We started a real bride series a few months back but to celebrate the redesign of the website, we've decided to make this a regular occurance. So we'd like to
our real-life bride to be Leila who will be updating you as much as possible in the lead up to her wedding. Happy reading.

Following on from my first post which gave you a bit of background about me and my fiancée, we now get into the real nitty gritty of the early stages of the engagement.

The first week was delightful! Both myself and my fiancée were on cloud nine and it didn't look like anything or anyone was going to change that. We were wrong! It's amazing how much pressure can come from friends and family. For example:- You learn of family feuds you didn't know existed. You get frowned upon for not inviting one of your parents 4th cousin several times removed that "just has to be there" because they we the one of the first people to hold you when you were born and they would be "so proud!". Or telling your Mum something in a fit of excitement and forgetting to tell your Dad, making him feel left out and hurt (unintentionally)...I could go on! Obviously you want to please everyone, but one word of advice and it's the most important piece of advice I can give you: It's your day, do it your way and invite who *you* want there to share your special day with you both.

The first thing we tackled was the guest list. If only listing my close family was as easy as my fiancée's. My Mum has four brothers and four sisters and they all have at least 3 kids each with the exception of two - Nightmare! We sat on the train on the way home from his parents and by the time we got back, we had the main people accounted for. In hindsight, I think it's better to create your invite list once you have decided how big you would like your wedding - It's shocking how much extra people add to venues, catering, photography etc when they hear the 'W' word. It wasn't until we actually started looking at venues and getting rough quotes that we decided on the size we wanted and based on that, we then tweaked the invite list to suit.

Next thing we decided on were possible dates. Choose a few possibilities to avoid disappointment. We decided on one date in particular, but when I found out my cousin was getting married the week before in Jamaica, I was gutted as it meant my Dad's only brother wouldn't be at my wedding. People's lives were going on around me? Really? It's so easy to get wrapped up in the wedding arrangements and forget about the 'outside world'. We have decided on a Friday in July. If you are trying to budget, bear in mind that the earlier or later in the year are cheaper than the summer months. If you have got your heart set on a summer wedding, like we have, then try booking a weekday. Even Fridays (at most venues) are a cheaper weekday rate and it gives you and your guests the rest of the weekend to recover.

Remember, it's not easy, but the key is to decide from the earliest possible point what you want and stick to it!

We haven't had a real bride series for a while on Bridalwave, but we decided to rectify that in the build up to the new year. So we'd like to introduce you to our guest writer and real life bride Leila Gilley, whose getting married next year.

She'll be keeping you up to date with her plans and telling you about all the trials and tribulations she faces along the way.

In her first post Leila tells us how it all happened and shows us that, sometimes you just know when you've met the love of your life.

2009 has been an amazing year for me, although it didn't start off like that. The year for me started at the end of February when I first met the love of my life. Obviously I didn't know this fact at that point and it wasn't until mid March that we met properly and started dating. Our whirlwind romance began.

I had been in an up and down relationship for over 5 years and at the beginning of March this ended. You may say, 'You moved on so soon?'. However, I had no intention of going straight into another relationship, especially just 10 days after the split. But my new boyfriend swept me off my feet immediately and within a week I had fallen head over heels in love with him - we had spent every day since we got together with each other. In our second week of 'going out' we had a heart to heart and it turned out he felt exactly the same as me. I was due to go to Devon at the weekend for some 'me time', but I asked him if he would go with me. He responded with an enthusiastic yes and a big hug!

'You two don't hang around!' people have said. And we don't to be honest. The togetherness continued after Devon and to this day has stayed the same. Not a day has been spent apart except for when he goes to visit his son. After three months together we put an offer in to rent a lovely little two bed flat in London Bridge. The offer was accepted and we moved in a few days before our 4 months milestone.

So unsurprisingly, the next step was..Yes, you've guessed it, marriage.

Two weeks ago, after attending a tech event in the City, he came to bed with a laptop (yes, I was a little confused too!) Earlier that evening he'd said he wanted to speak to me about something, but I certainly didn't think it was anything to do with marriage. As it turned out, he was planning to propose, but wanted to get me a ring that I would love forever.

His plan was to get one made and in order to do this, he needed my input. As I was browsing the sparklers, he got caught up in the moment, pulled me to one side and proposed. I was over the moon. The proposal was perfection, just like him.

The week after the proposal was wonderful. It was like falling head over heels in love again and I've pretty much been on a high ever since. I had such fun calling all of my family and friends to tell them about the engagement. The happiness has continued, but one thing is for sure, planning a wedding is *not* easy. So over the next few weeks/ months, I'll be blogging about my wedding experience. I'll be covering the highs and the lows and sharing some useful tips for the big day.

It's most definitely a wacky wedding day today. Following on from our H Samuel story this morning we've just got wind of a new Wedding TV programme.

We love Four Weddings and Don't tell the Bride, but we think this idea is going a little bit too far. Due to be aired in February next year, Brides On A Bus is an11-part series, which sees ten brides-to-be travel the length and breadth of the country on a traditional double-decker bus, as they eagerly compete to win a wedding in Gretna Green.

Ten finalists were chosen from hundreds of entries and not only will the girls be competing against each other, they will be living together for the duration of the trip. An added pressure will be the chance for the girls to vote each other off the bus and out of the competition. Competing brides-to-be include the girlfriend of a world champion kick boxer, a 45 year old Welsh lady and a brown belt karate expert with six kids. What will TV producers think of next.

If this is something that floats your boat then tune into Wedding TV (Sky 266 & Freesat 400).

If you're a young bride looking for a bit of fame then contact the BBC now.

The channel is looking for brides under the age of 21 for a possible documentary.

It wants to hear about why brides have made such a big decision at such a young age and find out all the other details, such as where you met and how you know he's the one you want to spend the rest of your life with.

If you want to take part contact claire.davies@bbc.co.uk giving your name, age and a few details about your wedding plans.

Hayley Oakley and Garry Drew of Solihul Birmingham had a wedding with a twist.

They got married at the National Wedding Show on Saturday 3rd October having won their entire wedding courtesy of the exhibition.

The magic started at the crack of dawn as Hayley was pampered and preened like a star by a team of celebrity stylists, hairdressers and make-up artists. She then stepped into her bead encrusted Benjamin Roberts dress and was all set for her Big Day.

After the formalities at the Chelsea Registry the couple made their way to the Earls Court Exhibition centre for a private champagne wedding breakfast in preparation for their big moment on stage.

Finally, at 1.20pm the wait was over and Hayley and Garry lead the wedding party through the packed show to the main catwalk stage upon which they celebrated their marriage in front of a sell out audience of thousands.

The couple was also given honeymoon tickets to their honeymoon spot at Le Victoria resort in Mauritius.

Hayley said: 'It's been an amazing day so far, more wonderful than we could have ever imagined'.

After a humiliating experience at 'Planet Meringue' and a charity shopping spree that didn't quite come up with the goods, our latest b2b Olivia decides to check out the Ebay option in her quest for the perfect dress. Would this new line of enquiry provide the answer?

"I kept putting off making another assault on Planet Meringue but one evening I was trawling through ebay for new bras and I noticed there was a wedding clothing section and started looking through it. Some of the ads were a little difficult to follow, with poor spelling and grammar muddying the waters, although I eventually worked out what the "rushed sleeves with dimonts on" were. The stories behind the dresses also made interesting reading...

Related: Real Brides: say hi to Olivia | Olivia considers a 'meringue' | Olivia's dress trauma continues

Spurred on by her boyfriend's protestations that the dress she'd chosen was too 'ordinary', our latest b2b, Olivia, is fresh from her first experience in a traditional bridal parlour. After being made to feel like a freak by well-meaning shop assistants, she's not loving the dress-buying process thus far, and I can't say I blame her! So will a charity bridal shop come to her aid?

Swing low sweet charity

After my bridal shop experience , I decided to give the Oxfam bridal shop in Cambridge a try. I have quite warm and fuzzy feelings about Oxfam for various reasons so if I had to hand over a wedge for my wedding dress, I felt quite happy for them to have it.

My first impression was quite favourable . They have a lot of stock on hand in a good variety of sizes and styles. There were one or two dresses which had clearly been in the back of someone's wardrobe for thirty years but most of the dresses were end of season bridal stock, often with the original tags and prices attached. You can try on several different suppliers' dresses -most bridal boutiques only stock a few labels - I counted dresses from thirty different designers.

We have a new bride on board! Welcome Oliva, whose story begins here.

Our engagement was unexpected - at least by me. Himself put me off the scent by saying that he felt we were as good as married already . This was meant to be his subtle way of gently warming me up for the big question but I heard it as bloke speak for "Why would I want to ruin a perfectly good football day and wear a penguin suit?"

It started with a dress...

A few months later, I was shopping for a last minute New Year's Eve party dress and looking through the racks of sale dresses. One of them was a beautiful bias cut, full length tea gown with an intricate tapework and bead appliqué in shades of pale honey that flattered my pallid office skin. The dress came from Dutch company Hunza. Hunza aren't a big name in the UK but do make clothes for Phase 8 - you can see an example of one of their dresses here, pictured right.

It was lovely and 75% off but more red carpet diva wear than New Year with friends. Where would I wear a dress like this ?

Related: More real brides...

After all our wondering about how to send our invites out online, we finally sent them out over the weekend.

We decided to use Pinng which we read about on an old Bridalwave post. It's very easy to use - you design and create an invite which is emailed out to your guest list, and the recipient is able to click a button to instantly RSVP.

It also creates you a wedding website to hold all the normal invite information like addresses, hotel details, taxi numbers and Google maps to the venues. There's lots of scope for personalising the invite, and you can even upload your own photo to use (we didn't in the end, as we found one of the stock images we really liked).

And add a 'congratulations', as she's our latest 'real' bride (Are you OK with that expression? I have to wonder what a fake one looks like!) to share the trials and tribulations of her wedding preparations with us. She and fiancé will be doing the deed on a memorable date: Halloween. Read on to find out more!

After relaxing and enjoying the novelty of being engaged for a while, we've chosen 31st October this year as our wedding date, This is partly because our preferred venues are free then and partly because my future husband promises me that this means he will never forget our wedding anniversary. I've asked my two sisters to be bridesmaids (they've agreed on condition they don't have to wear pink) and my intended has chosen his best man.

Gillian Edwards writes: Once my dress was all sorted, my thoughts turned to what I was most excited about: wedding shoes. I knew I wanted ones I could wear again, so that ruled out anything remotely brida or made of satin.

So, the following Saturday I hot-footed it down to Selfridges shoe department to go shopping! First port of call was Gina, where I found the most amazing pair of sparkly shoes ever, which I instantly fell in love with and didn't want to take off. Thinking I couldn't find a pair I liked more than those, I then looked at Jimmy Choo, and found the less sparkly, but no less amazing classic gold slingbacks.

Related: Gill's surprising dress discovery | Gill's wedding countdown begins

As a newlywed, you're probably well accustomed to concocting every excuse under the sun to show everyone (willing or otherwise) the photos of your big day, but here at Bridalwave we can't get enough of cake-cutting snaps or views of your dress from every angle. So today I'm giving you the chance to share your wedding snaps with the whole of the interested internet, for a future series of articles featuring real weddings.

So, if you'd like us write (nice, I promise!) things about your choice of husband dress, venue, cake or anything else weddingy, please feel free to send your pictures to us at bridalwave09@googlemail.com with a few words, including:

• who made your wedding dress (or other item of interest in the photo(s)
• why you chose it
• what (if anything) made your big day unusual or different.

And we'll get in touch with you if any of your images are used. I look forward to seeing your pics! Here's hoping they're not as sinister as this one...

After discovering that I couldn't get an appointment at the London boutique for the very-lovely-but-very-expensive wedding dress designer for at least three months, I rang round the rest of the UK stockists to try and find one that could fit me in the right side of my wedding. Bridezilla....me?

Luckily, I found a bridal shop in Birmingham which had a weekend cancellation, so that Saturday I got the train up to meet my parents and, fingers crossed, buy a dress. However, my dad - yes, my dad! - had been busy looking up wedding dresses online, and had read about a range from another shop which matched what I wanted.

Related: Real Brides: Gill almost finds a dress | Gill's wedding countdown begins

In part four of our Real Brides wedding diary, Gill confronts the mother-in-law of all bridal decisions: choosing a dress. And it doesn't go entirely as planned!

When the venue was booked, thoughts began to turn to THE DRESS. Initially, I was more excited about the shoes, and I never thought I'd be too bothered about what I wore as long as it was simple and nice. But when it came down to it, of course...I was wrong!

I spent a lovely Saturday with my Mum and Gran trying on dresses in wedding shops in Shropshire. I'd been told by every married friend that the dress you pick is always the one you're least expecting to like, so we had great fun trying on everything from big frilly frothy numbers to sleek satin ones.

Related: Part 1: Gill's wedding countdown begins | Part 2: Gill picks a venue | Part 3: An inviting question

I have to admit that invites are one of several areas in which I seem to be missing the bridal gene. Apparently the average bride spends £700 on wedding stationery, which seems like an awful lot to me - surely that's £700 that could be better spend on Champagne or shoes?

I'm all for sending out nice thank-you cards, but stories I've read about brides who obsessively match the colour of their hand-made invites to their dresses both confuse and scare me in equal measures...