First of all a huge thank you to everyone who came, sipped champagne, bidded on a dress, donated money or volunteered during our charity dress auction, Fun, Frocks & Fundraising. Before we announce the final amount raised we thought we’d share what happened on the day!

As It Happened

It was a very early start for the team at Fuze Ceremonies on Sunday 10th November 2013.

On a wonderfully dry and crisp morning at 7.30am we started to unload dresses from cars to the hotel. We had a mad dash from Edinburgh to the offices in Coatbridge to load up the cars again and get them all safely to the hotel for the Dress Auction at Fun, Frocks and Fundraising!

Dressing The Room

The Function suite at the Roxburghe Hotel looked wonderful but there was still something missing!

Keo from Beautifully Covered arrived to discuss where to add their backdrop and to show it off to its full potential. Keo’s team then arrived to erect the back-drop for us – which was a sensational feature for the room.

We did have to re-arrange the room slightly to accommodate our needs but the hotel staff were fantastic and listened to us and advised where they could.

Models Arrive

As volunteers started to arrive – prepping dresses and ensuring they were all ‘tagged and bagged’ – that became a favourite saying at Fuze – the models also arrived straight from Egg Hair and Beauty. Craig and his team did a marvelous job creating different styles for each model but we weren’t finished with them yet!

Make Up

The Academy of Make-up sent along a team of beauty experts to do the girls make-up so they looked extra special on their Catwalk Debut.

Then came the task of finding and styling 9 models eeek – Mo, Erin, Cindy and Jodie all had their work cut out as there were so many beautiful dresses to choose from.

The Dresses

Eventually the models all had 3 stunning dresses to model – first one was bridal. Kate Dunbar from thestockbridgeflowercompany had pleasantly surprised the Fuze team by providing us with bouquets and floral displays that had been used at a Wedding Show the previous day and thankfully for us this set off the bridal outfits perfectly! The 2nd outfit was formal wear and the 3rd was party wear.

We also had 2 handsome chaperons to walk the ladies down the red carpet – David and Neil done a splendid job and all kitted out in their kilts too!

Fabulous Wedding Suppliers

Exhibitors started to arrive to set up their goods to be sold – Eleanor from Things Pretty, Susan from The Purple Thistle who also brought along some much needed Logan Chocolates from Oban. Partylite were there and lit up the room with their wonderful scented candles.

Beautifully Covered supplied us with a backdrop and sparkly sashes for the chair covers. Joanna from Lady JoJo’s arrived with her rail and fabulous gowns and the David from Pi Disco Services arrived- one-handed but as he said the show must go on!

We had 2 wonderful singers – Alan and Lesley who had come highly recommended and they didnt disappoint. We had a lovely team of students from Forth Valley College who set up a special area for our guests to get their hair and make-up done – no wonder they all looked fantastic.

Our Models

Our models consisted of Victoria and Gillian from Fuze Ceremonies, Corinne, Vikki, Vicky, Becca, Lucy, Louise and Suzanne – none of the professionals but who would have known that on the day! What a fantastic job they did – 3 outfit changes is a big ask but they were loving it!!

We did manage to step outside the hotel onto George Street to have a quick snapshot of the group – Kevin our photographer had to get a wide lens to ensure we got everyone and their gowns in the pic ! I almost forgot about our special wee guest – baby Mylah our mini-model how gorgeous was she??!

Kevin was clicking away capturing all the models on the catwalk! What an excellent job he has done as you can see from the photographs we have on Facebook.

Dress Auction

It was then over to the Dress Auction and our Auctioneer for the event was Norrie Flowers! Norrie started high but the ladies were having none of it – they wanted a decent price for a fabulous frock!

We had a few hectic moments when the bids were getting higher and then of course – there was the Prada dress!!! Victoria had her eye on it from the start and also got the chance to wear it on the catwalk ! A secret admirer obviously liked the look of it too as he bid for it and bought it for her! Fab-u-lous!

The Dress auction was all over too soon and then there was a mad flurry at the cash desk with young Sam holding fort – counting the cash and taking credit card details from the lovely buyers.

Then – it was all over! People left – the clear up began and so did the counting up of the monies we had raised – what a brilliant day – we still have some dresses to sell but all in all it was a great day out and soooooooooooo for the team – onto next year??!