Hello and a happy 2014 to you all. I can't believe the Millenium hoo-ha about whether all the computers would stop (or not) was 14 years ago!!!

Congrats if you are a new brideling-to-be and high fives to all of us 2014 bridelings - this is OUR year! Whoop!

The Jackola wedding planning has been going really well of late. Our amazing planner, Lou from MMIF, is making it a rather smooth process, which has been especially welcomed given we've just upped life in Sydney and moved to New York. But Lou has kept momentum and we are on track (phewf, a gazillion thanks again Lou!).

Entertainment: TICK

One of the biggest headaches we have faced is choosing the entertainment, as alluded to in my previous post. I'm delighted to report that we have now got something booked. Stef wrote a brilliant post about the trials and tribulations of finding suppliers last week I admit that we've been really lucky and dodged a lot of tribulations thanks to Lou and her little black book of trusted, experienced and proven suppliers that she and the rest of the Marry Me In France team work with regularly. But we ran in to a little speed bump when it came to entertainment. Ideally, I would have had a jazz band for this, a pianist for that and Kylie for the other. But, as we're all experiencing/have experienced, the purse strings were tugging and we had to make a choice: we couldn't have it all.

After looking at loads'n'loads of bands/DJs of all genres on YouTube, Sound Cloud and MySpace (remember that one?!), we couldn't find what we were after. In hindsight, it didn't help that we had under-budgeted for the entertainment. We did some re-thinking and we agreed that the party was the most important thing to us. We want a discotastic atmosphere and for our friends and family to just smile and laugh the night away. After a lot of deliberating we finally decided that fewer was better and we are going to forego a band during the champagne reception in favour of a kick-ass French DJ. He will play us through dinner, up his record-spinning during cocktails and get Aunty hanging from the chandeliers through to the early hours. He doesn't work with MMIF regularly but Lou has been amazing at liaising (in French) with him and his team and although he is not in the little black book of MMIF, we have decided to pull the trigger with DJ Yanis Texier.

Ultimately, our decision was swung by the fact that he had published some of his sets online so we could actually listen to his taste and style in music and consider if what we "heard" was us or not. We were skeptical of DJs who just had lists of songs they could/would play on their website or who said they'd play our playlist. We wanted more than a press play DJ. We want to know that they will judge the room and be dynamic; so play more Kylie when the crowd wants it or throw in a Barry White number when the mood is right. Not too much Kylie, don't worry Jacko

We were also skeptical of DJs that refused to play certain things (you know the snooty kind who refuse to play Reach for the Stars by S Club 7?!). Yanis is a French DJ (he's local so will save us on travel expenses, lucky!) but has a lot of international experience and after listening to his St Tropez mix on his SoundCloud, we could tell that our guests would just love to have a bop to his eclectic taste.

A few weeks ago we heard from the ever-so-dashing Mikey, AKA Mr Carly, share his experience with finding a band for their wedding.

I loved hearing from the groom in the post so I asked Jack if he'd mind sharing a few thoughts about our w-planning so far. There has been a particular stumbling block for Jack, something that I am soooo un-familiar with, and that is the topic of his sartorial choices. So I am going to hand it over to Jack to talk a bit about rings and suits.

Enter Groom-To-Be Jack

OK, so it's my turn to write something and be a supportive fiancé. If you've caught any of Nicola's previous posts you'll know a bit about us. I think my thoughts and emotions at 5 months out are probably common ones for all future husbands. I guess this post is really a reminder to brides about the male psyche and how, as much as we try, we're often not as geared to the design and vision needed for such occasions. It's a bit of a generalisation but I consider myself as a fairly classic atypical bloke, but apologies to the gents out there who do have a sense of fashion and flair, you can read this as a what-not-do piece of satirical comedy.

This is me

I wear grey, a lot. I enjoy (all) sports, beer etc... .

I am a classic procrastinator so my plan was to avoid deliberation by giving myself a week to ask Daddy's permission (another Chuckle Brother like caper I'll tell another day) and get the ring sorted.

But how does an average bloke who has never worn or purchased jewellery begin to go about buying a ring that has so much pressure on it? Well I didn't go alone, however taking my pal with an equally low jewellery IQ didn't massively help. We hit Hatton Garden and walked up and down getting an education on the 4Cs, which was actually very interesting. I should say a big thanks to Alec in the Garden Workshop who spent a lot of time with us. We kept embarrassing ourselves - for example we really liked a particular band because of its interesting colour, but Alec pointed out it was a demo and made of copper so would probably turn Nicola's fingers green.

Shop assistants kept finding us strange because we were more interested in the bands than the diamonds, another boyism. Anyway I found what felt like 'the one'. Being indecisive, I called for back-up (my mate's girlfriend) and weighed up the decision in the Milton Mowbary ale house. The feminine touch reassured me and I was ready to negotiate (the best bit). I was on the goal line, ready to go but I felt enormous pressure on it being 'right'. Nicola has a certain taste and because I wanted the proposal to be a surprise we'd never really discussed rings. Out came the coin of truth - tales for Nicola's Wales was yes and heads no - it was yes, I felt relieved so knew it was the right call.

I'll skip the proposal details and keep that to us and get to the next obvious but unexpected step in the journey to marriage. Nicola will deny this but I estimate there was a window of around 8 minutes between the blind shock, acceptance and realisation of the proposal and the first wedding day discussion. It's commonly noted that girls think about their wedding for a long time before they even begin courting but it's often overlooked that the fella has never thought about it once.

I sought some advice and was basically told to just say yes to everything to make life easier. That's valid, but I do have some opinions and besides, I couldn't afford to say yes to everything as there is always the risk that everything would end up pink and made of fairies. Only joking... Kinda joking.

I've settled on what I would call a stabiliser model. Nicola is riding the bike and choosing the direction but I'm stopping it falling over, and by fall over I mean financially crippling us. There are some things though that a man must decide on: suits; groomsmen; music; booze; oh god. Again I'll preface by saying though I work in advertising, unlike Don Draper in Mad Men, I wear cons and old t-shirts. Don't get me wrong I've bought two suits in my life, but they were bought because they were a good fit (and that's not technically true for one of them) and cost under £49.99.

Tie or bow-tie? Waistcoat? Colour? Formality? Shape? I don't really know, anyway enter Google images and the NEXT catalogue to get a sense of all that. I think I now have an image in my head and I tried on a cracking Hugo Boss last week but inevitably I think the coin of truth will be required again. Nicola has showed me pics of the dashing designer guys getting married on Rock My Wedding but I can only assume they have either an innate style (which I'm sadly lacking) or have had a lot of help.

Do the groomsmen wear the same as me, or different and do they match? You tell me. I have assembled a crack team of mates for the day but unfortunately they all share my laid back view on all things attire. I've no doubt that, to Nicola's frustration, we'll be making some decisions en route to the venue. Actually another question, because it's in France and (touch wood) will be warm, when am I allowed to take my jacket and neck apparel off?

I guess my post hasn't been a helpful planning tool like all the others but hopefully it's a reminder that in weddings not everyone is created equal. I'm going to round this up with the advice to grooms to keep having opinions on what you have opinions about but don't feign opinions if you don't. And for the brides, as much as your man might want to marry you they may genuinely not care about table decorations. Sorry if that's the most ground-breaking insight you'll read today but as I'm sure you've deduced weddings are not my specialty, but I wish you all the best of luck with your plans and I hope not all the brides out there are stuck with a hopeless groom like me.

Back To Nicola

Ooh! Girls, this groom attire thing has been a right old slog, I promise you!! I've tried to "help" and have been showing Jack pics after pics of different looks, styles, blah de blah but he just can't see any real differences. Bless him. Soppy alert: even if I walk down the aisle and see him in his aforementioned cons and an old (grey) t-shirt, I would still think he looked the lushest groom ever on the planet. It would just be him!!!

Nicola x

PS - Jackie, I told you and your Pa that Jack fully embraces the coin toss method, didn't I!!!