The British Bride

Odd Wedding Expenses: A New Body
Despite the credit crunch being in full swing, some british brides are allowing a new pair of breasts or a smaller waist line to engulf up to £5000 worth of their budgets!

Wedding Etiquette: Organising Your Seating Plan With Top Table Planner
How you can use Top Table Planner to aid you in achieving wedding seating plan etiquette goals.

Celebrity Weddings: Channing Tatum
Channing Tatum keeps it simple during the wedding rehearsal.

My Wedding Destination Change: Mandalay Bay
Once again I have changed my mind about which Las Vegas hotel I want my wedding in. It is now Mandalay Bay...

Wedding Speech Etiquette
What to avoid saying if you want your speech to be remembered for all the right reasons.

How To Throw Your Bouquet (and how not to!)
The tradition of bouquet throwing and why you should keep it traditional.

Being Patronised Over A Fairytale Wedding
Why some British Bridezillas patronise over the fairy tale weddings of others.

Donating Your Wedding Fund To Charity
Some big and not so big ways to help others and keep your dream wedding.

Save 15% On Personalised Wedding Fans
British Brides are entitled to a 15% personalised wedding fan discount until July 31st, great for destination weddings!

This money saving tip for your wedding is ideal for British Brides. Visit www.fainfairuk.co.uk and until July 31st 2009 you can receive a 15% discount on personalised wedding fans and receive one fan free when you buy 4.

This is definitely a must do for me and my bridesmaids, we will be enduring some hot weather in Las Vegas.

These personalised wedding fans also act as a great momento and present for your bridesmaids.

It takes a big hearted bride to donate her entire wedding fund to charity. However, it is not completely un heard of.

Some brides do not wish to splash out on a fairytale wedding, and instead they opt for a more simple ceremony and donate their entire wedding fund to charity. This is an unbelievably kind act, but not one that everyone wants to follow.

There are ways that you can make a positive, charitable contribution and still have the wedding of your dreams.

You may want to give charity wedding favours. This can be as simple as purchasing charity pins that your guests can wear as a wedding favour. This charitable wedding favour can be given as a lasting memory of a loved one you have lost to cancer, or to highlight a cause that is close to your heart.

You can also use a charity wedding gift list such as The Alternative Wedding List. The Alternative Wedding List contains some of my favorite charities, including Marie Curie and Medecens Sans Frontiers. The Alternative Wedding List features a wide range of charities, so it would be pretty hard to not find a cause close to your heart!

Whichever way you choose to support a charity and have your wedding, be it buying a badge as a favour or donating your entire fund, you are still making a positive contribution.

Every so often I venture in to the ever bitchy realm of wedding forums and then I am driven away by what I read.

I very rarely engage in any form of discussion on these forums, mainly because there are often bridezillas lurking behind their laptops ready to put you down for any wedding planning decision you make. From the decisions a bride makes on her destination, to the price tag on her dress, there is always going to be something wrong with the choices made.

The brides that receive the highest number of bad words from bridezillas are usually those who want a fairytale wedding. Today I read an article in The Daily Mail, telling all brides to opt for practical over beautiful when it comes to their wedding dress. The basis of this article revolved around the idea that marriages are forever and the assumption that brides who desire a fairytale wedding are less than aware of this. 

I want a gorgeous wedding dress. I'll work for it, save for it and spend a lot of money on it. Yes it will be worn only once, but my wedding is going to be my only one, my only big day and my desire to be flamboyant does not mean I am unaware of the fact that years of marriage lie beyond the sparkle, the champagne and my fairytale destination.

Yet somehow those who want the fairytale are perceived as being bimbos who could not care less about commitment. The Daily Mail article suggests that we want the big wedding and only the big wedding. That is not the case! Why should I be patronised over my wedding dreams?

It may seem like a small thing to be irritated about, but the cries of budget brides declaring 'Why not get married in your local registry office?' bug me. There is nothing wrong with a registry wedding, my mum had one, but I don't want one. I would not look down on anyone who has one, so why should I be patronised over my wedding choice?

This is all a far cry from my Yahoo Answers debates with one lady who persistently asked me why I did not get married when pregnant to save the morality of my daughter...I won't even revisit that, I'll end the post right here.