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This month our two brides take us through the adventure .jpg) that is finding the perfect bridesmaids!
Sarah Edwards is the winner of our Diary of Bride competition - she's a Wellingtonian nzgirl who is planning on getting married next March. Our other bride is Lauren Andrews, co-creator and owner of the recently launched wedding planning website, theBIGstep.co.nz. With Lauren as an insider in the wedding industry and Sarah as the typical nzgirl, we thought it would be awesome to show you the two different sides behind wedding preparation! With the big day rapidly approaching for both of our gorgeous brides, we got them to tell us about the other ladies of the day; their bridesmaids!
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Sarah
When it came time to picking my bridesmaids it wasn’t too hard. I have a close group of girlfriends who I’ve been friends with since we were teenagers. Even though some don’t live in Wellington, or even New Zealand anymore, we still keep in touch. The only hard part was not having everybody involved. To solve having to pick and choose friends, I originally thought that I would only have one bridesmaid; my close friend Katie. But Dave had his heart set on three groomsmen - his best friend and his two brothers, so I had to follow suit. I decided on Katie, Terri and Kate, all long term friends, all very capable of arranging a fantastic hens night and all taller than me. Not much I could do about that though, as most people are taller than me! The only problem with this line up was that Terri is a photographer and had taken the photos for Katie’s wedding and they were fantastic. As soon as we set a date for our wedding Terri offered to take our wedding photos. I knew if I didn’t have her in my wedding party, I wouldn’t have to pay for a photographer and would be a lot better off. But the more I thought about it, the more those girls felt right. So I stuck to my decision and asked all the girls if they would like to be my bridesmaids and they were all very excited. I was in Katie’s bridal party and her wedding is was what inspired us to start planning. I knew her experience of being a bride would help me get through all the build up and the stresses of getting married. Terri is very good at planning and from the moment of being asked was thinking about things to do on my hens night. Kate is so good at motivating me if I get a bit stressed or over the whole wedding business that after a five minute talk with her I will be back on track.  I had started keeping an eye out for bridesmaid dresses. I had no theme or colour scheme for the wedding and figured that once I had chosen the bridesmaid dresses, that the theme or scheme would follow. I looked at some dresses at actual bridal shops and they reminded me of school ball dresses. I didn’t like the colours or even the feel of the fabric, I had been popping into shops regularly just to see what was about and one lunch time Max was having a sale and saw a dress I quite liked.
Emergency emails to the girls and they tried them on and all agreed that they were right. They were a little bit shorter than the girls would normally wear and one of them commented that she might have to put her knees on a diet. We managed to buy two from Auckland (Kate is in Auckland) and one from Wellington so we were now sorted in the bridesmaid dress department, thanks to these blue, floaty chiffon strapless dresses. I was hoping to pay for the dresses myself but the girls conspired against me and had it all arranged before I could pay for anything, which was so nice as if it wasn’t for me they wouldn’t’ have to buy the dress in the first place. So I believe that I have made great choices and I just hope they can survive the next few months putting up with all my conversations involving THE WEDDING.
Lauren
Introducing my bridesmaids, in photo order... .jpg) 1: Sarah, my post-college friend. She was a year younger than me at school, but we didn’t become good friends until after school. Back when Sarah was a single lass, Reece and I used to spend loads of time with her. We all had a mutual love of rugby and tennis, so we’d spend heaps of time watching sport – even travelling to Melbourne for the Australian Open twice. Sarah now lives in London with her husband, their gorgeous daughter Maddie and another due in December. She is such a loyal and thoughtful friend who always remembers birthdays and is great at staying in touch – we spend hours on the phone! Fingers crossed she can make it back for the wedding, but it’s a big ask for her to travel with two little ones on her own. She can’t book anything until the baby has a passport, which will make flights very expensive! I hope it works out, but I will understand if she can’t make it.
2: Danielle, my cousin who is four months older than me. Danielle and her three sisters are like my own sisters. Danielle is also our official matchmaker. I had just arrived back from living in Australia for a year, and Danielle wouldn’t stop talking about her new friend Reece.
One night, Danielle decided to drive my friend Vanessa (my MOH) and I around to Reece’s house to say “hi”. We sat outside in her car and talked to him for about 10 minutes. That’s the first time I met Reece…let’s just say it wasn’t love at first sight. To be honest, we didn’t really like each other much!
 3: Rebecca, my 16-year-old sister. Reece and I have been together almost 13 years now, which means Rebecca was a just a toddler when we got together. She used to sit on his knee and tell me he was her boyfriend and that she was going to marry him. Thankfully, she has grown out of that faze and now accepts the fact that Reece is mine!
Rebecca always thought she would be a flower girl at our wedding, but since we took so long to get engaged, she’s graduated to bridesmaid!
4: Vanessa, my best friend since 3rd Form and MOH. Nessy, who lives in France, has just given birth to darling Remy. You may recognise her from our website – she is one of the beautiful brides that feature on our homepage slideshow.
Even though Vanessa has been living overseas for about six or so years, we are as close as ever. Whenever we see each other, we tend to revert back to our silly teenaged selves. She always gives me great and honest advice and laughs at my jokes! I know I can tell her anything, and I always feel like I can be myself around her.
Both Ness and Sarah’s husbands play professional rugby in Europe, so unfortunately, they won’t be able to join their lovely wives on the trip back to NZ. But I’m sure we’ll raise a glass or two to them! Because of this there is also a question mark around whether Ness will be able to come back for our wedding, but like Sarah, I have my fingers tightly crossed.
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