Getting Your Money's Worth,

I probably shouldn't write some of this, or at least I shouldn't post a part of it, but whatever...

When it comes to wedding photography I know a lot of people have opinions on how expensive it can be and there are a lot of people who claim they don't have the budget for it so could a friend or family member do them a favour or would a photography student do it for cheap or for snacks or something. I realise that it can be a pretty huge expense, especially if you're DIYing a lot of the wedding day, but good photos don't just happen.

It's worth mentioning that there is a lot of pressure on a photographer to get the perfect wedding photos, with shot lists, expectations of styles and all that as well as things like family members expecting to use the opportunity to get some free family portraits (translation: family portraits paid for by someone else). It's not just on Reddit, I have genuinely seen it happen. There's also the whole thing of giving up their weekend - photography very often isn't someone's main job - travelling, all of the correspondence leading up to a wedding and all of the editing afterwards to get a perfect or as close to perfect as possible of the happiest day of a couple's lives. When booking, it might seem like you're paying upwards of £100 an hour, or sometimes a hell of a lot more than that, but let's not pretend that the hours on site at the wedding are the only hours that a photographer is working on your wedding.

With all of that said, it's still a hefty bill, so how do you make the most out of it? 

For us, we have a couple of spaces in our house which are currently occupied with almost like stock photo sort of things, which we will be replacing with our wedding photos. We know there will be certain family members who will want a photo in their house, too, which is fine, but when you think about the number of photos you get - I think our package includes something like 300 fully edited photos or something - how do you make the most of those when you've spent as much as you have? 

I guess one good way is to make sure that other parts of the family do get to enjoy the opportunity for family portraits, as long as you feel you have enough of you as a couple and enough family photographs with the bride and groom etc. Or you could post them all over social media at literally any given opportunity? 

I'm not talking about posting just after your wedding, or on your anniversary, or even the cutesy little anniversaries that some people know, and love, and remember, like the first date, when you became "official", your first kiss and all that, but things that have NOTHING to do with your wedding, but are an excuse to trot out the photos again like no other photos of that person exist or no one else has ever got married. 

Things like, sister's birthday - here's a photo of sister and the couple or one of the couple, and it's the only one you post congratulating them on their birthday, or the first 3 of 5 are from your wedding before two random ones - a child in the family has a last day of school or birthday or other milestone, and again, the only photos used or the main photos are from your wedding... It might be just me, but I find it kind of annoying, and kind of a bit selfish or self involved. I know weddings are a big thing and it's something you spend more time planning and stressing about than you actually get enjoying it, because the typical thing is to spend between 9 to 18 months planning and the event is just a day, but I do think people can be insane about it, especially people who go on about their wedding year, or whatever. I referred to an appointment as 'the Monday of wedding week' earlier and I was nearly sick in my own mouth as I said it, because yeah, it's the week of our wedding, and yes, we're going to be pretty busy getting stuff done that week, but I don't expect anyone else other than my future husband, my son (and even that one isn't really by choice) myself and maybe our parents at a push to give a stuff. 

When it gets to the day of the wedding, yeah, I kind of expect people to give a rat's behind, and if things aren't to their taste or what they would have done, I don't want to hear it, because it's not about them. If the photographer is busy trying to get our photos and they try to interrupt, I will probably get snippy, because we have our priorities for photos and that's what's important, but I'm not going to be spending the next few years posting them all over social media because for one thing my son will be on a lot of them and we're not posting him, and for another, I just don't expect everyone to care for too long afterwards.

As a tangent from all of this as well, I don't think I know the etiquette for posting your wedding photos on social media...

It's not so much about posting ours, but for weddings we attend I wonder when is the right time to mention or remind people we don't post photos of our son and don't want them to either, especially not on public profiles. But is that just restricted to kids? We have a couple of kids in the family that aren't posted onto social media and some of it is parental choice and some of it isn't (e.g. one is technically in foster and as a blanket rule foster children cannot be posted) but what about adult who don't use social media or who don't like photos being taken of them or don't like them being posted? Do you mention it before the wedding? Surely you can't mention it during the wedding!?! How long after should you leave it? Do you wait until a photo is posted and then ask for it to be removed? Well then the permissions or copyright or whatever has already been passed to the social media company or whatever, so surely that's too late? 

I really have no idea how to navigate that. 

Parenting Fails,

I was recently talking to some other mums about parenting fails, and then it went completely out of my head until I had a corker of one today. 

The ones we were talking about are the moments that make you feel like the worst parent ever, like when the pram falls over, whether it be because you've attached things to the back of it (guilty) and miscalculated or something happens and you hit something the wheels won't go over, or kids just have a bit of an accident where they fall off of things because they don't know what gravity is or what heights are. Thankfully when the pram toppled over on me, I grabbed it pretty quickly, and could see little man was just hanging out because he was well strapped in and he actually thought it was a game...

Well, today I was trying to find out what little man weighed and the best way that I can do that is weigh myself holding him and weigh myself when I've put him down, so when I had weighed myself holding him I needed to put him down and the best place I could think of was to put him in his bath seat, because it was close by, and I didn't think about the fact that there is a dimple in the middle of the seat... which was full of water from his last bath...

So there's me pulling my kid out of his bath seat in a soggy sleep suit and a nappy that had been brand new five minutes before but was now soggy on the outside, so I had to do a full strip change on him, and because I couldn't strip him off in the bathroom I soaked my t-shirt getting him back to his nursery for a change. 

I don't know if this is just normal of parenting or normal of ADHD or normal of ADHD parenting or if it's just me being rather special because I have a bad habit of slopping yoghurt down my shirt because I accidentally tip the yoghurt bit of a Clusters too much. Hilarious stupidity is something I tend to do a lot of, though it's normally more things like falling over my own feet, falling over things I've warned other people about or forgetting to take a towel with me before getting in the shower and then having to do a mad, naked dash through the house whilst soggy.

Sorry This Is Late,

Right, let me start this with saying that I am under no illusions that there are people sat there hitting refresh on my blog page waiting for the next riveting instalment of whatever drivel I happen to be posting about next but I like my routine and I don't much like when it gets interrupted, even when it is a facade of a routine like this is because I can queue a few posts up when I can... Despite all of that, I'm sorry this is going to be posted a few hours late of my usual scheduled time of noon on a Monday, Wedneday and Friday. Partly because I'm sorry to myself. 

So why is it late? 

Well, as anyone who has read any of my posts in the last few months will know, things at home, in life, etc, are BUSY at the moment, and I feel like I'm chasing my tail constantly to keep on top of things like chores (God, I love washing, it's never friggin' ending, especially with a baby), food (try having the energy to cook when everyone eats something different and the baby doesn't like being left on his own for even thirty seconds!), wedding prep (I'm not even thinking about how soon it is now, because the number of weeks is counting down and we're nearly into the calendar month that it is, which kind of makes me feel sick because I feel like there is still a lot to do) and general baby raising.

Up until recently, I could find a minute to do things - not many, but the bare minimum to be called things is two, and breathing counts as one, right??? - when little man was napping, or playing in his jumper (my health visitor has seen it and approves of it so it's not one of these that is bad for their health or development) but all of a sudden the jumper is the enemy and naps are a conspiracy, and don't even get him started on the travel cot I've been using as a play pen... There has been screaming, crying and iff he had words then I think that my little lad would just be singing McFly's 'I Wanna Hold You' or a new version, like I Wanna You To Hold Me. Constantly. Forever. Or just I Wanna Hold An Infinite Bottle...

Look, I know it is most likely teeth, or sleep regression or something like that, but it's difficult when I have more to do and less time to do it because there's no napping going on, and even when I tried to put Up on to settle him for a bit, there was no calm to be had. (Before you judge, I was feeling pretty damn desperate at that point, so I tried it!) 

Don't get me wrong, I know the time I have off of work with my son is a privilege and I'm trying to enjoy every minute of it, because I know it will be over almost as soon as I can blink but at the same time it can be truly testing when all I want to do is go to the bathroom, get a shower, have something to eat, write a blog post, or something, but I can't because he just sounds distressed and nothing really stops him. All the usual tricks won't help him sleep, he's only just eaten and if he eats too much, he will be sick. I know there are carriers and slings and things, but that only works for walking around because for chores I would be limited in movements, and he gets bored pretty quickly, too.

The only thing I can do, or that we can do, the baby and I, is keep plodding on.

I Think I'm Breaking Up With My Nuby Rapid Cool,

Before I start this properly, I'm going to admit to something and that's the fact I've always called it Nuby like Nub-ee, but I say a video by an influencer or content creator or whatever they term themselves who called it Nuby like New-Bee, and I would presume that they have been informed by the brand how to pronounce the brand name or something, so there goes me making a tit out of myself as per usual. 

That's not why I'm breaking up with my Rapid Cool though!

I will say this: I love the Rapid Cool. It's not just because it's easier when traveling out of the house, but also because it takes the guess work out of bottle making, and makes the whole process faster for us. I'm not a big fan of the formula makers because I've read too many things about the hot shot method not being great, or they don't get hot enough or all of these other sorts of things. Plus, they're a whole extra appliance you need to find a home for, they're only useful at home, you have to keep buying them new filters and all that sort of thing, so there is a lot I don't love about them, but the Rapid Cool is pretty good, and even when the battery goes in the lid (which takes a while anyway) the cooling part still works and that is the main bit.

BUT they only go up to 8oz of milk, and when you get to 8oz bottles, like we're on with allergy milk, you can't actually fit 8oz of water in the bottle AND 8 scoops of formula, so I find myself putting 6oz of water into it with the 8 scoops and then adding in 2oz of bottled water into the baby bottle, which then obviously drop the temperature as well, but also just makes the whole thing more of a faff. Now, I could just make 4 or 5 oz and then mix up the rest, but again, faff. Rapid Cools are great that I can just go and make a fresh bottle up when I'm bug eyed and wishing my day wasn't starting yet, give bubs the bottle without worrying that I forgot to check the temperature and then I can get back to sleep whilst he has a nap. It doesn't always work out that way, but it's great when it does. If I have to start focusing more to make two bottles worth up, or add this bit, add that bit etc then it all goes to pieces and I'm too awake to go back to sleep by the time he's finished the bottle.

Now, I'm not saying there are other options, because to my knowledge the only cooling flasks of their type are the Nuby and Tommee Tippee branded ones and they both have the exact same capacity, but it is still a frustration and honestly, if they made an XL version, I would buy it and I'm sure I wouldn't be the only one, because I don't know how twin mums (or dads or parents or other care givers) manage, or parents with babies who are close in age, because it surely makes sense when you're making a bottle to make enough for all babies on the same formula and then split it into feeding bottles, but you can't do that for anything over 7oz because there simply isn't enough space in there. In theory, little man's current 8oz feeds should be the largest ones we are doing, but I'm also conscious that he has good days and bad days with food, so there are days or sometimes just certain feeds in a day when he finishes his 8oz and is looking around for more, and I would love to be able to just realise what the pattern of that is and make him the extra for those times, but again, it's a faff so making two bottles is sometimes the less faffy of the two options. 

How Much AI Is In Your Wedding,

Obviously I know AI is a hot button issue right now and there are a lot of feelings involved in vocal opposition of it, particularly when it comes to art or image creation, particularly because that is either people's side hustle or their business and that can come under threat because of the capabilities of AI.

There are some things that, with the best will in the world, AI is not ready to replace. For one thing, it can design things, but it can't build them or interact fully with the physical world or physical things so even if you were to ask it to design a manicure or a hairstyle, it can merely provide ideas which then have to be brought to life by a person. Does that de-value the knowledge, skills and experience of those who have been in the industry for years? Of course it can do, but it can also help inform first time brides of options, help them feel a sense of control over their wedding and their planning and even assist newer suppliers, vendors and such in the industry by doing some of that work for them, but does that prevent them from gaining the experience that has a value later? Possibly. Despite saying that, my nails and my hair are things I'm working with lovely local businesses on without the use of AI. 

Even my dress isn't something which has been informed by AI. I did consider putting a photo of me through an AI and asking it to help me with some general guidelines of what would look better on my body, and then I decided to just choose something that I liked, which didn't go super well the first time over but I have since made up for it. I did ask AI to design me a wedding dress, just for poops and giggles really, but even if I had done that long enough ago to contact a seamstress, get a pattern designed, resized, tested, revised and eventually finished, I don't know if there would have been enough time between when we booked the wedding and when the wedding is, and it would have been ludicrously expensive. Even trying to do it myself would have been so beyond my skill level and excessively expensive, so it was really just for fun. And it did make me love my dress more, because it's real and it's well designed and it's pretty.

Before this sounds like a thing where I didn't use AI at all, I used templates on Canva for a lot of our wedding stationery because after extensive Googling I couldn't find anything that matched what I wanted or what I liked, and then when it came to our seating plan, we figured it out without using AI (partly by cork mats screwed to a wooden board and push pins in it) but then needed to have a seating plan image which we could share with the venue and I didn't want to have to draw it myself. The funny thing is that despite repeated attempts to get it to correct the errors, like going 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 or not putting enough seats at tables or too many seats at tables etc, it was still riddled with errors, but it was good enough to give an illustration. It definitely wasn't good enough to be printed, but that's fine since I wasn't planning on using it for that! 

I did consider using AI to make our welcome sign, but couldn't get close to what I wanted. At the point I was about to give up I found something a local artist had made that wasn't a welcome sign, messaged her with an idea that I had that was along the lines of what she does, and she was game for trying something a bit different. And it's amazing! 

There are other bits and pieces which my totally not artistic self is making or painting or doing and trying my best with, but we'll just see how it goes and how it turns out. Obviously I don't want to write too much about those at the moment, but maybe after the wedding... 

The True Cost of Working Away,

When my partner and I got together I knew that he was working in the type of role where he might end up working away, but the company he worked for at the point wasn't really getting him to work away a lot, if ever, and we had a long period of bliss where it just didn't happen, and from early on we didn't spend a whole lot of time apart.

Whilst we have been together he changed his role, which was good in some ways, and not so good in others (money, good, commute time, baaad) and there was talk about a lot more working away than there has been and part of that has been because his manager is a legend, and whilst we have been "enjoying" Little Man's newborn era (only in inverted commas because there are days when it is really rough) has been taking on a lot of the working away because he missed out on a lot with his own kids particularly in the early years, and he wanted to try and make sure that my partner gets as much time at home with our son as he can. (I'm so glad I'm out of the super hormonal part of post pregnancy, because otherwise I would be a weeping mess on the floor every time I think about how kind this is.)

But it's not all sunshine and rainbows, and when I was around eight months pregnant, my partner was needed to work away and as it's his job, obviously he had to go, but I think it was only one night (might have been two - my memory is terrible at this point) and the easiest thing was just for me to go and stay with my parents, because the idea of being thirty ish minutes away by car in case something happened overnight was a bit too overwhelming, and he was going to be over four hours away by car.

Naturally I did all of the usual soon to be mother panic and freak out things like making sure my birth plan was written out, making sure my hospital bag was with me at my mums, making sure I could charge my phone so if I needed to make a frantic call to him in the middle of the night, I could, and he did the soon to be dad freak out which I believe involves making sure that the vehicle is always brimmed with fuel, because no one needs to be looking for a fuel station when they need to start a mad dash to the hospital. As you probably already know, the mad dashes were not required.

Our baby boy is getting on for seven months, so it's been a while since the last time he actually stayed away overnight, but there have been a few locations where he probably should have stayed, but there wasn't the budget and or he hasn't wanted to leave us, so instead he's done long drives on top of long days and been utterly exhausted, but at least been able to sleep in the comfort of his own home and we've been together. And he was more than willing to do the same again, but I was worried about him, because driving tired is awful. Drinking Red Bull or similar so you are not too tired to drive is awful. I know he's used to driving and I know he's an adult and he can look after himself, but I also know it's not just that he wants to be at home to see me and to see our son, but also that he feels like he needs to be here to help, because babies are tiring. Babies are stressful. Babies are such a blessing, of course, and I love that kid so much, but that doesn't mean it's easy. He's a great partner because he wants to make sure I have support, but I don't want that to be at the detriment of his health, his wellbeing or anything else.

You can kind of see the stalemate we sort of reached here... but thankfully I promised I would get help, even if it was during the day, either go down to my mum's or go and visit family and such like, and reminded him that we have people around I can call for backup if needed (not going to lie, it would have been hard, my pride would have been hurt, but I would have done it, because I would have accepted that I needed to) and I've got through it just like tons of other parents do, but what's the cost been? 

For one thing, we didn't know until the last minute if he was definitely going, when he was going or if he was staying over, so it could have been a week of very early mornings (I apparently wake up, say bye and roll back over with no recollection of this most mornings) and very late nights where he would be returning home after our son was already in bed, or to a cranky baby who has been kept up to see his dad. None of that seems great for my kid. Because of that, things like food plans have gone out of the window and whilst I've adapted, it's been a touch annoying to say the least. 

As many people have, we've been watching the World Cup matches together and him being away meant that our last match of actually being in contention for the Cup we had to watch apart. Now, he might have been quite happy with that because I'm not a particularly big fan of football, but normally he is my barometer for when I need to look up from whatever else I'm doing (only when we're watching on the TV) so I don't miss the important bits... I missed England's goal but saw both the Argentina goals...

Naturally him being away affects our conversations, too, because when signal is crap and he's on the way home we can just say 'I'll see you in an hour, I'll speak to you when you're home...' or whatever it is, but when the only contact we'll have to connect over is the phone, it makes those calls far more important, and far more frustrating when the signal is shocking or my auditory processing disorder flares up (which happens a lot and is why there are subtitles on my TV permanently). I tend to have calls on loud speaker, because I can do other things at the same time then and that helps my brain stay "in" the conversation, but then it means that my son can hear his dad on the phone, and he smiles, he looks around and then he can't see his dad, so he looks confused. Honestly, that was rougher than I expected, because he doesn't understand when I tell him Dad's going to be home in a couple of days. He's still of an age where if it's not in front of him, it doesn't exist. (And joys of ADHD, I have times like that, too.) 

Earlier in this blog there were notes of triumph, because I've managed things okay. I've had help, but my son and I have been fine. He's been eating fine, smiling, laughing, and gone to bed when he should do. I've got washing done and tidied up and generally felt like something of a functional human, which is incredible, but I've also missed the hell out of my partner and I can't wait for him to get home. And yes, I do know that there are a lot of people whose partners work away and some are gone for months at a time or some go and they're working in war zones. I get it. Or at least I get that I don't get it, partly because I know I'm not built for that. In a big way, to me, working away sucks, and I'm pretty sure my little boy would agree. 

How Big Is Your Small Wedding,

And we're back onto weddings...

I may have said this before, but if I don't remember then what's the likelihood anyone else does? Actually, it's probable that someone else would remember better than me because my memory is terrible at the moment.

The smallest wedding that you can legally have in the UK (and probably anywhere, but I'm just writing what I know) is the two partners, two witnesses and then your celebrant(s), registrars or religious leader(s) which works out to five people at the very bare minimum, and the very easiest that you can do that is at a registry office, but even then you have to give notice and wait for twenty nine days (the day you give notice and twenty eight days afterwards) before you are actually able to get married. I will admit that I would have appreciated a wedding like that, partly because it's not having to talk in front of a bunch of people or having to have too many people involved or too many people's opinions and inevitably it's one of the cheapest ways to get married. I don't think it was ever something that we entertained though, because my partner wants his family with them and I do, too, and there are some people it would just be more hassle to not have there than it is to have them.

Thinking a little bit bigger would have been just including both sets of our parents, which for us would have meant the two of us, four parents and assuming that two of them could be witnesses (it's actually not a given) and then the registrars which would make for a room of eight people, or if we could have done something we did consider, at least for a minute, seven people by being married on a cruise ship and having the ceremony done by the captain. The problem with that being that my partners parents are raising one of their grandchildren, so we would have needed to include them, and then both sets of parents would likely have wanted us to include our siblings, which would have been another three, plus one sibling's partner, so four. Once you're including that number of people there are other family that we would need to include which then started to tick the numbers up even further, and as we went through it our small wedding seemed to be getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

This is one of the reasons, and there are a few on a list, but this is one of the bigger reasons why we weren't allowing plus ones for the wedding. To me, plus ones are just adding random people you need to pay for and accommodate and also tolerate to your wedding day, but they are likely people you don't know, have never met and will never see again, so unless necessary - like they are the spouse of someone who knows no one else at the event - they were something we definitely wanted to avoid. When other people have wanted to invite people to our wedding, it's been hard to say no, but for the majority of times it has been a no, because we didn't want some sort of massive event (and only partly because we didn't want a massive bill for it). 

By the end of it, we could have added probably another fifty people onto the evening do if we had really wanted to, but the most important thing to us was that it would be an event of people we are close to, who are close to us and it be something we can both enjoy and that our son can enjoy without being surrounded by hundreds of people we or he don't know, or have to spend the entire wedding introducing each other to half of the room. How big is our small wedding? Maybe a little bigger than we quite wanted it to be, but still small enough for comfort, I think.