It's all go, go, go!

Life has been hecccctic!

Since moving back to Bognor & starting my new job, it's been a bit of a whirlwind. My lack of blogging hasn't been because I have nothing to blog about but because so much has been going on that I've had no time to write!

I'm loving my new job at Strawberrysoup & it's great living back near all our friends and family, there's always something to do! It has been hard sticking to the weight loss thing though with all the pub nights & meals out so things have definitely slowed down a bit.

I'm also missing the gym a lot as I've not managed to join one yet, but I have been jogging a fair bit along the seafront... I've managed a furthest of 5.6k non-stop jogging so far which is such a massive improvement from when I started out with Couch to 5k!

But although the pound dropping has slowed, they are still coming off & yesterday's weigh in saw me hit the 60lb loss mark (that's 4 stone 4lbs!) which also brought me into 'ideal' BMI!! So I'm feeling preeeetty proud about that! That means I have just 17lbs until goal weight and now I really want to focus on trying to tone my wibbly bits!

In other news.... we have finally booked our wedding venues!!! On 28th September we will be getting married in a church in Bognor where Darren was baptised and his parents were married and 'dinner & dancing' will follow in a gorgeous country hotel in Chichester!! Super excited! Now is where the real wedding planning fun starts!

So, along with lots of babies making appearances (friends', definitely not mine!), they're the main highlights of my last couple of months. We're still staying with Darren's dad at the moment but we have a flat lined up which will be ready to move in to at the beginning of July... counting down the days! It'll be great to have our own space again & I'm really looking forward to having a garden & hosting barbecues, so long as the sun returns!

Time for the hectic to take over again as I have a lunch date to get ready for... laters!

xo

Bridesmaids & babies

Okay so this is a long overdue blog post, but I have no idea where this week has gone & I was about to publish it this morning when the whole post disappeared & I was left with a blank page.... not fun :(

BUT last weekend was an eventful one so I wanted to share!

Friday night I head to the homeland for a much awaited night out with my favourite ladies. Of course this special occasion was cause for a new dress, especially as most of my clothes are looking quite ridiculous and baggy on me at the moment and I wanted to show off the difference I was noticing with my weight loss!

It turns out I am now comfortably a size 14 which means I have dropped two dress sizes!! Big yays! There was a time when a size 14 disgusted me after hitting that just a year after being an 8-10, but I'm more than happy with a 14 this time around! This meant I was looking forward to this night out more than I already was because I wasn't feeling depressive like I usually do about what I'm going to wear out!

The main reason I was looking forward to this night was because I had decided to ask these three very special girls a very important question!

Officially my beautiful bridesmaids!

I originally planned to wait until we had a venue booked before popping the question to my bridesmaids, but then again I originally planned to have a venue booked by now so there you go!

We had an amazing night full of drinking, dancing, laughing & talking wedding plans and the best ever thing was me later realising that I didn't feel self concious all night - a first in a very long time and a pretty big deal for me!

On Saturday I had a surprise baby shower to go to. This was my first baby shower experience and it was a great night! We played games, laughed a lot, ate cake, tried baby food & wondered why people feed that stuff to their babies, ergh!

It was also really good to catch up with lots of people I haven't seen for a while and I had a few compliments on my weight loss which is always nice! People are really starting to notice when they see me, and also when they hug my "disappearing body" as some have said! This has definitely given me a massive boost to continue all my hard work!

Although I did give myself the weekend off a little after an extra good week, I still logged as best as I could and I hit the gym on Friday morning before work & ate well all day to make room for some of the alcohol I was to consume later.... which turned out to be around 850 calories when I logged what I remembered drinking the next morning! I knew alcohol was calorific, but 103 calories in a 25ml shot of Goldschläger? Woah.

But it was so worth it. I knew one not-so-good weekend wouldn't hinder all my hard work... which it didn't! On Monday evening I weighed in at 3lbs lighter than the previous week despite all the alcohol on Friday and a cheeky bit of cake at the baby shower! This brings my running total to 37lbs - just 1.5 away from the halfway point to my goal weight! Still a long way to go but I've definitely come a long way already! I'm feeling massively proud and confident that I can do this :))) !!

Wishing everyone an amazing weekend - I should probably get out of my pyjamas soon & do something productive.... Or I might just stay cosy & lazy until Darren gets home from work & it's time to head to the gym :)

xo

Two hearts set on two venues and hitting the two stone mark!

I have been a busy bee the last couple of weeks so while that means I have plenty to blog about, it also means I haven't had a chance to actually blog which is just unacceptable!

The last time I posted I was on my way to view our first potential wedding venue out of 7 that weekend. Unfortunately, almost two weeks later, we are still no further with our plans. In some ways it feels like we have gone backwards as we don't even have any options to look at anymore.

We fell in love with 2 particular venues which was all really exciting at the time as I was imagining myself walking down the aisle, having our photos taken and enjoying our wedding breakfast in these gorgeous buildings.... Until reality hit and we realised that we really can't afford a total of above £10,000 for a venue and food (unless we maybe don't bother with a wedding dress, suits and everything else a wedding involves). We even toyed with the idea of getting a loan for part of the wedding, but (luckily) we talked ourselves right back out of that one!

Although this realisation was quite a downer after being so happy with the venues we loved, we had a good talk about it and decided that as much as we want a 'wow' venue, even if we could stretch to the price, it's probably not worth it just for our guests' first impression. We would rather spend more on entertainment and those little extras we have in mind to make it a memorable night!

The other venues we visited that weekend weren't so expensive, but they were very 'meh' in comparison to the two we had our hearts set on. So it's back to the drawing board on that one! If anything, we have a better idea of what we both want and what we don't want, so hopefully we'll find something soon.

It is getting slightly irritating that we still haven't got anywhere for a venue as planning everything else has to wait! We also still haven't even told bridesmaids/best man/ushers that we want them in our wedding as I wanted to wait until we had a date and venue set in stone, although I might crack soon!

IN OTHER NEWS...

Despite a slight hiccup that weekend in Bognor (which included a lot of vodka & pizza, but we'll forget about that!) I am kicking ass at this weight loss/fitness thing at the moment - even if I say so myself! Last week after hitting the gym every day and sticking to my calorie allowance, I achieved a loss of 4lb which took me to the 2 stone mark!! I'm am really pleased with myself and it has given me even more of a motivational boost to keep working hard to lose the pounds!

Gym tonight & then chili cheese fries for dinner (before you raise your eyebrow - Quorn mince, plenty of tomato, homemade baked chips & just a sprinkle of low fat cheese!) I've already totted this up in My Fitness Pal and it's not all that bad... and I'll be working for it!

Gizza Kiss!

It's my Friday today as I've booked the rest of this week off so we can go and look at some wedding venues! It's also my mini sister's 3rd birthday and a friend's birthday this weekend so I'm looking forward to some celebrations seeing lots of family & friends.

First, though, I'm looking forward to lie in as I'm still feeling shattered from the weekend and a busy few days (or weeks) at work!

On Saturday we had a friend's fancy dress party to go to in Bognor and as I was waiting for Friday's payday I had a frantic shopping trip on Saturday buying wigs & allsorts! I then had to grab Darren from work at 6 & head to Bognor where we met some friends and got dolled up:

Alcohol was consumed, karaoke was sung (badly) & I ended up being a fancy dress Hawaiian-hotdog-sheep-Kiss explosion:

The next morning we battled through headaches to go to our first wedding fayre at Goodwood Hotel... exciting stuff!

We got some great ideas, picked up some brochures & a glossy mag, looked at rings, cars, cakes & all sorts so I'd say it was a success :) I also received an email today from one of the ring companies there saying we won their draw to win £200 off wedding rings! Can't complain!

The rest of Sunday was spent seeing family & friends & talking about our wedding the whole time! Everyone seems so excited which is really nice.

We have about 5 or 6 places booked to view over the next few days, it's all very exciting! Maybe this time next week we'll have found our perfect venue, who knows!

Who, what, where & when?

Since becoming a fiancée, I have become obsessed with all things wedding!

I've subscribed to loads of wedding blogs, bookmarked some great websites, become a complete Pinterest addict (which is a great site anyway but amazing for wedding inspiration!) and developed a stronger love for wedding-related TV.

It's all very exciting but it really makes you realise just HOW BLOODY MUCH there is to think about when planning a wedding!

Now, we don't want some massive celebrity-style wedding (has anyone seen Celebrity Wedding Planner? Jedward ♥), but we do want a fairly big deal - a  day to really celebrate love and the two of us and something for us and our guests to remember for years to come.

So we need to think about venue(s), a bridesmaids, groomsmen, registrars, colours, dresses, suits, food, guest list, invitations, favours, flowers, a cake, entertainment, and those added extras for our personal touch on the event.

Oh and then there's a honeymoon and all that comes with that.

And of course the all-important hen and stag parties (which I'm sure our friends are far more interested in)!

... and I know there's probably a LOT more that I'm forgetting, so if anyone could point me in the direction of a comprehensive wedding to-do list I would really appreciate it!

It can all be a bit overwhelming when thinking about all the boxes that'll need ticking, but before anything we need to figure out what we can afford and what date next year to settle on.

So, who, what, where & when?

Well I don't have the answers to any of these (other than the bride and groom 'who'... you'd hope anyway!) yet, but let's hope it falls into place.

Darren and I have four days off together at the beginning of February so the plan for that time is to attempt those awkward conversations with family members to find out exactly the extent of the financial help they have offered us (we need figures!), view some venues, attend a wedding fayre and decide on a date (or at least which month!)

Eek!

Here's to a year of sweating & saving!

2011 has (as every year, month, week or day does) had its ups and downs but looking back it really has been an amazing year with so many landmark moments - notably graduating, beginning my career, getting engaged, quitting smoking & making a dent in the weight loss target! I definitely didn't expect it to be such a big year at the beginning of 2011!

As the year drew to a close I was sad to see the back of it. I think this was mainly because so many exciting things happened last year and I was feeling as though there is nothing really exciting to look forward to in 2012... We're both just looking at a year of struggling to save a lot of pennies and lose a lot of weight ready for a 2013 wedding!

But once we can truly get stuck in with the wedding planning, I'm sure that will soon take over my home life and be exciting enough for me! Once things settle down a bit for us, it is time to work out realistically how much we can save and come up with a figure for our budget!

Anyway, now I really need to step away from the new toy and get myself to the gym! Happy weekend everyone :)