Diary of a Boho Bride – Whitney and Tom, Entry 9: The Final Post

Good Afternoon to you all, I’m so glad that Friday is here. It’s been a busy week for me and this afternoon I am taking it off to chill out and relax before tomorrows wedding in Liverpool. Do you have any plans this weekend? We would love to hear all about them.

Today it’s the final instalment from Whitney and Tom in our weekly Diary of a Boho Bride feature. It has been wonderful having them both on the blog and hearing all about their wedding planning journey. We can’t wait to hear all about their Ibiza wedding and see their wonderful wedding photos. Both Kelly H and I would like to wish them all the best for the future and thank them enormously for sharing the last years planning with us all. Have a wonderful day and see you on the other side.

I’ll pass you over to Whitney

Oh my goodness, I am beginning to have palpitations over how close the wedding is (2.5 weeks when this goes up) It feels really strange sitting down to write my final post before we actually get married. For both Tom and I it’s really started to sink in that all this crazy 18 months of wedding planning is actually going to happen in a couple of weeks’ time. At this point we have paid our final balances on the majority of things (surprisingly although it’s a destination wedding our numbers are still forever changing) and our spare room has 4 suitcases (many more at my mums and best friends) waiting to be over-packed.

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I have to admit, my relationship with the wedding planning experience has been hit and miss – but mainly hit. The thing I’ve enjoyed most has been making decisions about the look and feel of the wedding…the parts that make it OUR wedding rather than anyone else’s. We’ve managed to do so much in the last few weeks (I’m not going to give anything away!) and yes sure there’s some stress involved (see last post re registry office!), but it (mostly) gets masked with excitement. If I had to say the list of things I was “stressed” about right now, they would be:

• Getting all of our stuff to Ibiza in one piece
• More importantly getting my dress to Ibiza in one piece!
• Actually not forgetting anything for the wedding. I’m slightly nervous that I haven’t got enough lists on the go!
• Hoping that everything we have bought, hired and crafted looks good altogether and creates the right atmosphere.
• Hoping the weather is going to be dry and sunny. I’ve been checking the weather app like a woman possessed and the UK has been hotter and drier than Ibiza (Please don’t rain, please don’t rain!!!)
• Hoping my outfit comes together! It’s been curated over such a long time by my very patient Auntie and I haven’t tried on everything all together yet.
• Hoping the exchange rate doesn’t plummet and our wedding budget goes out the window

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So rather than boring you all with the wed-min and what we have/haven’t done I thought I’d leave my fellow brides-to-be with some final thoughts/my words of wisdom:

Be true to yourselves

You will have heard this time and time again but be true to yourselves and don’t compromise your decisions for others. There are always so many opinions when it comes to what a wedding should be and the best advice I received was to really make the day reflect your personalities. So what if you don’t cut the cake or you don’t have a Father of the Bride speech, it’s your day! The biggest stress we have experienced has been the guest list and I’m sure this is stressful for many couples. Pick those people you want or see in your lives going forward. Don’t focus on the past and feel you ‘have’ to invite someone. You may upset someone but in the long run you will have made the best decision for you and your partner. Talk openly together about what you want from your wedding and make ‘rules’ so to speak. We made a decision not to invite people that either one of us or neither of us had ever met. Having someone we knew and loved present was more important than someone we didn’t know. I kept saying to Tom I didn’t want any strangers in our wedding photos and I still stick by that!

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Ask for help

I went through a period of having constant headaches from running through so many lists over and over in my head. However the minute I started to delegate it was like a huge weight lifted! You’ll find that your friends and family really don’t mind and actually really enjoy being involved. Having people you can rely on isn’t just helpful, it is also special. 

Enjoy it

If you get to a point in the planning where it isn’t fun anymore, take a break. I hit a wall 6 months before the wedding so decided to have the whole of Christmas not thinking or doing anything on the wedding. The minute I came back to it, it was fun again! 

Put yourself first

I left everything regarding myself to the last minute, I was so busy buying bridesmaid presents, sorting playlists, crafting etc that I left things like buying shoes, jewellery etc to the last minute (which meant last of the budget too!) Whether it be dieting, working out or having regular facials enjoy some ‘you time’.

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But don’t forget your Hubby-to-be

This leads me on nicely to remembering to have the odd date night in the midst of wedding planning and remembering what it is all for. And if wed-min is taking over your life – involve your Partner, don’t be one of those brides that doesn’t involve her partner and makes it all about what she wants. Neither of you will enjoy that! Try and work a way around it so you can both be involved. Tom and I had slightly different ideas when it came to what we wanted our wedding day to be, he was up for an elopement whereas I wanted the whole she-bang, castle and all sorts (Ok not quite a castle). I feel we’ve both compromised (good sign of what’s to come) and we’ve actually planned the perfect day! It has however taken some time to get Tom engaged with all the wed-min. Tom is great at getting stuff done, but it has to be in his own time. Not wanting to drive either of us insane with ‘have you done this? Have you remembered to do that? Can you do this?” I made a to-do chart which has been stuck to our fridge so that Tom could work through it at his own pace. It worked! I took Tom on a cheeky break to Rome for his 30th last week and we literally had the best time, I felt so lucky we were able to get away so close to the wedding and really celebrate his birthday together

So this is it! Signing out for the last time as Miss Brooks. Happy planning my lovelies, remember to have lots of fun along the way, here’s to married life.

Whitney xxx