May has arrived.

Finally, May is here! The showers have begun, just as you’ve finished cutting the grass it reappears at the same height, the trees are beginning to sprout green in familiar places and we’ve even spotted a few of our favourite bumblebees around the Beehive. 

Summer is on it's way and so is wedding season. Yes, the season of big hats, dad dancing, drunk uncles and indecent grooms being tied to lampposts is looming.

Currently, the average period in which couples spend planning their wedding is more than twelve months. Furthermore, many brides are choosing a DIY approach to their wedding such as making their own centrepieces, place names, favours or even their own dress. Your spare room will most likely turn into an Aladdin’s Cave of wedding merchandise; filled to the brim with invitations, envelopes, lace tape, fairy lights, mason jars and giant cocktail glass centrepieces. The spare room is now officially renamed the ‘Wedding Room’. Your fiancé then decides to invite his parents to stay for the weekend just weeks before the big day, in your ‘Wedding Room’…enter Bridezilla.

Unsurprisingly, many brides face a bit of a dilemma in where they should store all of their wedding collectables. Particularly, some brides may ask, where should I store my wedding dress? For example, your husband-to-be rooting through the spare room wardrobe only to find the one thing he should never discover – your wedding dress. 

We have a solution. Rather than using your spare room to store all of your goods, perhaps a private, clean and dry storage unit could solve the problem? You also control who has access to your unit as only you have a key, so you can have peace of mind knowing that no nosey grooms will stumble upon your dress. We also stock wardrobe boxes and white acid free tissue paper to protect your dress. Additionally, our facilities are ideal for those who are purchasing their own wine or beer for their evening reception as our insulated buildings maintain a steady temperature with minimal temperature fluctuations. It is suggested that you shouldn’t store your wine in sunlight or at a temperature higher than 21˚C as this can cause the wine to age more quickly than usual so particularly in the summer months avoid storing your wine at home. 

Self storage can also work very well for couples who ask their guests to them buy gifts. Gifts can start being delivered to your home up to a month before the wedding so ensure they are safe and dry in a storage unit. We also offer unlimited and free access to our storage facilities within our office hours so you can keep the gifts in the unit whilst you are away on honeymoon and collect them when you are ready and slowly integrate them into your home.

Finally, perhaps one thing to avoid is storing the groom himself in the storage unit. After buying the contents of an abandoned storage unit for just $20 at auction in 1999, a Californian woman discovered that amongst her newly acquired wedding pictures and champagne glasses lay the body of a groom. The bride was later charged with murder. Obviously, we don’t suggest storing the body of your future husband in our or any storage units!

So what has love got to do with it?

Valentine’s Day is just a couple of days away – is it really one of the most romantic days of the year?

 

Each year in Britain we spend around £503,000,000 on cards, chocolates, flowers and other valentine’s gifts. Wow. That’s a massive amount of money – and for what? What is the ‘Bah – humbug’ equivalent for love?

  

Don’t get me wrong, I like a bit of romance as much as the next person, but seriously, are we getting this out of proportion? Let’s put things into perspective:

Some believe that that February 14^th was the day that the birds would choose their mates, whilst the Catholic Church recognizes at least three different saints named Valentine or Valentinus, all of whom were martyred. One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine's actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death.

 Regardless of the historical origins, the modern day interpretation is that Valentine’s Day is the day you would affirm your love for your chosen one, or if you if you are still searching for ‘the one’, you would anonymously send declarations of love and admiration. 

 

So what are you hoping for on Valentine’s Day? Are you hoping for a mysterious black velveteen box concealing a carat or two’s worth of bling? Maybe you are hoping to be whisked off for a weekend of romance in Paris, Venice or New York? Others will no doubt be happy with less flamboyant gestures, such as a bunch of handpicked flowers, a handmade card, or a cosy dinner for two.

 

Surely though, we should show people how much we care every day, rather than on just one certain day? I love getting home from work on any day of the year to find the vacuuming done, the dishwasher empty and the fire roaring. The very fact that my loved one has thought about me through the day, and made an effort to help keep our home clean, tidy and warm means a lot to me.

 

The only thing that would make it better would be the clutter disappearing. By clutter I mean the tools, the odd glove, random chargers, work boots, golf clubs, old newspapers and magazines, a tape measure, a remote control, a lone AA battery and that box of things. You know the things I mean don’t you? How on earth is that bit of metal, the old spring, half a set of Allen keys and a 2 Peseta piece ever going to be useful again? Pesetas haven’t been legal tender for 12 years... But my loved one has his clutter.

 
Maybe I should suggest that he takes out a storage unit? He could store the ‘stuff’ in a unit and free up drawers and cupboards in the house, which would mean the world to me.

Think about it: The price storage units start from is pretty much the cost of a bunch of flowers and far more reasonable than the cost of a table for the both of us at Chez Expensive (with prices expressly hiked up for this one night of the year).

Maybe I should get him a storage unit as a Valentines present?

www.beehiveselfstorage.co.uk