I’m pleased to say that the Aberdeen shopping trip was a resounding success. The arrangements ended up being slightly odd, thanks to problems with both Next and H&M, our two preferred suit suppliers.

Next were utterly incompetent – we rang the shop’s number, and ended up talking to someone in a call centre who assured us that the shop didn’t stock the suits we were after, but we could order them using a credit card and pick it up from the shop, returning them if they were unsuitable. Unfortunately, they were quite seriously wrong – the shop did stock the suits, they were half the price we’d paid because there was a sale on, and when we went to take the ones we’d bought back because they were no good, we found out they’d opened a credit account for us rather than simplying using the credit card. I hasten to add that the staff in the shop were extremely helpful and sorted everything out for us, so there’s no complaints there. In short, don’t buy from Next over the phone or online (my sister had woes with them online), go to the shop if you really want something from them!

H&M were not incompetent, but they were completely out of stock of the suit we liked. Luckily, we knew this might happen as they were already short when we contacted them earlier in the week. So, bizarrely we ended up buying several suits in different sizes in advance from Bluewater, near Crayford, then taking them up to Aberdeen and getting the bridesmaids to try them on in the shop! Luckily, this worked out well, and Paul’s mum kindly bought the extra suits we needed while out at Bluewater herself, before they sold out too. As an extra sweetener, they were half price in a sale as well!

Finally, the unfashionably-coloured-top fiasco was solved by good old BHS, who had several tops in the right shade of cornflower blue, including one that fitted the bill – not too fancy, but not too plain. The best men have been kitted out in purple shirts, so now we have all the basic outfits for the wedding party (well, us and the bridesmaids and best men, if that’s the wedding party) sorted out, hurrah!

I had a lovely day with the bridesmaids – they all got on well, and despite none of us being huge shopping fans we managed to survive the weekend crowds without any serious disagreements or grumpiness. This bodes well for the day itself :)