My Credit Crunch Wedding

I'm not usually known to be frugal, but when a part-time marketing consultant/copywriter and a full-time heating engineer decide to tie the knot they have to take into account a distinct lack of funds. For J and I, you can also include a distinct lack of willing benefactors. 

A little internet resarch revealed the fact that my dream wedding - a marquee on Temple Island for 150 guests, free flowing booze, fine dining, loads of flowers etc would only be a reality for me if I robbed a bank, sold a kidney or reconciled myself to 5-10 years worth of paying off a loan. For just one day (albeit a very special one)? No way, Jose. 

Our limited resources haven't been too restrictive though. We've just had to focus more on what's really important for us. Which is: a fab honeymoon and a great party. Oh, and I expanded that criteria recently to include a Red-Carpet-Oscar-Winner-Dress. A girl has got to be a goddess on her wedding day, naturellement.

So, we're going halves on a two week honeymoon in Thailand. I'll be raiding my recently-started ISA for that one. Actually, depleting it would be a more accurate description.

My dress is a Mireia Bisbe (Spanish designer) raspberry red and was way over my budget. That is, until I bargained the Back Room Girls down by £200 and my lovely friend, Anton offered to put £250 towards it as a wedding present. Bless his cotton socks.

Did I mention my sweet, silver shoes were on sale at New Look? I spend per week more on cappucinnos than I did on them. They look great.

My lovely flower girls will be in Monsoon dresses.So pretty. Their posies are from Ebay.

My arty friend is doing my make-up, both for the ceremony and for the party. I'm eschewing the Aston Martin for my clapped out Golf.

The wedding invitations were free to do - we set up a Facebook event page and invited everyone via that. Our guests can use the page to upload photos and videos after the event. For those resisting signing up to Facebook, we just emailed them the info.

We have no official photographer, but have invited the Henley Standard photographer to come - they've agreed.

Our ceremony will be just one witness each plus Els and my niece, Sulis, at Henley Registry Office. We'll then all go to Michelin-starred The Hand In Flowers for lunch which we'll go dutch on. J and I will spend our wedding night in their Angus Suite. Our night of decadence.

As for the party. Well, the Village Hall at Nettlebed is a real find. Yes it is a Village Hall but no it isn't lacking in atmosphere. It's wood panelled and has a bar. Better still, it's only £200 to hire for the evening. Bargain.

Instead of a wedding present, we're asking friends to bring a 'pot luck' buffet dish and money to spend on themselves at the bar. Sarada, who is a wonderful cook, has offered to make the cake. I've asked for carrot cake. Not a traditional choice, but then I'm not really a traditional kinda gal.

For decorations, I'm planning on red and white helium balloon clusters - bunched together with ribbon and weighted a bit like the ones here. We'll get a kit and create them ourselves. Candleson the tables for a twinkly effect, but these ones so we don't burn the place down.

Music will either be our friends DJ-ing (one of them is happy to lend us her decks, another has some booming speakers, and at least 3 of our friends are fairly good DJs), or playlists we'll line up on J's Ipod.

Entertainment? Well, that's the best bit. 

My good friend does a Burlesque Fire Hoola-Hooping show (for festivals and corporate gigs) and she's willing to perform for free on the huge, secluded lawn at the back of the venue. We're keeping that one a secret - apart from warning friends with kids in case they want to shield the little dears from nipple tassles and suspenders - so shhh..don't tell ;-)

I also fancy getting some of these and asking guests to launch them after the Hoola-Hoop show, as a nice finale.

Total cost? Way, way, way less than the traditional wedding. With rings, excluding honeymoon, I reckon about £1,500. Good eh?

Oh What A Night...

Last Friday, my old schoolfriend Sarada left her husband and three kids (temporarily) to paint Reading town red with me. I’ve had a few ‘mum’s nights out’ in my time and they are usually sweet but rather insipid affairs involving a meal, the cinema, a few glasses of wine and some pleasantries about our kids, our shoes and our weight.

Photo credit

Nice - but a little restrained for my tastes. Still, it’s hard to find other mums who share my penchant for getting on down to techno, trance, hip hop and drum n bass. Sarada being pretty much the only exception that proves the rule.

At 10.30pm, after Sarada and I had downed quite a few vodka and cokes, my darling fiancé drove us giggling girlies to my favourite local club, Plug n Play http://www.plugnplaystudios.com/

It’s a tiny venue that’s a recording studio by day, and a live music venue and nightclub by night. I love it because I don’t feel sad and old when I’m there – it’s full of people in their thirties and forties who still want to enjoy themselves and are besmirching the ‘pipe and slippers in front of the fire’ scenario our parents subscribed to, in favour of the ‘thirties (and forties?) are the new twenties’ motto some of us prefer to uphold.

We were there for Eat Static, a techno/trance outfit born in 1989 out of the legendary Psychedelic 'Space Rock' band the Ozric Tentacles. Having seen them years ago at the world music festival, Womad, I was expecting great things. What I got was a time trip.

The music was the body-shaking, spirit-soaring dance music I was waving my hands in the air to a decade or so ago. And it took me back. To the feeling of freedom, the love of your fellow man (and woman), the rush and connection of illicit chemicals (well, it was the nineties. Don’t tell me you never did…).

My heart sank at 3am when the lights went up (surely it can’t be over?), and fuelled by the memories of wilder times, and the copious amounts of vodka in our blood, Sarada and I leapt at the chance to go to the unofficial ‘After Party’ in a quiet cul-de-sac in Caversham (the posh part of town).

At first, we felt a little awkward not really knowing anyone. After all, we had danced the night away hardly pausing for breath so hadn’t made much conversation with anyone in the club. We found a space to sit, yawned a lot and talked about getting a taxi home in half an hour or so.

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that all the best people at parties congregate in the kitchen (near the booze) and so we went there to flex our atrophying social muscles. It was a good move.

In the kitchen I met Sarah, the 38 year old ex-scuba instructor and mother of a teenaged daughter. We talked for a long time about life, love, children and split parenting (she also shares the care of her daughter with her ex). Typical Mum’s Night Out topics I suppose, but covered with a depth and an honesty that is rare.

I also met a Pirate. Well, he wasn’t a real pirate but he certainly looked like one with his wild, curly long hair, his mischevious glint and his bona fide admiral’s jacket complete with gold ringed design at the cuffs. We talked for a long time about life, love, children and single parenting. Oh, and his name was Jack. Of course. What else could it be?!

I met many other lovely people, including one of the Plug n Play organisers who was brought up as a Jehovah’s witness and turned his back on all he knew when he fell in love, and slept with, a girl in the community and realised there was more to life than door knocking and Jesus.

Throughout the night I was struck by how many interesting, older (i.e. not in their teens and twenties) Party Goers there are in Reading – and many of them parents too. I didn’t realise there were so many of us out there!

As early morning became early afternoon, having already fallen into several impromptu dozes on the sofa, Sarada and I called a taxi and left our new friends, hoping to enjoy another large night out together soon.

A few days later, I’m already missing the camaraderie, the hedonism and the enlightening conversations. And yes, Sarada and I have already set a date to go to Plug n Play again.

It’s not until mid-December though.

A big night out every three months or so seems about right to me. Come on, we are in our mid-thirties. And we do have responsibilities – to our kids, our jobs, our livers.