Hello! This month's big excitement is that we bought the bridesmaid dresses!!! So I thought this seemed like the perfect time to tell you about my beautiful bridesmaids...

I found choosing bridesmaids one of the hardest bits of the wedding planning so far - Tom has always known which three of his friends would be his groomsmen which meant I could only pick three of my lovely friends to be bridesmaids (my OCD ways wouldn't have allowed uneven numbers of groomsmen and bridesmaids!) So I decided to pick one from three different stages of my life...

My oldest school friend, Deepika, who has been a great friend since we first met back in Year 7, (almost 20 years ago now which makes me feel very old!); my best friend from university, Michelle, who I also moved to London with after uni; and my closest work friend, Alex, from my very first job in London, and who I was a bridesmaid for at her wedding at the beautiful Clearwell Castle.

Once I'd picked my bridesmaids, I asked each of them by making cards from a lovely image I'd found on Pinterest:

As well as being the bestest friends a girl could ask for, they each also bring a great quality to their bridesmaid role. Michelle is very pragmatic and if anything isn't right on the day I know she will take charge and get it fixed. Deepika is super chilled out and will keep everyone calm. Alex moved to Australia with her husband last year shortly after Tom and I moved out here and whilst I've been Skyping lots with Michelle and Deepika, it has been amazing to have one of my bridesmaids out here with me to bounce wedding ideas off over a glass of wine and she has been a great listener and really supportive.

I've known from the outset that I wanted bridesmaids' dresses from the high street rather than from a bridal boutique. With me and Alex being on the other side of the world, it just wouldn't have been practical to try and get dresses that involved multiple fittings sessions plus you can get some really beautiful dresses on the high street. J Crew has some lovely dresses which were the initial front runners!

I started a Pinterest boarda while back for us to share ideas with each other, and we were pinning all sorts of shapes and styles on there...floor length, knee length, mint, peach, straps, strapless. We had put aside the May bank holiday weekend when I'm back in the UK to hit the shops in London so I recently began doing some proper research and basically on the first day of looking I found the perfect dress!

I sent the link to all the girls and being the superstars that they are, within a couple of days Michelle and Deepika had been to the shop (I won't say which one yet), tried it on and sent me the photos - they looked gorgeous! I also need to give a huge thanks to my parents who have been amazing. They were straight on the case with ordering the dresses online and organising for one to be sent to Australia for Alex to try on. Alex just tried hers on this past weekend - it fitted perfectly and she looks gorgeous in it too! Must have been the easiest purchase of bridesmaid dresses ever and as well as it being a big tick on the 'to do' list, it means we have more time for a mammoth girlie catch up over the bank holiday weekend!

We will all be getting our hair and make up done by the lovely Laura Naish on the day, which will just finish off the dresses perfectly! Katie xx