there. I will also tell you that the bridesmaid dresses were lovely. And that I managed to track down four perfect little cover-ups for us on ebay, £58 reduced from £240. £58 REDUCED FROM £240. Major bridesmaid points for me, I think you'll agree.

I even managed not to flinch when having my measurements taken for said lovely dress. Nobody likes to be told their ass is literally four dress sizes bigger than their boobs, but I took it like a trooper. When the lady in the shop smiled sympathetically at me and said, "Don't worry, I'm a classic pear too," I refrained from punching her in the face. Instead I recounted this "hilarious" tale to Fin, who some hours later confused his fruits and referred to me as a classic pineapple.

I don't even know what a classic pineapple-shaped person would look like, but it can't be good, can it?

Nobody would ever call me a pineapple at the other wedding, the imaginary one. That's because, in the imaginary wedding, I am a bridesmaid of the Katherine Heigl variety, except with a nicer dress.

Soon, the time will come when the imaginary wedding has to somehow be contorted into a real one, with budgets and measurements and opinions. This could be where it starts to get messy, trying to track down actual suppliers instead of pondering the aesthetic merits of fairy-light canopies versus fairy-light garlands and hypothetically filling a marquee with candles and flammable trees. But as a compulsive scourer of the internet (did I mention the ebay bargains, £58 reduced to £240? Did I??), I suspect this might be where the fun really starts.


All images and their sources can be found on my various wedding pinboards. If you would like a link to the source for any particular image, just let me know. Did I mention I'm a compulsive scourer of the internet?

Tomorrow, Blonde Bridesmaid and I are going dress shopping. FOR MY BRIDESMAID DRESS. That's right. My eight-year-old self would be so happy right now. My 28-year-old self isn't feeling too bad about it either.

(Just so we're clear, Blonde Bridesmaid is actually the bride, and I am now the blonde bridesmaid. I call her Blonde Bridesmaid because when I was the bride she was my blonde bridesmaid, as opposed to Dark-Haired Bridesmaid and Light-Brown-Haired Bridesmaid, who were my other bridesmaids, and also to be distinguished from Pregnant Bridesmaid, Journo Bridesmaid and Badass Helicopter-Flying Bridesmaid who are Blonde Bridesmaid's other bridesmaids (now that she's the bride). As you can see, it all makes perfect sense. Sort of.)

Sadly for my eight-year-old self, there will be no puff sleeves adorning this particular bridesmaid dress, nor a single polyester rosebud. It's not even going to be pink. But hey, at least this one will fit. It's just a shame Joey from New Kids on the Block won't get to see it.


Next week I'll try to bring you a little update on how Hypothetical Not-On-A-Farm Wedding is shaping up. I have to say, playing fantasy wedding stylist is all kinds of fun. Especially the not-having-to-pay-for-any-of-it part.

I also have some kind of interesting news that I'll hopefully be able to share next week too. DUN DUN DUNNN. No, I'm not pregnant. The position of Pregnant Bridesmaid has already been filled (that's not a euphemism, by the way).

Which reminds me of the last time I ended a post on an Eastenders-style cliffhanger, to try and drum up a little excitement about this old blog's much-needed facelift. Well, there's been progress on that front too, and I think a wee sneaky peek might be long overdue - watch this space.

AND, speaking of babies, I'm meeting my friend's beautiful baby girl for the first time tomorrow (I know. Snuggling newborns and prancing around in bridesmaid dresses, all in one day? TOO MUCH!). The good people of Twitter were kind enough to give me lots of ideas for newborn baby gifts, and I promised to blog a round-up in return, so there's that to come as well.

GOD, all these POSTS. It's almost like you people expect me to write a BLOG or something.

So, anyway, that's my weekend. Baby-snuggling, dress-prancing, writing five million blog posts. What's yours got in store?



{Bonnie Chen shot for Harper’s Bazaar China July 2012 by Zack Zhang via Fashion Gone Rogue}

...in a hypothetical world where I was the kind of badass bride who wore midnight blue sequins to her own wedding - oh and one where I had a spare seven grand - I would be getting married in this.

And it's in stock in my size. Coincidence? I think not.

How about you?


(My little fantasy shopping spree was inspired by this post over on east side bride and, in turn, this one. Is it only in hindsight that a brightly-coloured designer gown seems like such an obviously amazing idea? Think of the re-wearing possibilities!)


Elie Saab V-Back Beaded Gown via Boutique 1. If you're new around here, you should know this is not the first time I've played this game.

First image via Handmade Ryan Gosling. Second image by Emilia Jane Photography.

Notice anything in this picture?


See it? No? Allow me to assist:

PENELOPE TRUNK

EAT THE DAMN CAKE

EAST SIDE BRIDE