Wedding Day - Part 1 (from the Groom)

I wake up at 6:15am. That wasn't in the plan ... breakfast doesn't start until 9am and I was hoping to avoid as much anxious pottering as possible.

I guessed this would happen and am actually surprised that I'd managed to sleep much at all. Usually before something big I'd have lain awake all night with my mind racing, but the night before had been so exhausting that I actually slept very well.

Frances is already awake and grinning at me like a Cheshire cat.

Rather than being stressful, this actually ends up being one of my favourite times of the day. It is too early for us to do anything, and there is gorgeous sunshine streaming in through the window; so we use the opportunity to make ourselves a cup of tea and sit eating Hobnobs in bed, waiting for the madness to begin. Two team-mates preparing for the big game.

The sun did come out - look!

Breakfast, when we do descend, smells wonderful. I am definitely in the category of people who, when presented with a buffet for breakfast, suddenly loses all sense of proportion and embarks on a multi-course feast that would shame a medieval banquet. But indulging can wait for tomorrow - the nerves are starting to kick in now. Especially as people start arriving I feel that I need to keep myself occupied with tasks.

Fanhams Hall have provided us with a room for me to get changed in, which is where I escape to - stopping only to quickly set up all of the candles and lanterns that we have brought that somewhere along the way had skipped my mind. We're far too organised otherwise, so I've really got a lot of time to kill - which I do by getting dressed early and then doing a crossword with Colin and my ushers that my parents thought to provide (excellent idea!). The first two answers I got were "fools rush in" and "runaway" ... I kid you not!

When we run out of things to distract me with, we head to the hotel reception to await the florist who arrives to deliver buttonhole flowers. As we get there the phone rings - it's the photographer. My heart sinks ... he should have been here half-an-hour ago. He must be calling me to say he is stuck in traffic - or maybe something bigger has gone wrong. Panic! "Hello?" "Hi, it's Ross here. We're taking some great shots of the bridesmaids up here. We were thinking of heading down and taking a few of the ushers - is now good?". Phew.

Groom, Best Man and two of the ushers

Groom and Best Man

The photographer brings tidings of a calm and happy room upstairs from the bridal suite; and the DJ wanders over from where he is unloading his van to wish me luck. It's time to head to the church already - where did the time go?! As we start to drive off I see the car that we have arranged to take Frances to the church turn up exactly on cue. The last piece of the puzzle has just fallen into place. For the first time since we started all of this I know that everything is going to work; so I sit back and enjoy the ride.

The Bride's chariot awaits

Wedding Day - Part 1 (from the Bride)

For me, our wedding day starts at 5.30am. I wake up, am instantly wide awake and although I'm tired, I know that I won't get back to sleep properly. Next to me, Alan is still fast asleep - I have to resist bouncing out of bed and running across the soft carpet of the bridal suite to check the weather.

I snooze,on and off, until 6.15am when, finally, Alan wakes up. I throw open the curtains to reveal a softly sunlit May morning. Even though it won't stay so sunny, that early-morning scene is imprinted on my memory.

We have tea and biscuits in bed, eager for the rest of the world to wake up. Finally, we can justify creeping downstairs to look at our reception room being set up. We run into my dad, habitually an early riser, and go off to enjoy a leisurely breakfast. Nerves begin to kick in as my bridesmaids appear for breakfast.

I take my leave and go off to make the bridal suite ready for the Charlie and Sarah, our makeup and hair artists. They arrive, as do my bridesmaids a moment later. The next couple of hours pass in a haze of blowdrying, waving, powder and mascara, and a lot of jokes and laughter. Three of my bridemaids are my cousins, so it's a good time to catch up properly on all the family news.

Ross and Lauren, our photographers, arrive and are as chilled as ever. They photograph my dress, shoes and flowers, as well as some shots of us having our makeup done. Then they go off to find Alan and his ushers, who apparently are already dressed and about to leave.

I feel calmer and yet more excited as it all starts to come together. The girls are dressed and look gorgeous; the car has arrived and I can, after what has seemed like both the longest and the shortest morning, start getting dressed. The photographers are back and are snapping away. We're ready to go.


Wait! I turn round and suddenly spy my veil lying on the back of a chair. We've all completely forgotten about it and I need the makeup artist to put it in for me; I have my dress on and the bridesmaid dresses are way too long to run with. We all look at each other - but by this time Lauren, Ross's assistant is already shooting out of the door in pursuit. What. A. Star.

She returns, Charlie in tow, and the veil crisis is averted. A few more photos, a quick debate on the merits of bag/ no bag/ wraps/ no wraps and we're really ready to go. Quick time-check as I think we're running late. It's 13h05. The ceremony is at 13h30. It takes 10-15 minutes to drive to the church, but we need to get downstairs, and the traffic could be bad. Are we early or late? I can no longer decide, so tell everyone firmly: "Let's go".

 

We meet my dad coming upstairs. My dad is not a 'conventional' father of the bride, and there's no way I would ever want him to be, but I don't think I've ever seen him look prouder (a theme which, judging by the photos, is set to continue for the rest of the day).

The driver is ready for us downstairs, and remarks how calm we all seem. I realise, with a jolt, that we seem calm because we are calm. I feel astonishingly laid-back. Let's go and get married.

ALL PHOTOS BY ROSS HOLKHAM PHOTOGRAPHY

What We Did At The Weekend: Our Wedding

Today we realised it's Friday. Which means that this time last week, we were at Fanhams Hall preparing to get married. People were beginning to arrive at the hotel; we started to run into some of our guests every time we left the room. It was exciting. We had managed to wangle the bridal suite for the Friday night as well, and were enjoying settling in to a rather luxurious room.

I was tired, nervous and my head was thumping. I hadn't slept well for the last few nights, and was worried about the meal we had organised for our parents, siblings and bridal party and partners. Would everyone find the place? Would people talk to each other? What if someone couldn't find anything they wanted to eat?

I ended up going to hang out in our room for a bit before we went to eat. I didn't sleep, but an hour of peace to finish a few last minute jobs and read my book was really valuable.

I needn't have worried about the meal, although my head didn't stop aching and my stomach was all nervous. In hindsight, I should have realised that everyone is adult enough to get themselves to a pub and have dinner! Everyone was talking and getting to know those they didn't know already; food and drink was had and enjoyed; I'm sure I even heard somebody laughing at some point ;-) We're very grateful to the Vine in Ware for hosting us (all 22 of us) - we know such a large party can't have been easy. They even helped us celebrate a rather important birthday:

Happy Birthday Euan! - photo by Maxine von Eye

Although Alan and I gave up and went up to our room for an early night and a final details check, it was so nice to hear that everyone else seemed to end up in the bar talking to each other until the small hours:

Photo by Maxine von Eye

Memories from the evening:

• Forgetting the cheese and Alan going back to get it;
• Our usher Euan, giving up his birthday to spend the evening with us;
• Honeycomb and mint ice cream - who knew?
• My father making it from the Alsace and finally meeting Alan's parents - the last details clicking into place;
• Our last night as an unmarried couple - nervous but calm.

Soundtrack of a Journey into Marriage: Warble

4 DAYS TO GO

Over the last few weeks, spring has sprung with a vengence. The trees - including our lovely pear tree - are covered in leaves and blossom, there are more daisies on the lawn every day (wow, they grow quickly) and the sun has shown itself more in the last fortnight than I remember for the whole of last summer. The warm air carries with it the sounds of birdsong of all sorts, reminding us that now is the time for new life, new beginnings and to revel in the sheer beauty of nature.

The sound of melodious birdsong in itself is not really wedding related. However, it is a clear signal that winter is well and truly over, and spring is beginning to turn its head towards the hazy days of summer. And this year, early summer means, for us, our wedding and the beginning of our marriage. As I write this, there are but 4 days to go. And really, everything for this weekend starts on Friday as we pack up the car (probably several times - perks of a venue which is just 15 minutes away) and some of our guests arrive at the hotel.

I am looking forward to this coming weekend so much, even if the thought of being the centre of attention still makes my stomach churn every so often. Every stomach churn is followed by a little skip of anticipatory excitement at seeing everybody together, at finally getting to marry the man with whom I dream of being that elderly couple walking hand in hand in the park picking up conkers.

But the birdsong reminds me of the promise of summer and the start of our life beyond the wedding. I'm as excited for our post-wedding plans for this year as I am for the wedding; in some ways more so - selling this house and buying our forever house, career plans, afternoon teas, walks in the park, our honeymoon and our planned Autumn trip to New Zealand, weekends with friends...the list is endless, and that's the best thing about it.

So, Mr Blackbird, please keep on singing as much as you like. It reminds me of what comes next - and I think I'm ready for it.

Soundtrack of a Journey into Marriage: Chickens

Well, hens to be more exact...

Ah. The Hen Do.

I was always quite nervous about having a hen do. I've actually never been to one, as I wasn't able to make it to my friend's when she got married back in 2010 (a sad tale of having to move house the same weekend).

But I've read all the bridal magazines, I've watched Don't Tell the Bride and I've seen enough photos on Facebook to know that the idea of going round bars drunkenly (or even non-drunkedly) bedecked in sashes and rude straws just wasn't for me.

Enter Phillipa, my lovely maid of honour and organiser extraordinaire. As we lived together during our time at law school, she is fully aware of my love of tea and cake, and the fact that a barcrawl complete with stripper would be nothing further from what I wanted. We figured that afternoon tea was the way forward, and Phillipa also suggested a spa day where she and I could spend some time having a catch up. As we currently live at opposite ends of London and I no longer work across Heron Quays from Phillipa, we don't see each other as much as we should, so a spa day together sounded brilliant - I'd never been to a spa so I was particularly excited about this.

We went to the Chesterfield Hotel in Mayfair for afternoon tea (note the coincidental name, although Phillipa confessed that this was completely unintentional. The room had a beautiful garden-like feel to it which, if you've seen the Invitations post, goes well with the general decor of our wedding.

There were 9 of us in total, and it was great to be able to catch up with my cousins and friends from law school who I haven't seen as often as I would like recently (note the general trend - I WILL get better at this after the wedding). Our waiter was hilarious and knew it was my hen party so made a great fuss of me!

 

  We picked our menus. I had a traditional tea, with plain and fruit scones. There was also an option for a 'chocolate lover's tea',which came with chocolate scones and all the cakes/pastries had chocolate in them. Both looked divine when they arrived!

I had a flowering osmanthus tea which, as the name suggests, had a flower in it which gradually opened out when the hot water was added - so pretty. Juliet had a milkshake which came with a chocolate straw - I was a little bit jealous as it looked gorgeous.

My goodness but the food was TASTY. My favourite sandwich was ham with cheese and a tomato chutney; closely followed by egg and watercress on basil bread and chicken with mustard mayonnaise and toasted almonds. I do love sandwiches, and these were some of the best.

As we hoovered up the last crumbs of the sandwiches, our lovely waiter came over and queried which sandwiches we liked best. He then promptly disappeared and reappeared with a plate of MORE SANDWICHES. My favourite kind of person!

I'm at risk of turning this post into a food love-in, but it's so worth it. The fresh warm scones, with clotted cream and jam, were excellent (and they, erm, brought more of those as well). As for the cakes - WOW. Eclairs, brownies, fruit tarts, cupcakes. The eclairs were my personal favourite - they melted in the mouth.

Phillipa had organised a quiz where I had to guess the answers given by Alan and my brothers to various questions. All the girls had bought me little gifts with memories attached - when I got a quiz answer right, I got to open a gift and had to guess who it was from.

It was harder than it sounds - when asked to name Alan's favourite book, I promptly forgot the title of every single book that's ever been printed. There were enough questions for me to be able to open all the gifts though, although I was embarrassed that I struggled with guessing each gift-giver! Each gift came with a story of why that gift had been picked, which was really fun.

Eventually, food eaten and teapots emptied, it was time to leave. Our waiter presented me with a box containing the leftover cakes (I love this place!) and told us to help ourselves to the pick'n'mix sweets round the corner (more love!) - which of course we duly did.

Some of us then went for a drink in a nearby pub (pink prosecco - YUM!) and grabbed a table which was apparently reserved, but they never turned up so we stayed there for an hour and a half before ambling home. I went back to Phillipa's, and we stayed up very late eating soup, cheese (after tea and cake, one of my favourite foodstuffs!) and biscuits and crisps, and watching films.

I'm going to have to put our spa day in a post of its own I think - well done if you read to the end, and apologies for the inevitable mouthwatering!

Soundtrack of a Journey into Marriage: Click

Also known as 'There's one month to go'...

So - we're well into April now and, with one month to go, things are getting busy! There are the last few things to buy, spreadsheets to edit and final details to organise. We've had the menu testing (which mostly seemed to involve various glasses of wine), and the hen/ stag dos are fast approaching - mine is this weekend, eek!

Last weekend we met our photographer, Ross Holkham, for our pre-wedding photoshoot. We met at Trent Country Park, in north London, and really enjoyed walking around in the sunshine. Here's a few of the resulting photos.

All photos courtesy of Ross Holkham Photography

Suffice to say, we're looking forward to our wedding day photos! Thanks Ross, these are beautiful.

 

What I Did On My Holidays - Trip to St Lucia

"Pre-wedding holiday?" I can hear you ask. "Are you crazy?"

Not crazy at all - well, only in the 'desperate for sunshine' sense. We have spent the last year using all our holiday time staying at home, for wedding planning, the Olympics and Christmas - a year in which the British summer just decided not to bother and it rained on us for what seemed like 360 days out of the 366. Sometime in November, when we finally concluded that any chance of good weather was over for the year, we thought a holiday sometime in February would be nice. Somewhere with a chance of blue skies and sunshine.

So - the Caribbean. We picked St Lucia simply because it sounded more 'nature-based' than some of the others - rainforest trails, volcano springs and the two Pitons (large peaks, formed like volcanoes but the molten rock solidifies underground before it has a chance to erupt). We booked the Sugar Beach Resort, which is nestled next to the beach between the two Pitons.

To say that we were ready for a holiday was an understatement. By the time the plane touched down on the island we were bouncing with excitement, mainly at the idea of heat and sunshine - and luckily there would prove to be plenty of both.

Apart from climbing Gros Piton (ok, yes that was crazy - it was like walking up and down stairs for four hours), we didn't really do a lot - sleeping, swimming and reading was enough to keep us happy this time.

Our room, with garden and patio

Beach overlooking Gros Piton

Reading by the pool

Then retiring to the mini plunge pool in our garden!

Surveying the view from our patio balcony

View from the top of Gros Piton

Halfway up Gros Piton, looking at Petit Piton

Sulphur Springs - preparing to bathe in volcanic mud

Reading my AOW Book Swap book on the beach - happy days

View of the Caribbean Sea from our balcony - mmm!

Always something lovely about having breakfast outside!

Fin

 While we really liked the island (mostly for the February sunshine it should be said), if we went back to the Caribbean we would probably choose a different island or at least look for a different hotel. The Sugar Beach is in a fairly isolated, if beautiful, spot and there was no easy way of venturing out on our own which, if we hadn't been there to simply relax, would have created difficulties.

We had a few problems with service and room facilities - for example, the 'butler' was obsessed with making dinner reservations (and failed to organise the scuba-diving we wanted to do) and the bedside lamps seemed to fuse with amazing regularity for the second half of the week. The worst problem was coming back to the room one afternoon to find that housekeeping had left all the doors and gates of our room open while they went to fetch fridge supplies. Anyone could have walked in! All in all, it made us quite glad we weren't on our honeymoon - when somewhere markets itself as being sheer perfection, it's easier to notice when things go wrong.

However, there was sunshine, heat and a much-needed opportunity to spend lots of time together - and with two months to go, that can't be a bad thing!