You voted in the hundreds, it was a fierce contest, but you chose the lovely Sam. Thanks so much to the lovely girls that applied to becoming a blogging bride at Whimsical Wonderland Weddings and thanks to all those who voted.

Here is Alice Sam with her first post, which did make me giggle. But in all seriousness please do give her a warm welcome lovelies :-) XOXO Lou

Hello! I’m Sam, your new blogging bride, I’m getting married to Gary on May 25th. I’m so excited to be blogging for WWW. I’ve loved reading about the real brides past and present, now I’m actually one of them! Thank you for everyone who voted you’ve made my year, can’t wait to get stuck in and share my bridal musings and planning experiences with you lovely readers.

Just to set the scene… I’m currently sat here at my computer listening my Disney album… as you do. Poppy, my little mini schnauzer is curled up at my feet, sulking because it’s too wet to play in the garden. Gary is hoovering the car, rather him than me. I on the other hand am literally in wedding wonderland…

Me and Mr.D met in high school, we even went to prom together, but it wasn’t until a few years later we were reunited in the pub… talking about theme park rides… we’ve been attached at the hip ever since. We got engaged in October 2011 after a lovely cozy breakfast in bed proposal. It’s safe to say we have been swept up in everything wedding related, it’s been a whirlwind… and in all honesty… it’s not always been plain sailing. There’s been trials and tribulations as well as high pitched squeals of excitement… weeeeeeee!

As a designer my head is generally bursting with crazy thoughts and idea’s so the wedding planning was always going to be fun for me. I remember one evening in the pub I turned to Gary and said ‘My little pony…’, he looked afraid, ‘We’ll have a my little pony themed wedding, with pastel pony centre pieces.’ No… I wasn’t drunk, I just hadn’t quite thought that one through haha. I was going through (still going through) my pastel hair phase (currently have a baby pink dip dye do). I love anything girlie and sparkly, in fact… the sparklier the better. I love getting my daily wedding ‘pretty’ fix from WWW. One of my fave things ever in the whole world is tutu’s, they actually make me happy!

It didn’t take much persuasion to agree on our current theme… Alice in Wonderland. I am a Disney nut, love anything Disney. Alice in Wonderland is one of my childhood favourites. Gary also thinks I hold some Alice like properties…. mainly blonde and have my head in the clouds, I also get lost a lot (that’s another story). The theme is very us, we love the random fun aspect, anything goes.

I was slightly worried that the Alice theme had been done, but I think it is how you interpret it into your big day that makes it special. I want to put a really feminine and dreamy spin on it. I love floaty fabrics, fairytales, florals and dreamy imagery. Speaking of dreamy imagery… did I mention our photographer Andrea Ellison? Amaz-e-balls… We knew we wanted someone who could capture our wedding in a natural style, but Andrea really manages to capture the emotion and beauty of the day, the brides look fab and her photo’s make me speechless. Don’t know what we’d do without her now, your stuck with me Andrea, friend for life! The photography was always going to be one of our biggest decisions… Which brings me to another major decision we made quite early on…

The Venue.

Choosing the venue was the most important thing. At that stage I hadn’t even discovered wedding blogs, I was going purely from what I had in my head… that kind of wedding dream you have and store in your mind from when you were a little girl. I knew I didn’t want to get married too locally, I wanted it to be a weekend break away… but not too far so people would still come. The ‘Alice’ factor was really important too. I started my search with an internet selection process. Once I had discovered all the venue’s in the area that looked nice I consulted the Gaz-nav, that’s Gary… he is an actual walking map, it amazes me sometimes. He then riddled out the ones that were too far away or too difficult to get to (him being the sensible one!). The next stage was the most enjoyable, we went for a county drive to look at the venues at first glance… and the occasional wedding crash to use the facilities hehe. Anything that didn’t make us ‘wow’ got scratched off the short list. The third and final stage was visiting our favourites. We had three, all dotted around the Cheshire countryside. Willington Hall, Nunsmere Hall and Arley Hall… we like hall’s. All had the ‘Alice’ factor. The problem was that we were spoilt too early on, our first appointment was at Arley hall. It is about as ‘Alice’ as you can get, privet hedges, topiary tree’s, beautiful flowers everywhere – perfect! The minute we drove up the drive I felt sick, sick in a good way, like ‘this is it’. We were greeted by THE most helpful and lovely man in the world, Tony, the functions supervisor. He gave us a sneak peak of the barn they use for the evening do and that was it… sold! I envisioned myself swanning around in my dress on the day, greeting guests and dancing. As we left I actually cried a little tear, ‘What if we can’t afford it?’ I said. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll go look at some other places,’ The sensible one said… but it was too late I was in love with Arley Hall.

I’d love to hear your wedding planning hiccups and stresses, do you think you have become a ‘bridezilla’ at times? Also let me know what themes you have gone for!

Love to hear from you!

Sam -x-

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