Reaching Out

Living a long way from family and friends really does bring in to focus just how special those relationships are.

I moved away from my childhood hometown ‘permanently’ nearly 8 years ago now although it is only during the last 18 months I have lived in a different country to all my family and friends.

A recent trip back to my parents has made me realise just how important it is to make time for the people you care about most. Putting time aside to dedicate to every important relationship is so, so important, but with our hectic modern lifestyles it’s all too easy to say I’ll do it tomorrow.

It’s especially difficult when like me you live overseas and the people you care about live all over the UK – my parents in Bolton, my sister and her husband in Bury St Edmunds, my boyfriend’s family in Buckinghamshire and university friends in Swansea, Chester and Knutsford – where do you start?

The answer - I’ve only recently worked – is to just start somewhere!!! So six weeks after realising the answer I have visited my parents, caught up with my university friends, their husbands and children this weekend, had a ‘lunch date’ with my sister and spent some time with my boyfriend’s family. I‘ve also made numerous other plans over the next couple of months to spend some quality time with my nearest and dearest.

One thing that has helped to bridge the distance is introducing both sets of parents to Skype. Thanks to the video call feature it’s not only ‘good to talk to you’, it’s ‘good to see you’. Never have the over sixties been so taken with new technology and the other week we also had a wonderful video call with an amazing eighty-six year old lady who couldn’t quite believe her eyes!

I’m sharing this with you as sometimes when planning a wedding it is so easy to get caught up in the planning and the detail we forget about the relationships that helped shape us in to the people we are today. Without them we wouldn’t be the person our other half fell in love with.

So why not make the first move today and pick up the phone. Sure they may not have called you, but aren’t you guilty of the same?

Relationships are delicate and fragile, requiring constant attention and effort to enable them to grow. So why not reach out to someone you care about today.

Susan Davies.

Vanilla Pod Design is a boutique design studio specialising in wedding invitations and co-ordinating stationery. To see our range of designs and for more information please visit our website www.vanillapoddesign.com