In the following blog entries **** replaces the owners name and link to the website of the small wedding dress shop in Manchester where I bought my dress from last November 05.
This follows several theatening phone calls and texts from the wedding shop owner in question. Nice customer service

http://www.babieseverywhere.com/serendipity/archives/18-THE-Dress.html

http://www.babieseverywhere.com/serendipity/archives/13-Dress-Fitting.html

This is particularly funny as I have actually referred two other ladies to the shop in question since November and my blog entries on the shop are both truthful and amusing and in no way cause harm to the shop in question.....but if the owner wants to give up free advertising who am I to argue.

All I will say is if you are buying a wedding dress in a small shop in Manchester, I suggest you don't do what I did and give out your mobile number

Luckily I'm in the process of getting a new mobile number at the moment, so these calls won't get though to me shortly...though I pity the new owner of my old number, especially if it ends up being a bloke...'Who is ringing about wedding dresses ?'

I am passing copies of the theatening phone calls to my lawyer who I'm seeing shortly about work issues and that should be that

Whilst napping on the sofa this evening, I was half watching Australian Princess a tacky reality show on Tivo.

The show had moved to England and to match the new locations, the background music changed to Mozart. They played both my wedding pieces back to back !!!

The music pulled me back to our wedding day, especially the moment I turned the corner and saw Deckchair stood waiting for me.

It is amazing how a piece of music can provoke such a powerful and happy memory

Bitter sweet day...great to pick up my wedding dress but sad that mum could not come with us, as she was arranging our Grandma's funeral.

Despite the circumstances, my sister made the day a happy occassion, we had a lovely pub lunch with wine (as she was driving)...yum yum.

Oh, by the way the dress fitted wonderfully, though she had forgotten to add the ribbon loops on the botton of the train, which she did quickly whilst my sister was getting changed.

Only 8 days as a unmarried lady

She had lost my dress !!!

Mum, my sister and I arrived early at the shop, but she already had other customers in the shop. So we went for lunch and came back to the wedding dress shop at 1pm.

The dress she gave me was similar to the one I had chosen but it nearly fitted and was only slightly loose. As I knew I had lost over two stone since I tried my first dress on and lost 8 inches around my body, I knew my original dress should be dropping off me.

Sounds mad, that I was cross that the dress wasn't loose but I was expecting it to be loose and it threw me. Second I was not happy that she had tried to fob another dress on me without admitting that she had lost the first one. Not a happy bunny.

I pointed out that this was not the original dress I had chosen and after pressing she did admit that she thought she had lost the dress and then found it in the store...hmm still not convinced but there is no point causing problems for no reason.

What I think happened is this.....

Last time we were in the shop chosing our dresses, there was several other people in the shop and her assistant was helping them out. My sisters dress got pinned up for alteration, then and there. As she has a beautiful figure and never changes weight and her bridesmaid dress was placed on the alteration rack.

**** doesn't alter brides dresses until nearer the day as most brides put on weight between chosing the dress and the big day, which was fine by me. So my chosen dress was labeled and placed across the other unsold dresses whilst **** sorted out the paperwork with me.

I think after we left the assistant tidied away the unsold dresses to the racks all around the shop and in error tidied my original dress back into the unsold racks and later sold before ***** got around to locating it.

I do think it was an honest mistake but I was much happier when she admitted she had thought she had lost it.

Any way as even the replacement dress was too big, I had to go down another size (three in total from the original) So I got to try on lots of new dresses in my new size...great fun.

I was torn between the beaded bodice with small train and a plainer dress with a swish of fabric at the front of the dress but no train.

I went for the dress with the beaded bodice and train...It is a bit more of a girly dress than the other one but as my mum said if you can't be girly on your wedding day when can you be

So in the end I got a much better dress than I had chosen originally ..hurrah

As a person who hates makeup, I am rarely seen in it... so having my makeup done by a professional was an interesting experience.

My sister came with me and we went to the Images salon at South Shore in Blackpool just a ten minute drive away from the hotel I will be married at but the other side of the country from Sheffield and Leeds,

The makeup lady and my sister discussed styles and colours together as my only requirement was that it not be too harsh.

Having the makeup put on was fairly pleasant just lie back and wait and listen to the lady and my sister discussing shades.

Finally she asked me to sit up and placed a mirror about three inches away from my face for me to see the results.

I recoiled in horror, threw my hands up in front of my face and screamed 'Oh my god!!!'

Ok not a favourable reaction and as my mother pointed out later, hardly a compliment to the makeup lady.

I backed off the couch and my sister pointed at another longer wall mirror a distance away from me on the wall. Carefully peering around the edge of THIS mirror with a bigger distance between me and the mirror, this time I looked more like a painted doll and less like a monster.

Apparently even my beautiful sister would not look well at that close distance from a mirror

Then I moved to the hairdressing bit and had my hair done and used the time to get use to the makeup in the hairdressers mirror. I liked the hair straight away, it was half up and half down with a tiara...very sparkly.

I was asked if i wanted them to remove the makeup and take down the hair do...after what we paid for it !!! We both my sister and I kept our makeup on and I asked my sister to put in her tiara too so I felt less silly.

We went over to Poulton to visit my mother in law to be...a very nice friendly lady who is very direct, so I knew I would get a reaction and she liked the makeup and was so so about the hair. She thought I should have all my hair up but I would of felt strange without my long hair.

Mother in law showed me the beautiful flower arrangements she had made for the table decorations and the cake.

Then we visited the cake lady, the flower lady at the nursery and her daughter at the flower shop in Poulton all with my hair up and our makeup on.

We ended up keeping our hair/makeup minus the tiara for going out with the family for Tea at the local pub

Tonight I had a joint hen do with another girl from work, who is getting married in December. We were a small group of work colleagues including my sister who came down from Leeds just for the night.

My sister and I spent five hours shopping at Meadowhall during the day, we were meant to be shopping for my sister's bridesmaid shoes but we ended up buying a lot of other things and I found some new clothes for my work Hen Do. I love spending time with my sister and I had a fun and tiring day running around meadowhall.

We had a nice meal at Wokmania, a chinese buffet place on West Street, Sheffield.

Followed by a couple of drinks at a very loud bar (not my scene) and ended with a couple of drinks and a few dances at a nicer bar (better music and we could hear ourselves think )

A work colleague called Sarah, who has a wicked sense...gave both me and the other hen silly tasks to do and I will admit to standing on a chair in the noise bar and loudly shouting a very rude statement, thank goodness the music did not break at that point, or I would have died of embarrassment.

The evening ended with my sister and I getting a taxi home, I forgot I had a door key and simply banged on the front door until my DH-to-be opened the door. He was very understanding considering he had to be up early the next morning working.

Apparently my sister & I must have stayed up for a while before we went to bed, according to the open wine bottle and I think I remember watching Jordan's wedding...Arghh my eyes hurt there was so much PINK !!!

My mum and sister and I went to visit ***** in her shop named ****** shop in the outskirts of Manchester.

I can't say too much about the dress, until after the big day but I'll post a picture then

I did not suspect a thing, though looking back the fact that my beloved suggested a night out on a Friday was slightly suspect.

We walked down to our favourite Chinese restaurant and had a lovely meal and after we had finished the meal....he proposed to me.

I was so shocked and speechless.....all I could think was say YES, before he changes his mind

He had bought me this beautiful engagment ring, a mixture of white gold and yellow gold and diamonds with a wondeful modern design.



I love it and the fact that he trailed though countless jewelery shops before deciding on this ring, is just perfect.

He had also found a matching wedding rings in another shop, how sweet is that ?

I am a very lucky lady