It’s now been over three months since I got married and I’ve been thinking about doing a big post talking about everything that went into it, so now I’m finally doing it!
I set up a ‘joint’ Instagram account (that my husband never uses) when we got engaged to document the process of planning our wedding. Now I plan to use it for more general couple things – being soppy about him, if we can ever buy a house I want to document that, our life together etc. But just to conclude the wedding, I’ve spent the last week and a half making a bunch of posts about different aspects of the wedding so I thought I’d expand on them here!
Here’s everything you could possibly want to know about our wedding!
Our venue was absolutely stunning, there’s a reason I didn’t feel the need to see any others after we saw it.
One of my favourite things about it wasn’t actually the suite where our wedding took place, but a suite in the main hotel called the Windsor Suite which is essentially a massive apartment with a kitchen, three bedrooms (one ensuite, one family bathroom) and a massive living room area – the night before our wedding we had all of Lucas’s family, my entire bridal party and his best man in there for dinner and drinks. The morning of they brought breakfast to the suite (so I didn’t cross paths with Lucas by accident!) and there was plenty of space for us all to get ready without feeling smothered by the photographer or videographer so they really could be flies on the wall. It was an incredible space and I feel very lucky to have been able to use it.
My favourite thing about my flowers is that they look exactly the same to this day – in a beautiful vase in our living room with the cake topper popping out the top!
I’m considering ways in which I can have my dress adapted to be more subtle so I can wear it again, but I honestly can’t describe the way that I felt like a proper princess – the hair, the veil, the dress; it was everything.
Considering they’re arguably the biggest symbol of marriage, they were one of the easiest things to sort and I can honestly say my wedding ring is the most comfortable piece of jewellery I own.
Although stressful at the time, spending time making all of these things with my husband was an experience I will truly treasure. As well as making me learn skills I have already used since – my Cricut and I will go a long way together!
Again, an aspect of the day that was often forgotten in my mind – definitely the shortest part of the day ringing in at about 30 minutes, but everything from our fabulous registrars, our wonderful witnesses and the readings and songs – perfect. I can’t describe it any other way.
And that’s everything I can think of! We got engaged two years and ten months before we got married. Luckily we never had to postpone because of COVID because we picked a date so far in advance. But we went through our own array of issues with our venue changing hands and being passed through several wedding coordinators, being told we couldn’t have fireworks then we could but we couldn’t afford it, then I lost my job and everything felt very bleak.
But everything came together perfectly, it was the best day of my life and I felt like I was on cloud 9 (pretty much) all day long. I wish I could do it all over again!
Yes, I am going to be talking about my wedding for a quite a while (we just got the pro photos back and I. Am. Obsessed) and whilst the whole day was perfect from start to finish, here are three of my favourite parts that just made the day that little bit extra special. Two of which I’ve not seen anyone else do before and one of which is a popular wedding idea that is popular for a reason!
Bookcase Gifts
For our gift list, we didn’t want to make an online registry or anything and I hate the expectation that people would spend a lot of money on us, so we decided to ask our guests for a copy of their favourite book to make a library. I honestly had no idea how much of a conversation it would start but it really got people thinking!
Getting home on Sunday evening and opening all the books, reading people’s reasonings for their choices and all the cards was truly lovely – there was such an amazing variety and it was such a perfect way to have really personal gifts that didn’t cost loads. I even bought a little stamp that marks them all as part of our library and I cannot explain how lovely it was to see what everyone had chosen.
Plus, it made a lovely opportunity for a theme – we had table confetti which was from book pages, one of our ceremony readings was an extract from ‘The Amber Spyglass’ by Phillip Pullman, and our tables for the wedding breakfast were named after books from the Horrible Histories series. It was absolutely perfect.
Photobooth
A Photo Booth is definitely not an original idea, loads of weddings have them but they are such a brilliant way of getting really fun group photos with fun props and silly faces. Especially when one of those props is a pair of glasses with a penis for a nose… and the six year old gets hold of them…
But we got some nice ones too – I managed one whole set of photos with my husband!
Photo Frame Guest Book
I spent a long time thinking about a guestbook – I didn’t think a whole book would get filled and it would be awkward if it was half empty, I saw lots of different options on Etsy for wooden jenga pieces, puzzle pieces or leaves on a tree and none of them quite fit us. I’m not sure where the idea for a frame came from, but with an A1 frame from The Range, an A1 piece of paper from Hobbycraft with the middle cut out and an A4 print from Snapfish (from a Photo Booth at my cousins wedding!) – ta da! Some squiggles from my cousin’s two year old little boy and lots of lovely messages from our closest friends and family that we’ll put on the wall in our home.
It’s the perfect way to have messages from our favourite people in a way that we can always see them, we can swap out the picture in the middle for one from our wedding day and it’s a stunning keepsake.
I could spend all day every day talking about the wedding – it was the most beautiful day, I’ve been looking at the pictures for days and I will be spending a lot of the Christmas period figuring out which ones to put in scrapbooks and photo albums and the likes. There’ll definitely be a few more blog posts, that’s for sure!
If you’ve ever gotten married or know someone who has, you probably understand that it becomes all consuming, especially as the big day gets closer and closer!
In the last couple of weeks, my partner and I attended the wedding of one of his oldest friend’s and we then had a week off work together, in which I properly got my act together and made a lot of planning developments because attending a wedding had both inspired me and freaked me out a little. But after reviewing my to do lists and making some decisions, doing lots of research and making my partner actually get involved in some of the choices, I feel like the mental switch flipped and I’m really excited about it all now.
The biggest thing is the dress, always the dress, and since ordering it four months ago, I’ve been getting increasingly more excited about getting my own – the one I tried on was absolutely not my size and I chose a different colour so I just can’t wait to see it and wear it and feel like a princess. Although we’ve been engaged since January 2020, it hasn’t started to actually feel real until very recently and I think being in the dress will be the icing on the cake.
Speaking of which, I had a very in-depth and serious conversation with my mum about our wedding cake today as she is very kindly making it for us and we’ve come up with something that feels much more us than what is considered ‘traditional’ but fits all the right vibes perfectly and will no doubt be delicious.
It doesn’t have to be a wedding for me to be excited about cake.
And now that we’ve sent out the majority of our invites, we can properly get excited with other people and our friends and family are sharing their excitement with us and it’s honestly so lovely. There really is nothing like a wedding!
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a lot of coordination and planning and figuring out all the finances and seeing some of the quotes of anything wedding related can be mind blowing, but if you’ve ever read any of my posts before you’ll know I love a list, I love goal setting and I love planning so actually, whilst at surface level it feels stressful, it all just feels like one big problem solving exercise that I’m very much enjoying watching slot into place.
The thing that’s really hitting me at the moment is that I will have a different name by the end of the year. I’ll be a Mrs. I still feel too young to be living in a house with a ‘real adult’ let alone to be a Mrs! Honestly baffling.
Alongside important discussions about cake, mum and I planned things like getting our nails done, getting massages and buying gifts for my little bridesmaids (I say little because they’re 6, 9 and 10, not as a reference to their height 😂) and it’s been really lovely to feel everything fall into place.
Honestly, I feel a little bit emotional thinking about it all – I’m in such a wonderful place right now to be able to marry my best friend and have such wonderful support network of friends and family that are genuinely so excited for me and I feel incredibly grateful. Nothing’s perfect, but it’s pretty good.
I’m feeling a bit in-between with my blog at the moment – I want to write but I’m quite stressed and I don’t have the creative energy to think of original ideas to write about. In the last 24 hours I’ve developed a rather disgusting cold (that thankfully isn’t covid!) and I’m very bunged up and my brain feels like cotton wool, which is absolutely not helping!
So I thought today I’d write a few mini blog posts of ideas I had that aren’t long enough to make a whole post. There’s a mix of mini life updates, random thoughts and even a film review, I hope you enjoy!
One –Making Progress With Exercise
I think if you’ve been following my blog for a few years, you’ll know I’m quite good at getting over excited about something when I start it and then not really following through. And to go with that – I started Couch to 5k this week… for the third time! Have I ever finished the nine-week running program before? No, but will I try again? Absolutely!
But what I wanted to say is that pairing running with having been doing three dance classes a week for nearly eight months now, I’m finally starting to see an improvement in my fitness. I’m very particular about monitoring my statistics on my FitBit and the section for ‘Cardio Fitness’ has always been rated as ‘Poor’ for me, but in the last few days I’ve actually got into the ‘Fair’ category and although I’m not losing a ton of weight and both my dance classes and runs absolutely exhaust me, I can feel a difference! And that progress is more motivating than anything else.
Two –Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore
My partner and I booked a random week off a couple of months ago, just to be able to spend some time together and actually take a break from work, because we were both exhausted. When we realised it tied in with the release of the new Fantastic Beasts film, we decided to treat ourselves and drive up to the Showcase Cinema near my mum’s house because they have the fancy pants comfy recliner seats and now I’m a cinema snob.
The film itself at surface level was fun – the music was incredible, there were some really funny moments and the magic will always be a place of home for me, despite all the controversy around the Wizarding World, I can’t help but feel comforted by it.
As proper nerds, there were a lot of points we made as we came out of the film that made it no more than a 6/10 (for me at least). Personally, I feel like the whole trilogy wasn’t really thought through and the intention of the plot got lost along the way, but I want to keep this a spoiler free review so I won’t go into it too much.
The one non-spoiler thing that really stood out to me is that a couple of the accents were really patchy? Jude Law, as an English actor, sounded both American and Irish in parts and appeared to struggle to maintain his English accent and the charms professor, we had no idea whether she was a Hogwarts teacher or an Ilvermorny teacher because her accent consistently switched. A little distracting. But still a 6 out of 10 film.
Three –The wedding is coming together!
Part of the reason we came up to the Showcase near my mum’s is that it’s also near our wedding venue and we had an appointment with the woman who’s helping us organise the day and I had a consultation with a hair stylist.
I had been using our week off to spend some time on some of the more tedious admin tasks around the wedding and I was just getting to the point where it was feeling a bit stressful and overwhelming, but our meeting went really well and we got a little tour of the part of the venue that’s being renovated so I feel much more calm about it all now!
It’s all coming together and is slowly starting to feel much more real.
Four –I did a dance show
I spent my entire childhood going to more and more dance classes – starting with ballet, then trying acro, starting tap and modern, adding hip hop – basically going to as many classes as I could and doing a big show at the local theatre every two years.
Never did I think at 25 I’d be doing it again but I donned my sparkly waistcoat for a tap duet and a jingly jangly ballet costume and performed for the first time since dancing at a cheerleading competition at uni.
It’s a funny one, because I don’t feel like it’s me in those photos – it’s not new information that I’m very insecure about my weight and I don’t feel like I look like me, but outside of seeing the photos and videos, I loved being back on stage and I feel very lucky to have found such a wonderful dance company to do it with.
Five –Work feels stressful in a good way
Despite having this week off (having desperately needed it!), work actually feels stressfully rewarding at the moment.
The department I work in has grown and changed exponentially in the six months I’ve been with the company and just a couple of weeks ago we did a massive content overhaul and started working to a new content plan and don’t get me wrong, it’s been incredibly busy, but it’s given us more structure to work with and I’ve somewhat been given the responsibility of making it sustainable and it’s getting there!
I’m learning a lot of organisational and management skills, which is nothing like the marketing job I thought I’d signed up for but I think I like the more ‘producer’ side of my role. I never thought I was the right person to work in media, but it turns out I’m actually not too bad at it!
What makes a huge impact is that I have the most amazing colleagues – I adore the people I work with and I feel like we work so well together as a team, the media production team are going to do big things this year and at surface level I will appear to be very stressed about it, but having had a week off to reflect I’m so proud of what our little media team has achieved.
Six –I’ve hit my reading peak already this year
I mentioned it briefly in my April Goals, but I’m basically not reading at the moment – I managed to listen to one audiobook in March (it was a bloody good one though) and in April so far I’ve not listened to or read a single word.
With my audiobooks, I feel like I’ve not got the brain space to listen to a story when I’m driving and to read a physical book before I go to sleep? Not a chance – I get into bed and I’m asleep within about 10 minutes!
I’m not sure what the solution is, I imagine I just have to ride the wave and get back to it when I feel ready, but I do miss it! When the weather gets better I can’t wait to get the sun loungers out and sit in the garden with a book.
Seven – Why is it so hard to find plus sized active wear
This has always bothered me, but particularly recently – my ballet friend and I decided we want to go back to wearing tights and leotards to class (because why not?) and although I still have a bunch of leotards from when I was a teenager at dance (because I’m sentimental af), I’m not quite the same size I was then!
But finding leotards that go to bigger sizes are ridiculous! I’m lucky if the Large is bigger than a 14 and there’s no such thing as a plus sized leotard that’s not lycra and shiny – I want the pretty leotards too!
It’s not just the lack of availability that bothers me, it’s the teenage girls who did as many dance classes as I did being told that they’re ‘Large’ because they’re bigger than a 10. God forbid being tall! Or having broad shoulders! Let’s not even talk about boobs. The industry is so discriminative and sure, they want professional dancers to be a certain size, whatever – no random girl on the internet is going to change that – but there’s so much more to dance than being a professional ballerina.
But it’s not just dance wear – even just fitness clothes are difficult to find if you’re plus sized! It baffles me that we have to have different sections for ‘plus sized’ and ‘petite’ and ‘tall’ when surely it would be better if everyone had access to exactly the same options but available in all sizes, with a petite, regular and tall option.
I know I’m not the only one who thinks it but it is just another way to make people feel bad about themselves, isn’t it? Because there’s no way that anyone who shops in the ‘plus sized’ section should be allowed to feel happy with how they look?
Why are we gatekeeping exercise? I go to three dance classes a week and getting clothes to exercise in has been a nightmare, and I’m lucky enough to be a size that is sometimes catered for in the main range.
Maybe I’ve just not found the right places to shop, but the whole thing is incredibly frustrating!
Not quite the note I wanted to end on, but there’s a few thoughts I’ve had recently!
Of course, in the process of not being able to think of one complete blog post, I’ve written one three times the length I normally would! But like I said at the beginning, I love writing and I very much enjoy writing on my little blog!
April really flew – between moving house, the country opening up a little bit to get to unessential shops and doing extra hours at work, I seem to have blinked and missed most of the month but I’m looking forward to things feeling a little more settled in May. Hopefully I’ll get more on top of my workload, I’m definitely going to spend lots of time with my fiancé before his five week work trip to Italy over June and maybe I’ll even figure out how to look after myself a little better.
How we’re this far into 2021 I’m really not sure, it’s going faster than I can keep track of but here are my May mini goals!
– Work on my portfolio: now that I’m in the professional working world, I want to make sure I keep my CV, portfolio and showreel up to date so that next time I apply for a job it doesn’t feel like a huge task! This month I want to spend time working on building a website that encompasses everything I would want to show off to a potential employer. I’ve been working on designing a website for a tech festival with work called Ox Tech Fest (yes, I’ll take the shameless plug) and I’m so proud of how this website has worked out and having worked with a graphic designer and a web developer, I feel like I have ideas for my own website. I’m sure I’ll share when I’m ready!
– Work on my cosplay costume: with April getting away from me and moving house and stuff, I didn’t get round to what I wanted to do for my Team Yell cosplay from Pokemon Sword and Shield – hopefully I’ll balance my time a bit better to get my sewing machine out this month!
– Wedding planning: next stage in the planning is to research music and entertainment and figure out what we want that part of our wedding to look like. I have absolutely no idea where to start with this other than my fiancé and I have started a Spotify playlist but I don’t think an aux cable is quite what most people have in mind for a wedding! Any recommendations welcome please!
– Research dance classes in the area: I may have left dancing behind after 15 years when I went to uni, but that doesn’t mean I’m completely prepared to give up! I never got the chance to find classes at the old house because out of the 18 months we lived there, approximately 13 of them were whilst the country was in a pandemic lockdown! I know things aren’t back to normal yet but I’d really like to find a dance class, meet some new people and do some exercise! I want to get my tap shoes back on!
– Go for walks three times a week: and with exercise in mind… I’ve noticed I’m starting to feel a bit agoraphobic at the moment; I’ve managed to find excuses over the last couple of months but feeling trapped in my own house is actually quite scary, so I want to push myself and get to know the new area we live in and actually get some fresh air. Even if at first it’s just walking to a park down the road and sitting with a book, it’s a start.
My recurring monthly goals haven’t been very successful – I wanted to make more effort to save money but moving house is really expensive, even if you’re only renting. I wanted to have date nights with my fiancé at least once a month but we haven’t managed it yet. And I wanted to read 2 books a month and I didn’t make it through anything in April (though I got ahead in other months so I’m still good on my 2021 goodreads challenge!). Realistically, date night’s just aren’t a priority right now and finances need to be flexible to allow for ‘real life’. I definitely want to get back into my reading habit though.
Things are feeling a little flat at the moment, so I’m trying to figure out what I need to do to feel a little brighter but it’s a work in progress – making an effort not to spend my lunch break at my desk is a good start!
Another month, another set of mini goals – with moving house in just over a week, I don’t feel like I’m ready to start any new goals yet but after we move, I’ll be ready for a new start and some more focus. Right now half of my life is in boxes and I’m looking forward to having the amount of stuff in our one bed house in our three bed house and having some more space!
So the first goal is to do all the admin and packing for moving house, but other than that – here are my five mini goals!
Writing challenge – 35,000 words – it’s Camp NaNoWriMo month so it’s time for another writing challenge! This month I’m aiming to start planning and writing a new original fiction project, which I haven’t done in a long time – it’s something very different for me and I’m looking forward to pushing myself creatively.
Cosplay work – I planned out the steps I need to take to make my first cosplay costume (Team Yell grunt from Pokemon Sword and Shield) and this month I’m going to make a denim jacket I have into a waistcoat, experiment with making armbands and find a skirt that I can potentially adapt if I need to.
Wedding planning – this months task is to contact the silk flower florist I met at a wedding fair last year. I have already sent her an email and now I need to figure out what I actually want and which flowers I want to replicate but I’m so excited to not have real flowers and be able to keep them – I said from the very beginning I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on flowers that would just die but the flowers at Indigo Blooms are beautiful. I didn’t even know they were fake. April is going to be very flowery.
Find pattern for knitted jumper – I’m really enjoying knitting right now and I really like oversized knitwear so… why not make my own, y’know? I don’t know if the pattern I’ve found is any good but I’m aiming for a Weasley esque initial jumper so it might take a couple of attempts to make one that actually looks good but I’m excited to try it.
Start Couch to 5k again – it will be the third time I’ve attempted Couch to 5k, but as the weather warms up and I move to a new town that feels a little safer than where I currently live, I really want to try and make running work again.
And my recurring monthly goals are to read 2 books, have a date night with my fiancé and put some money in savings.
I’m still figuring out balancing monthly goals with full time work and I think I’ve been relatively sensible with setting achievable goals whilst pushing myself to learn new things and develop in the ways I want to. But also on the other hand, I’ve been getting better at not feeling like a failure if I don’t ‘complete’ a goal because if I’m not prepared to put the work in, now isn’t the right time and that’s okay.
It’s that time of month where I’m baffled about how we’ve got to this time of month and it’s nearly the next month, with a bonus helping of oh my god we’re a quarter of the way through the year already and it doesn’t even feel like 2020 ever ended.
But taking the time to think and write about the things I liked in the last month makes me feel a bit brighter and it’s nice to talk about happy things so here are the things I Treasured In March!
Purchase– Other than putting the deposit down on a new rental house and having to get new glasses (which look the same but I can actually see out of them now), I actually haven’t bought a lot this month. I bought a box set of one of my new favourite book series ‘The Selection’ by Kiera Cass (which I’ll get to later) and I got some wool trackies from Asda that are glorious for working from home, but otherwise, I’ve actually been good at not spending this month and that is oddly satisfying.
Song – I’ve actually been listening to a lot of music this month, but nothing particularly new? I’ve made a few new discoveries and some new music has come out.
I’ve been watching a lot of Lottie Mednick on Twitch and she is currently designing an Avatar: The Last Airbender themed island in Animal Crossing New Horizon and she had Avatar music on in the background on one of her streams so… I started listening to Avatar music and ‘Kai’s Theme and Agne Kai‘ is a banger – if you’re a fan of soundtrack music, it’s fantastic and I can’t wait to listen to it whilst driving down a motorway in the summer.
All Time Low just released a new song called ‘Once in a Lifetime‘ and I’m obviously going to have it on loop for at least the next two months, it’s so catchy and I love it.
I’ve also been listening to the Georgia remix of ‘Hate Myself‘ by dodie, I just found ‘90s Kids‘ by Jax on tiktok and ‘weapon‘ and ‘that won’t save us‘ by Against The Current are also catchy af.
YouTube video – I’ve caught up on my watch later playlist! I give it approximately a week before it’s at 30 videos again but some of my favourites from the last month have been;
Books I’ve read
As I write this I’m reading my sixth book of the month, so March has been really good for reading but like I said earlier I bought ‘The Selection’ series having gotten the first book in a blind book gift my sister bought me from Etsy and demolishing it in the most ‘guilty pleasure’ way.
My first read was ‘Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist’ by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan and it was a beautiful little book about one night with a stranger in a beautiful city and reckless teenage abandon – it was lovely and I definitely need to watch the film now.
Then I read ‘The Elite’, ‘The One’, ‘The Heir’ and ‘The Crown’ by Kiera Cass to complete ‘The Selection’ series in about three weeks (very fast for me) – I don’t know how I can describe it because it wasn’t good, the fact the main character is called America Singer and she’s a musician irritated me from the off but the dystopian story with an old royalty feel (I’d just finished watching Bridgerton as well) all wrapped up in what is essentially a reality TV competition for the Prince’s hand in marriage and I gobbled it up. The third book in the series ended very abruptly and I did not enjoy the sequels about America’s daughter, Eadlyn, anywhere near as much but I still read the whole series in less than a month so I must have at least somewhat enjoyed it.
And I’m currently reading ‘In at The Deep End’ by Kate Davies and so far it’s a solid 3/5 – there’s a lot of sex in it, which usually I wouldn’t read as it’s not my thing, but the way the narrative voice is written just makes it all feel so normal? It’s not trying to be scandalous or seductive – it’s just a girl with real hormones and real feelings figuring out herself and her sexuality and a lot of it is really sweet. I’ve got about 50 pages left which I think I’ll finish tonight (on the last day of the month which is really satisfying!!) so if you want to see my full review it should be on my bookstagram sophiesreading in the next few days!
Something to watch
I think it was end of February that I watched Bridgerton but my viewing habits have been pretty standard this month – I’ve watched a lot of YouTube videos (as detailed above!), I watched Wandavision on Disney+ and I’ve watched the first two episodes of ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’ which is brilliant so far.
My fiancé and I finished watching ‘Avatar: The Legend of Korra’ which was brilliant and I’m so excited about the announcement of a continuation of the universe. But we’re looking for a new series to binge – we’ve finished Korra, Falcon and Winter Soldier is weekly episodes, so whilst we figure out what show we want to watch next we’ve started a Marvel marathon – so far we’ve watched Captain America, Captain Marvel, Iron Man and Iron Man 2 (we’re watching in timeline order not release order!) and I’m thoroughly enjoying that actually!
Wedding planning update
I feel like I’ve mentioned this approximately three thousand times, but I’ve broken down everything we (I) need to plan for the wedding and put it into monthly tasks, this month was researching wedding insurance and booking the photographer and videographer and I did all of the things! We’re going to buy the wedding insurance once we’ve moved (because we’ve got to space out the funds!), the photographer and videographer are officially booked and we’ve booked a photobooth as well which is really exciting! It’s all starting to feel a little more real now.
A new habit
I wasn’t sure how else to categorise it but I definitely couldn’t not mention it – I’ve started using Duolingo to learn Italian! I have always want to be better at languages but I’ve always struggled, so I thought I’d give it a go and I love how it’s laid out and I actually feel like I’m doing quite well! I’m not having a fluent conversation anytime soon but I can tell you that the insects are in the sugar and I don’t question why duolingo has come up with this sentence (i insetti sono nel zucchero! I think?).
As the world starts to reopen again, we’re packing to move into a new house and everything feels new and different, it’s definitely a little daunting and scary. I don’t really like change, but I’m excited about the new house and the new chapter it will bring.
I’m really excited for my monthly goals this year – when I made my yearly goals I accidentally planned out which goals I wanted to achieve each month so that I had a plan for consistent progress (which sounds much more organised than I feel). So I don’t get the same sense of a ‘fresh slate’ each month, but I love anything where I don’t have to make decisions so knowing that most of my goals are planned for the year is exciting!
The way I’m planning my monthly goals is in alignment with my yearly goals – I’ve picked one from my professional goals, one from my personal goals, one from my home goals and one from my ‘bucket list’ goals – so I’m making progress in each category of my goals (if I want to) and I’ve got one monthly goal left (because 5 is a nice round number) for if there’s something more relevant I want to include. I don’t know if mentioning all my categories is more confusing (it’s very personal), but that’s how I do it!
Here are my February Goals!
Develop my online portfolio – I just got a job, so having a super duper up to date portfolio isn’t hugely important right now, but I figure if I do the hard work in revamping it now then maintaining it will be easier and when it comes to looking for work again I’ll have it ready to go. The three avenues I want to work on over 2021 are my blog portfolio, my Instagram portfolio and a proper showreel, as most of my showreel is footage from 2017 which was three years ago. This month I want to make a plan to make more specific achievable milestones throughout the year, update my Instagram page because that’s the easiest place to start and start researching free website builders to potentially take my portfolio off my existing website.
Find a therapist – perhaps a bit personal, but I think we definitely need to normalise going to therapy. I have a mental health condition! I need help to feel like I can get back to my ‘normal’ and I’m in a position where I feel like I can be in a position to be vulnerable with a stranger and go through the process of finding someone who I think can really help me. It’s going to be a lot of sending emails, booking introductory calls and being brave and vulnerable. I probably won’t share how it goes but definitely going to try and help normalise therapy a bit more!
Wedding planning – as I mentioned in my ‘how I planned my wedding planning‘ post, I have a 2021 list of steps I want to take to make solid progress on planning our wedding (which is next year! How mad is that?). This month it’s booking the registrar/celebrant (the person who actually does the marrying in a non-religious service) and finding a photographer and videographer for the day, as they get booked up very quickly. It’s not much but little steps every month will all add up!
Start sewing my clothes – I don’t mean making my own clothes! I have a few bits and bobs that I’d like to adapt – a scratchy sweater that I want to put a piece of material on the inside, a t-shirt I want to try embroidery on, a shirt I want to try and take the sleeves up on – little things that I think would help me learn about sewing and give a second life to clothes I otherwise avoid wearing!
Use Ring Fit Adventure at least once a week – my boyfriend treated me to the Nintendo Switch game ‘Ring Fit Adventure’ when I started my new job and I used it once and decided I needed a sports bra to commit to it… and I’ve not made time for it since. I need to make more time for exercise and going for walks and I think when it’s a video game that is also exercise it’s definitely a reasonable once a week goal! If I can schedule it for straight after work one evening I can definitely do it.
Then my repeated monthly goals are a date night with my fiancé, read 2 books towards my annual reading goal (I’m on my 5th book in January!) and save my goal amount of money.
I’m feeling really good about these goals – my January goals have gone surprisingly well despite starting a full time job and having significantly less time for personal tasks than before.
The first month of this year has flown by and it’s been weird – it very much feels like ‘2020 Continued’, so I hope you as you’re reading this you’re feeling okay mentally despite the circumstances and you and the ones you love are healthy and staying safe!
My partner and I have technically been engaged for a year now (we picked a date we wanted to get married this time last year but we didn’t ‘propose’ to each other until much later in the year, I could write a whole blog post about it…), and after two wedding fairs and a pandemic, I’m starting to think more seriously about planning.
I’d say ‘we’ but anyone who’s planned a wedding with a man knows they probably don’t have a lot of opinion. I know mine still doesn’t feel like it’s real because it’s nearly two years away. To clarify: this isn’t me saying he isn’t allowed an opinion, oh no no – he just is vastly indifferent to anything I try to talk to him about.
But now that we are inside of two years away from the day and we’ve paid the full deposit on our venue, it’s time to really start thinking about planning! I know nearly two years in advance is probably a bit eager, but surely the earlier I start the less stressful it’ll be right? Apparently wedding planning is super stressful and I’m sure I will get stressed and nervous the closer the date gets, but the more I can plan it advance the better, right?
So starting from the beginning, deciding what date we wanted to get married was a very casual decision, we told our parents over the next month or so and immediately my mum booked us tickets to a wedding fair in Birmingham and another local one near our home town and luckily we managed to go to them both in the two weekends before the first lockdown in the UK. Mum also treated me to a wedding planning folder which has been helpful! I found a venue I loved at the local wedding fair, then after showing it to my fiancé we booked a viewing tour thing in July and confirmed the contract with the final part of the deposit this month.
One of my 2021 goals was to make some progress on planning the wedding, so over the New Year I went through and made a long list of every step and every task I’d need to do to plan the wedding – not including payment deadlines and things like that because those are finer details that I’ll know more about closer to the time.
Knowing what I’m like I’ll make a spreadsheet of some sort because that’s who I am as I person.
I made my master list using the wedding planning folder I got from Paperchase and the recommendations from Bridebook which I’ve found really useful, but I’m not using every suggestion it makes (it’s been very useful for budgeting guidance though). I then split that up into tasks that can wait until 2022 and what I want to do (or at least start) this year and now I’ve got 10 tasks I want to start this year (and I’ve already ticked one off).
My 2022 list currently has 19 things on it but it makes sense that there’s more tasks in the year of the wedding right?
I still don’t know how the heck to plan a wedding. How are people ‘good’ at this, or do they just get wedding planners?
I’ve found having a longer list and knowing everything that I have to do in the long run makes it easier and feel less daunting. Wedding planning is daunting – it’s such an unknown and it’s not something you tend to get practice in, as well as being a huge financial commitment. And if you’ve been following any of my other posts, you know I love making a list more than anything!
I’m excited to start planning and for it all to feel more real as we get a bit closer, fingers crossed 2021 takes a different path to 2020.
Thank you for reading – I hope you and your loved ones are happy, healthy and staying safe!
I feel like I haven’t done a ‘favourites’ post for a while – I’ve been trying to reevaluate my relationship with feeling the need to buy new things to show and talk about in these posts but I think the format I’ve built for myself works quite well and with ongoing lockdown announcements and all the other stuff going on in a pandemic world, I think we can all use a post about nice things that make us happy! Especially with the festive season right around the corner!
purchase
Just talked about not feeling the need to buy new things and first category is my favourite purchase; I see the irony! I haven’t actually really bought anything for myself recently, but I’ve been doing all my Christmas shopping online as everything’s closed at the moment and I’ve made an effort not to use Amazon and to shop small and I’ve bought so many cute bits from Etsy! I’m not going to link anything specific for obvious reasons, but being able to search for literally everything, specify my price range and that I want to shop in the UK has been great. So far delivery has been mixed but I think it’s COVID making everything slower. And the one Amazon order I did make one of the items isn’t going to arrive until December 23rd, so it’s definitely not that much more convenient than shopping from independent creatives!
social media
A slightly strange category, but with applying for jobs in marketing and digital media, I’ve been thinking a lot more professionally about social media in preparation for potential interviews – I’ve been looking at view to subscriber averages on YouTube, trying to understand Instagram’s new layout prioritising shopping and forever pretending I’m young enough to use tiktok like I get how the app works. There are so many hashtags that I don’t get! I’d love to start making tiktoks but I’m a little overwhelmed with where to start… I mostly watch Harry Potter cosplayers and I’m loving just spectating too.
music
I drew the conclusion earlier this year that I’m not as into music as I thought I was, but as I’ve been needing sounds to distract me from my overthinking brain, I’ve been watching a lot more YouTube and listening to way more music!
I’m really enjoying working to instrumental music (I can’t concentrate when there are lyrics, I get distracted) so I’ve been listening to a pianist called Ludivico Einaudi who I loved when I was 16 but his album Islands is beautiful and you’d recognise some of the songs from TV adverts! I’ve also loved listening to the Avengers: Endgame soundtrack and a playlist called Cinematic Chillout.
And I’ve found a love for acoustic music as well? Hearing the raw instruments and stripped back vocals chills me out at the moment so my favourite playlist is Easy Acoustic, but I also love Calming Instrumental Covers and I’m looking forward to listening to Autumn Acoustic too.
YouTube video
I feel like I’ve been a broken record about how I’m behind on watching YouTube videos and have been for about five years now – I’m currently up to just over 200 videos on my watch later playlist and the videos are from about six weeks ago, but I only really watch YouTube when my partner is away with work because when he’s home I want to make the most of him.
So I don’t have specific videos, because they would be from months ago, but I’m really loving The Anna Edit‘s videos even though I’m 100% a different class to her and don’t have the money to and wouldn’t spend as much as she does on high end skin care, fashion or anything, but I just love how chatty and friendly she is. I’ve always said, I subscribe to channels based on the people, not the content.
The other channel I’ve loved for so long now is Fabulous Hannah – the same principle of liking the person not the content, but I also love the content. Hannah and I would get on so well – she has my same sarcastic, self deprecating humour, we’re kind of at similar points in life, and watching her videos just feels like I’m having a one way video call catch up with a friend and that’s the kind of cosy vibes I love on YouTube.
books
I finally finished The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas! I had eight months of an amazing reading habit that has now completely gone out the window, but I managed to finish the one book I had started. I liked it – I was apprehensive of the ending because I’ve seen the film, but I thought it really captured the perspective of a 9 year old boy. Apparently it’s a controversial book, but I thought it was interesting to express the naïvity of children in Germany, though I’m not sure how historically accurate it is.
I’m yet to start another book, but I definitely need to get back into the habit because I miss it.
snacks
I may have built up an unjustified anxiety about eating, but recently I’ve started getting my appetite back and with Christmas treats and the Great British Bake Off as inspiration for the last few weeks, I’ve enjoyed a few treats.
Cadbury Snow Balls are my favourite seasonal treat (though a special shout out to creme eggs), I’ve been very much enjoying Victoria sponge cupcakes and malted milk biscuits were all my anxious stomach could handle for a while.
I’m definitely a sweet snack kind of girl.
TV/film/streaming/stuff to watch
Speaking off The Great British Bake Off… it’s the only thing I’ve been religiously watching every week since it all began. Lottie was my favourite, I very nearly stopped watching when she went out, I think Dave was robbed in that final but the whole series was the light relief we needed amongst a new tier system and a second lockdown.
I’ve not really watched anything else to be honest – with catching up on 200 YouTube videos and Bake Off on a Tuesday night, I’ve not made time for anything else. I did start rewatching Harry Potter and a few Marvel movies of an afternoon though, which has been nice.
wedding planning update
We paid the first half of the venue deposit! There’s been a lot of back and forth since we viewed the venue in July, but with the pandemic they agreed to let us pay half the deposit and the other half in January, so the ball really is rolling! My plan before the New Year is to make a detailed list of everything that needs doing and when I need to start thinking about it over the next two years so I keep up with planning and we save enough money for the right times.
I think with all the new lockdown rules, it hasn’t really sunk in yet – part of my mind wonders if the pandemic will effect us by the end of 2022, but I have to stay optimistic and hope for the best!
I wasn’t sure about writing this post, because it all feels incredibly self indulgent, but talking about nice things that make us happy is what we all need at the moment. Do we need to share them all on the internet? Probably not, but I’m part of a generation that has an issue with oversharing online so here we are.
Thank you for reading – I hope you and your loved ones are happy, healthy and staying safe!
sophie counts clouds 