Goal achieved for week one

SO I registered and resumed at the gym on Monday.
Was able to meet my goal of 90 mins mon - fri (5 times a week)
Goal met for week one
I really hope I can sustain the momentum
Need to lose 10kg
I ordered my dress in size 12 and that sucked big time
Hopefully when it comes, it comes it would need pleeeeeeeeeeeeeenty alterations cuz I would be a size 8
Thank God it’s Friday.

wedding dress - update

So I went to consult Nigerian designer I mentioned in my earlier and guess how much my bill was N350,000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. (not that the style was anything complicated o! apparently anything that has lace starts from 300k) That was way above my budget and my budget is pretty healthy. I guess that’s typical of us Nigerians, to carve a niche for yourself, you have to be expensive, plus business is good, she had many brides-to-be waiting for consultation as well.
Anyways, I checked some stores and some naija bridal store here and concluded that most of the dresses here are china (inferior made). I am still cringing from some of the “lace” in some of the dresses I saw.

After endless souring online I finally found the dress, It is a Maggie Sottero dress. It is simple, elegant, mermaid style, with lace and Swarovski crystals, it has a long train and comes with inner corset. I am so excited!!!!!!!!!!!! Even though it was a teeny weeny bit over my budget plus the fact that I changed dollars for N165 did not help. Bottomline, I have ordered the dress in Ivory and I’ll get it early November. I know someone is thinking to herself all wedding dresses are made in China, yes I know!!! Afterall even Vera Wang does not stay up stitching dresses herself, but I guess Quality Control and Assurance goes a long way.

With my dress sorted, I can face my bridesmaid dresses in August. I have decided not to be involved in tailor matter, or style matter, for obvious reasons, I have been bridesmaid thrice and I hated the style the bride chose for us, I hated the tailor’s handiwork too (terrible finishing). Therefore, we’ll collectively buy the fabric for all bridesmaid so that the fabric would be uniform, then each individual can pick out a style (show me first of course just for my information!) and a tailor and make her dress. Only the Chief Bridesmaid wears a long dress though.
I have also started making a list of vendors, though I have contacted no one yet.

I went to a wedding recently, the couple (bride and groom) were Delta igbo, but the band kept playing Yoruba songs!!!!! I guess these are the softer stuff I should be taking note of.

The Dress

Many girls dream about their wedding day before they are old enough to date, fortunately or unfortunately, I am not one of those girls. I have no wedding day envisioned in my mind, so people say “hope you get the wedding of your dreams”, I wonder if it is odd to reply “I actually have no dreams”. LOL.

The only thing I am sure about is that I don’t want a white wedding dress, maybe diamond white, but preferably ivory.

After copping the ring, I worked on the budget and the workplan which scheduled activities to start in August, and was prepared to just sit back and wait till august, however, my friends have been drumming continuously that I cannot plan a wedding in five months that I need to start NOW. No be money them dey use start planning?

Anyways, over the weekend, my friend that got engaged about the same time buzzed me to say she had ordered her wedding dress and I’m thinking to myself already??then she says it would take 5-6 months to be ready. Apparently that is the lifespan of ordering a decent dress, that chilled me out o! it means August would be cutting it close for “the dress”. Anyways she gave me a list of designers to check out Maggie Sottero, Oleg Cassinni, Anfred Angelo and a host of others.

I heard the UK is a very expensive place to get a dress and the US is better, however, me I no get power for US embassy stress, this means ordering online and fitting in Nigeria, which is beginning to seem like a long thing.

So another friend gave me the name and number of a Nigerian designer called Valerie Davids who schooled under Yemi Kosibah and I have an appointment to see her sometime next week, to see what she has done in the past, timelines, and pricing. I’m supposed to go with pictures so I guess its time to start checking out wedding dresses YAY!!!!

Any ideas of any good designer here or abroad or any tips/ hints/ etc to share?

I guess I also have to inform the bridesmaid officially because the two I have told unofficially are itching to pick their dress as well.

Happy new month by the way. The fiancé was promoted today, so I guess it’s going to be a great month.