Last time on Diary of a Boho Bride Samantha had reached the 6 months to go landmark! Now with a new year upon us she, and all of the other boho brides and grooms, can very excitedly say ‘I’m getting married this year!’ It really brings it home when the year changes and it’s this year that everything is happening! Today Samantha talks us though a few things that have been going on, new year resolutions, a trip to London with Simon for a mini break, their honeymoon plans and how she feels about changing her name! It sure is a busy time!

I’ll pass the blog over Samantha…………

Well of course I have to start by saying…Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and are ready to start your new 2014 adventure!

For a lot of us 2014 not only means a new year, it also means the year that we get married is finally here! We can now officially say “I’m getting married this year!!” Oh my goodness!! How scary is that?!

For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
(T.S. Eliot)

I don’t normally make new years resolutions but I do have a little list of things that are a must for the first few months at least of this year.

I need to start eating more healthily, drinking more water and going to bed at a reasonable time (you should see the bags under my eyes!) and this will all (hopefully) result in presentable wedding skin! I’m one of those unlucky people who never went through a bad skin patch at school, but as soon as you hit your twenties it catches up with you – the joy! So that’s the first thing I need to tackle. And I’m hoping as I’m turning 30 next year (yikes!) my skin might buck it’s ideas up anyway as it’s about time! The second is…Do. Not. Stress! I can honestly say that 2013 wasn’t the greatest year, for a few different reasons, and because of that my stress levels hit an all time high. I am going to dust off my yoga DVD and make sure that I give myself a few hours a week of relaxation and if I feel those levels creeping up again, I’m just going to lie on the floor and breathe deeply. I don’t even care where I am at that moment (as long as the floor’s clean…) The third thing would have to be to realise that I can do absolutely anything that I want to do. Do you ever feel like you’re stuck in a rut? Like you’re doing something with your life just because you fell into it years ago and have never been brave enough to hop out of the easy lane and jump into the more exciting and dangerous one?! Well that’s how I feel at the moment. I have to start believing in myself and 2014 will hopefully be the year of great new beginnings in most aspects of my life. Fingers crossed  – but of course at the moment, the main focus is getting our wedding plans in to gear!

So January is going to be the month of the lists. And post it notes. I love  post it notes! We are going to write down everything that we have booked, bought and ordered and another list for the things that we still need to book, find and decide on. Guess which list is going to be longer…

London Baby! 

Simon and I didn’t have a holiday in 2013, so by the end of the year we were both feeling the effects of not having a break and being stuck in the ‘get up, go to work, come home, eat tea, go to bed, get up, go to work…’ routine that is life as we know it. I booked for us to go to London on the 27th December for a little trip and we had such a lovely time! We got away from the stresses of home and escaped to the excitement of the city – which I absolutely love! The weather was amazing, flipping freezing but not a cloud in the sky and all of the million mile an hour winds that we kept reading about were luckily avoided.

That was our last trip away before we get married, it was a really good idea to get away before starting what is bound to be a very busy few months! We had time to reflect on how we are both feeling about the future and to step back from all the madness and realise that actually we can do this easily with the least amount of stress possible.

We walked for miles, blowing off the cobwebs, taking lots of pictures (my favourite thing!) and visiting all the sights. The Queen was home but unfortunately we didn’t get invited in for tea and cakes. Maybe next time!
It’s about 3 and a half hours from home, so the drive back at night was spent trying to keep each other awake! And trying to persuade my little (bright yellow) Fiat 500 not to run out of petrol, which happened the last time we were coming home from London, leaving me sat at the side of the motorway while Simon trekked to the nearest petrol station…we made it thank goodness!

Our next holiday will, amazingly, be our honeymoon! That just seems crazy! We have booked two weeks in sunny Florida and absolutely cannot wait! Have you seen that advert where the parents tell their children that they’re going to Disney world? Well that was us when we booked it, squeals and all!

Originally we were looking at Mexico, or somewhere similar and all inclusive. But to be honest I just couldn’t get excited about being in the same place for two weeks, none of the hotels were screaming “stay here, it’s great!” at me and Simon was apparently feeling the same. So one day he asked if we could look into Florida. “Let’s do something fun!” Within a day we had found a villa, with it’s own pool, flights and car hire package and booked it all for 3 days after the wedding! We are going to do a road trip to Miami, rollerblade down South Beach, go to all the theme parks, swim in the sea, eat massive portions of food and anything else that we can fit in! It’s going to be amazing. And hot!

It’ll be nice to hear where everyone has booked for their honeymoon, wherever it is it’ll be amazing and the perfect end to our wedding journeys.

What’s in a name?

Now when we get back from our honeymoon, when we’ve got over the whirlwind that was our wedding day and we have absolutely nothing to plan (which is going to be a bit of a shock to the system!) there is obviously one very important thing that will need to be done…………..Changing my name.

When I was a little girl, getting ‘married’ to Jason Donavon or Mark Owen, it didn’t occur to me how huge changing your name actually was. It’s SO huge! It’s that huge in fact that I am getting emotional even just writing about it! I have just had my last Christmas as Samantha Ramsay. I won’t have another birthday as Samantha Ramsay. I’ve gone through a lot as Samantha Ramsay, I’m actually quite attached to my name and that’s something I never thought I’d say!
As a Ramsay, you will always get the ‘Ramsay Street’ comments (if I had a penny…) Nope I’m not related to Gordon and it’s an A at the end not an E! Honestly, no matter how clearly you write it down, you can guarantee that someone sat in the administration part of every company I send my details to will swap that last bit of our surname and I have no idea why. But even so, it’s my name. That’s who I am.

I’ve always said though that I would take my husbands surname and I know Simon would be upset if I didn’t. I’ve skipped over the thought of sticking a hyphen in there – it just doesn’t go. And Simon didn’t humour my idea of a Phoebe from Friends type name change (apparently Princess Consuela Banana Hammock wouldn’t be ok) so I am going to become a Bellis.

Samantha Bellis. Sammy Bellis. Sam Bellis……Mrs Bellis!!

I’ve been reading a lot online about how people feel about changing their last names. I was actually quite surprised to see how many actually choose to keep their maiden names as they feel they will be losing their identity if they change it to their husbands.
Other options are to keep your maiden name as a middle name, or of course to hyphenate. There is also a rise in men taking their new wife’s surname…Simon Ramsay…hmmm. No, we’ll stick to me taking his.
I think the reason I’m going to be changing my name is because of tradition. The way I see it is, I’m not losing my identity, I’m mixing it with my husbands and creating a new one. And that’s pretty exciting I think.
Of course when I’ll actually get round to changing it is another thing. I am sooo bad at changing my address on things when we move house, just the thought of having to amend literally everything is filling me with dread!

So I should probably stop writing now and get on with some of those lists – top of which will be invitations…and surprise surprise they won’t be on the one they should be! But I’ve sent off for another sample so I’m hoping I can finally say that I’ve sent them out by my next blog!

Have a fantastic start to your 2014 everyone, good luck with all your plans and of course hello to all of the newly engaged bride’s to be! I can’t believe it was a year ago on Christmas day that we got engaged – it goes so fast so enjoy every second of the planning stages!

Lots of Love  Samantha (Bellis-to-Be) xx

 

 

The post Diary of a Boho Bride – Samantha and Simon, Entry 4: Resolutions, London, Honeymoons, And Name Changing appeared first on Boho Weddings™.