You need to take into account your height and shape and choose something that flatters your figure. Just because you’ve always had your heart set on a certain style doesn’t mean it will necessarily suit you.

There will only be four or five basic styles of dress, try them all on to see which one complements your shape. Once you decide the style that suits you best, choosing a dress becomes simpler as you can then just concentrate on the fabric and features that appeal on dresses that are ‘your shape’.

Take someone with you who knows you well and will give you an honest opinion. Check how it feels to walk, sit, turn, bend and dance. If the dress has a train, a hook and eye is often stitched into the back of the dress so that it can be hooked up for the evening. (On the day it’s worth taking a large safety pin in case the hook and eye isn’t strong enough)

Check the material of the dress – will it ‘travel’ well – you don’t want it to look all creased up when you arrive at the marriage ceremony. Also check what the dress looks like from behind. It’s worth remembering that you will probably be standing with your back to everyone for most of the ceremony. It is a perfect vantage point to show off any special detail on the back of the dress.

You have to think about ordering your wedding dress up to a year in advance. Wedding dresses can be quite expensive so the shops do not stock one of each size. You will try on the nearest to your size and it will generally be pinned so that you can see what it will look like and the shop will then advise you what size you need to order. Alterations will be carried out nearer to the wedding day and there is usually a cost for each fitting.

I was very lucky because I tried on only 5 dresses and on the fifth dress I knew that was the dress for me. I was guided by my heart. If you really think a particular dress is the one, don’t go trying on hundreds of others, because in the end you won’t know what you like and what you don’t like.

Once you have chosen and ordered your dress ask the shop for a swatch of material and take it with you whenever you go shopping for wedding accessories. It is surprising how many different shades of ivory there are! I would strongly advise you not to keep going back to the shop to look at the dress once you have ordered it because you will lose the excitement of the dress before the wedding.

Once you have brought home your wedding dress where do you put it? We used the spare bedroom to store all the wedding things (my dad gave the room a lick of paint and shampooed the carpet earlier in the year so that it was fresh and clean)

Some people put a hook into the ceiling joist to hang their dress from. Alternatively, you can open wardrobe doors wide and lay a pole across the top to create a rail on which to hang your wedding dress, petticoats etc. (see picture) If the dress has a train let it spread out over a sheet to protect it

On your wedding day the bottom of your dress is bound to get grubby - don’t worry about trying to keep it spotless, just enjoy your day. Your dress can be professionally cleaned after the wedding.

Introduction

When my fiancé and I got engaged 18 months ago I knew two things - firstly that I loved him, and secondly that I wanted the ‘perfect’ wedding.

What did this ‘perfect wedding’ look like? How much would it all cost? Who would pay for what?

I started to hear stories from friends and colleagues about the stress of arranging a wedding, about costs spiralling out of control and families falling out, I even heard about a bride & groom who were not talking to each other on the big day! It wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted the perfect wedding, but I didn’t want the stress and I didn’t want any falling out.

I decided to enlist the help of my mum (a great organiser) to see if it was possible that between us we could arrange my big day without too much stress. We talked through all the possible pitfalls we could think of and set a plan in motion. Along the way we got advice from others and modified our plan if necessary. We made spreadsheets, templates and forms to keep track of what we were doing.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get tearful or stressed a couple of times along the way, but there were no major fall-outs, no surprises over costs, and no disasters on the big day. My wedding day was absolutely perfect – it went like a dream.

This is our wedding gift to you – We hope you have a perfect day.

When deciding on the date, we were careful to avoid major sporting fixtures as we did not want the sports fanatics amongst our guests smuggling radios into the marriage service or disappearing during the reception to find a TV.

I also bought a scrapbook and stuck in all the pictures of wedding dresses, bouquets, table arrangements, tiaras, hairstyles, cakes etc that I liked. This was how I was able to build up a picture of how my perfect wedding would look.

The other thing I did was to cook a nice meal for just the two us, and we talked about whether it was going to be a small intimate wedding or a big affair, church or registry office, at home or on a beach somewhere.

I wanted to be sure what we both wanted before we opened up the discussion to the wider family.

I knew I wanted a traditional white wedding and my fiancé was happy with that – his only stipulations were that he didn’t want to wear a top hat, and wanted his oldest friend as best man. We both wanted a sit down meal and an evening reception and were keen on having a disco. I was determined to travel to the church in a horse and carriage (a childhood fantasy) and I wanted enough money left to be able to afford a very special honeymoon.

So once you’re absolutely clear in your own minds what you would both like, what are ‘must haves’ (horse and carriage for me), and what you really don’t want (no top hats for him) what you are happy to compromise on (definitely wanted a sit down meal but realised numbers may have to be restricted) then we were able to talk to our parents .

My fiancé and I, armed with the knowledge of what we did and didn’t want, met up with my parents and his parents for a meal in a local pub. We deliberately chose a neutral venue as we didn’t want anyone to feel at a disadvantage, particularly as we knew the question of who was paying for what would come up too.

The meal with the families was great – it was lovely talking weddings and interesting to hear all the different suggestions that were made, but I felt in control because I was clear about our priorities. I was really pleased my fiancé and I had spent time just together deciding what it was we wanted. My day wasn’t being hijacked It was still feeling like my ‘perfect wedding’

I urge you to talk together and decide what your perfect day is going to be like, before you do anything else.

As real flowers can be very expensive, you may also wish to consider a combination of both real and silk flowers. The benefit of this is that you can order the some of your floral arrangements well in advance, leaving only the fresh flower items until the last minute.

Ask your friends and family if they know of a good florist. Bear in mind that if you order flowers from a florist shop, they will be much more expensive as they have to cover overheads. Finding a florist who works from home made all the difference to our budget as she was so much cheaper because she did not have to cover overheads. She had the time to listen to my ideas, advise me where best to spend the money and together we built up a picture of the flower arrangements I wanted. It did help having my scrapbook so that I could show her the type of arrangements and flowers I liked.

To save money I only had buttonholes for the groom, father of the bride, father of the groom, best man and ushers. You can also save money by using the same flowers that decorate your ceremony venue to decorate the reception venue. I also used my bouquet to decorate the cake table and asked the bridesmaids to place their flowers on the guest book table.

The entrance to the church was very plain so my florist made me an arch. She secured it into two wooden flower tubs and decorated it with greenery and fresh flowers. Silk flowers would have also looked beautiful and colourful. This was so popular that as soon as the bride and groom had their photographs taken under it, the guests all used it as a backdrop for their personal photographs.

It is worth checking to see if the marriage venue and reception venue include flowers in their costs. If may be that there is another wedding on the same day as yours and if so, you may be able to save some money by co-ordinating the flower arrangements and sharing the costs.

Working out who’s paying for what, and how much, can be a bit tricky as people have very different views on money and how it should be spent. They have varying incomes and this can be a sensitive matter. Falling out about money is the last thing you will want and the approach we took worked really well.

Invite the family members who will be contributing towards the wedding costs out for a drink or a meal at a neutral venue, letting them know in advance that you wish to discuss the wedding plans. That way they will get the opportunity to discuss between themselves how much they can afford, and what they are prepared to pay for, before you all get together.

Once we knew how much money we had to spend we were able to work out budgets for each area of the wedding. I attach a budget spreadsheet we created; it’s really easy to use and was brilliant for giving us a realistic idea of costs and also keeping us on target.

Click here to download the budget spreadsheet (Microsoft Excel format)

The first column to fill in is the ‘guestimate column’. By filling in this column you will start getting a feel for just how much it will all cost and whether you are on track budget wise. Ask around to get a rough idea of costs so that the figures you type in are fairly accurate. Fill in all the little incidental costs, adding additional headings as appropriate to you. Remember it’s these small amounts that can all add up and take you way over budget.

Once you have typed in all your costs you will see the total cost at the bottom of the column. How does that compare to your budget? Are you surprised how much it all costs? Have you gone a bit ‘over the top’ with your ideas? Are your parents willing to contribute any more? Do you and your partner need to save up more money?

Your ‘perfect wedding’ doesn’t have to break the bank. Look at each cost and see what can be reduced. Don’t cut back on the things that would really mean a lot to you – make your compromises around those things that you and your partner feel are less important.

Keep changing the figures in your ‘guestimate’ column (making sure the figures are realistic) until the total is within your budget. When you are satisfied that these are the costs and they are within budget then use this as your guide. Once you start paying for things or getting firm costs put the figures in the ‘actual’ cost column and that way you can keep a track of your spending. Keep a close eye on the blue column – are you over or under budget and by how much? If you find yourself going over budget try and rein in the spending before it gets out of control.

I hope you find this budget calculator useful – we certainly didn’t get any nasty surprises. Feel free to email it to your friends.

I bought my Mother of the Bride outfit when I was on holiday.

Trying on outfits when you feel relaxed and tanned takes away all the stress rather than waiting until the winter months when you are feeling drab and washed out. According to your colour scheme, think of the season in which to buy your accessories. Christmastime is a good time to buy strappy elegant shoes.

My outfit was not the conventional Mother of the Bride two piece suit, but elegant, floaty and I felt like a million dollars. Once I had bought my outfit I knew I could give my daughter my full concentration.

The most important thing for me was that my daughter would have a wonderful wedding day and I wanted to help her in every way I could. Luckily she asked me for my help at every step of the way, I made just one stipulation, and that was that we had to have a deadline of 3 weeks before the wedding for all the arrangements and shopping to be completed.

Although there are some things that have to be left until the end like collecting the wedding dress, the cake stand, etc, I wanted to make sure that in the main, all the arrangements had been finalised and to give myself time to relax and pamper myself. So I set a cut-off date three weeks prior to the wedding and stuck to it.

We had an ongoing list of things to be done and allocated the task to a set person, giving them a timescale in which to do it, so there was no misunderstanding of what was required of them. This worked very well and each week we revised the list accordingly.

Naturally we wanted the house and garden to look their very best, so all decorating, and spring cleaning was done well in advance so that it didn’t coincide with all the other tasks as the wedding drew close. We also took particular care with the garden early in the year and were rewarded with a lovely show of flowers for the wedding day.

I collected large boxes and named them with the bride’s and bridesmaids names, the groom, best man and father of the bride, of course I had one for myself. As we bought the shoes, tights, underwear, hankies, makeup, perfume, jewellery etc we put them in the appropriate boxes. These stored very easily and nothing was misplaced. On the morning of the wedding everyone took their own box and there was no rushing around looking for things.

The day of the wedding was such a happy one, we were all relaxed and stress free. I knew I would be prone to watery eyes and to having a little weep and as I didn’t want to spoil my makeup I took a non-drowsy anti-histamine tablet in the morning and this really worked.

The last thing I could do for my daughter before she married was to help her into her wedding dress and with a happy heart I was truly honoured.

Deciding who sits next to whom at the reception is an exercise in tact and diplomacy. In many families there is someone who doesn’t talk to someone else and if one of the parents have remarried, then there can be extra hurdles to cross.

I’d heard that families can spend hours on their table plans, scribbling names on bits of paper and then crossing them off again and moving them to another table. I was talking to my mum about this and in true ‘Blue Peter’ style she came up with a solution.

We put all the names of our wedding guests on small pieces of cardboard and stuck a bit of sticky-backed Velcro to the back of each one. As we had 76 guests to the wedding breakfast, excluding the top table, we took 8 stiff paper plates to represent each table and stuck 10 pieces of the opposite side of the sticky backed Velcro around the edge of each plate (representing the maximum number of guests who would be seated at each table).

We were then able to arrange our guests around each table, pulling them on and off with ease, moving them to different positions until we were quite happy with the seating plan.

The top table is relatively straight-forward. It usually comprises of the bride’s father next to the bride and the bride’s mother next to the groom. The groom’s father sits next to the Bride’s mother and the groom’s mother sits next to the Bride’s father. The Best man and chief bridesmaid also sit on the top table.

If parents have divorced, separated or remarried, and you want to stick to protocol, then it is usually just the birth parents who sit at the top table and partners and step-parents are treated as honoured guests and should be seated closest to the top table.