Thursday 14 February 2013

The Big Day

If you have consistently read my blog then you would know that I am not a big believer in Valentine’s day. But this Valentine’s day is the first one for me and my husband so I thought it would be fitting to finally do a piece about our wedding day.

We got married on Friday 2nd November 2012. It was our 4 year anniversary and we had been waiting/saving/planning for the day for over 2 years. We got married at Kingscote barn (http://www.kingscotebarn.co.uk/), a beautiful barn in Tetbury, Gloucestershire. We fell in love with the place as soon as we saw it and luckily for us the date we wanted was available in our price range.
We originally wanted a small wedding with only 70 people invited BUT, when you have a large close family,  that is almost impossible! So our numbers went up to 100 during the day and around 150 for the evening. Even with 100 day guests I couldn’t invite my cousins because there are about 30 of them so they had to just be evening guests which was a hard decision to make but luckily no one made us feel bad about it.

SIDE NOTE: I think when arranging a wedding people can sometimes be a little insensitive and get funny about the decisions you make, we didn’t have too much of that but I know people that have and it is very sad. Weddings should bring you closer but sometimes it brings out the selfishness in people. If you are reading this and ever get invited to a wedding that aren’t to your expectations I would say this – DO NOT COMPLAIN! Most brides have a lot of stress put on them when arranging a wedding and the last thing they need is a fussy friend or relative making things more complicated for them. If the person making a fuss has already been a bride then shame on them, they should know better!

Anyway because Dan and I gave ourselves two ½ years to arrange the wedding we didn’t have that much of a stressful time, we had the whole wedding in one place so it meant people didn’t have to travel again once they were at the wedding. We had a choice of 3 caterers that the venue supplied and they also had preferred DJ’s. The florist was also one I found at the Kingscote open day and that was brilliant as I didn’t think it sensible to get the bouquets local to me to then travel up with them the day before the wedding.

My friend Jess recommended a lady to me that made lovely cupcakes (http://www.thecupcakeprincess.co.uk/), which we collected the day before and bought up with us, and the rest we pretty much did ourselves. We had friends that gave us bits from their weddings - which were amazingly helpful - and we rented birdcages for our centre pieces in which we hung handmade wooden hearts with the numbers of the tables. My sister’s boyfriend Will is an amazing carpenter so did all those for us as a wedding present and I kept them all and used them as decorations on our Christmas tree! J  

I got my dress from Miss Bush Bridal in Ripley (http://www.missbushbridalwear.co.uk/) and I would recommend them to any future brides as the shop is so beautiful and the staff were very helpful and honest, something we needed as my mum was probably the worst person to go shopping with – every dress I tried on she loved which became confusing because it meant I couldn’t narrow down a style! Eventually I went back to Miss Bush and bought the 5th dress I had tried on. It was a Maggie Sottero, was beautiful and because the size in the store was my size they let me buy it at a discount, cleaned and corrected for me for free so I just needed to have it taken up and in slightly. I also got my bridesmaid dresses from Miss Bush - they were emerald green and just beautiful. The designer was Kelsey Rose and was the only designer I had found with the perfect shade of green I wanted.




My maid of honour was my little sister Stevie. Originally she was going to be my only bridesmaid but I got a bit down about not having a friend involved as everyone I knew were having so much fun planning with their bridesmaids and I just had my sister - who was amazing - but I felt I wanted a friend involved too, so I asked my friend Imogen. Imogen has been one of my closest friends for a long time and was there when Dan and I started to date so it just seemed to make sense that she stand up there with me on day. She is also incredibly organised and a natural planner so my hen do’s were in great hands! J

The hen do’s went brilliantly and the day itself came around so quickly after those were done. Dan and I went up to Gloucester the day before the wedding and met my family up there. We spent that afternoon decorating the venue and making sure everything we could do got done. It was really nice as my brother, sister and nephew were over from Denmark so were there helping set up and my Mum and Dad spent most of the time making the centre pieces.... it was a really nice, family, effort. I finally had the moment I wanted where everyone was excited and helping out - it felt special.

The night before the wedding we had a family dinner in a restaurant fairly local to the venue, it was really nice but looking back I think I was already getting a bit nervous as I didn’t feel very chatty and was extremely tired. 6 of us stayed in the cottage on site; my Mum, sister, Imogen, Ellie (she did my make up) and Lucy (she did my hair). I didn’t really sleep the night of the wedding but I guess that is fairly normal!  Woke up the next day around 8am and it was all go from then. Getting my hair done, trying to eat, make up, dressing... I spent the morning checking the weather as well as it started out sunny and then around 10am it poured and I started to get really nervous about everyone being trapped inside and it being too cramped and the pictures being miserable. About 11, while everyone else was having their hair done, I walked over to the venue as I just needed to get some air and do something to stop myself going crazy. I had a look at everything and made sure all was ok with the wedding organiser from the venue and then when I walked back the sun came out! Luckily it stayed out for the rest of the day and we had the bluest sky in all our pictures, it was cold but sunny and that is exactly what we were hoping for! The rest of the getting ready went really well, I calmed down and enjoyed getting into my dress and seeing the girls and my Mum all ready... it was lovely.



There was a small blip when Stevie realised that her pretty wedding shoes weren’t packed and she had to wear my black heels that didn’t go, drama! In the end you couldn’t see the shoes so it was all fine but I guess something had to go wrong....

Just before I was meant to walk down the aisle I had a big bout of nerves and my lovely Dad kept whispering to me ‘just breathe’. I had a moment at the top of the aisle when I saw everyone and hid my face in my flowers but I just took a deep breath and clutched my Dad’s arm, he even admitted later that seeing all those people made him nervous!
 For anyone who is a bit worried about walking the aisle my advice would be, focus on the guy your marrying. I saw Dan and just kept focused on him and it really helped. 



We had a civil ceremony and had a lady registrar who was brilliant. The ceremony was probably about half hour and my sister and Dan’s brother both did readings which were perfect.  I can’t overly remember it all but by the look of the pictures it was a lot of fun as I laughed a lot! J 



The day was honestly more than we could ever have hoped for; all we wanted was good weather, food and everyone to dance in the evening. Exactly what we got! The speeches were so bloody emotional that I don’t think I stopped crying throughout my Dad’s and Dan’s. The table plans seemed to work well and people seemed to have fun. We didn’t run out of alcohol (as far as I am aware) and there was enough food for people to have seconds – just what you want from a meal!

After dinner we used our favours to have a picture that I had been planning for ages. Basically I wanted everyone to light sparklers and hold them around us at dusk for a picture. Well that didn’t really go to plan.... the sparklers we got were cute but rubbish so we all got outside and sparklers were going off all over the place at different times, people were having trouble lighting them and they went out in about 5 seconds BUT in the end it actually turned out better than we planned. The pictures looked brilliant and it really broke the ice between the dinner and the reception as everyone was laughing and ready for the party to start.



Our first dance was very unprepared and dopey, we didn’t practice before and my dress kept getting in the way so it was a little clumsy but the song was perfect for us and it was nice to have that moment. I thought I would be nervous about that part but you forget everyone else is there so it wasn’t scary. Our song was ‘I’m Yours’ by The Script from their first album. Our second song was ‘I’m Yours’ by Jason Mraz and we got everyone up to dance with us and from that moment the dance floor didn’t empty. It was exactly how we wanted it. The DJ’s were excellent - seriously didn’t play one piece of music we didn’t like and also didn’t play any of the cheese I told them not to so it was brilliant. All they did was look at our ages and pick music that was current but also things from our sort of era – couldn’t have created a better playlist ourselves to be honest. They were euphoria disco (http://www.euphoriadisco.co.uk/) and I would recommend them to anyone. They are Gloucester based so not sure if they travel but worth checking out!



The party went on until 12.30 and by 1am we had said our goodbyes to everyone and we went off to our honeymoon suite. We were so tired so it ending then wasn’t disappointing, we got all we wanted from the day and when it ended we were just happy it had gone so well.

So to sum up, our wedding day was absolutely the most perfect day we could have ever asked for. Everyone gave us advice to make time to spend 5 minutes together and take what is going on around you in because it goes so quickly... I can honestly say that it didn’t for us. The day and evening went at a perfect speed so I can remember everything and I saw Dan naturally throughout so we didn’t have to make special effort to see each other. I could continue to gush about how perfect it was but it would be boring. I don’t want to do it again mostly because I know that it would never be as good as it was the first time. I am happy with the memories and pictures and happy in the knowledge that we kicked off our married life in the best way. Now it is time to carry on my life with Dan as it was before... only now I have a husband and he has a wife J


xxx

Ps all the photos were taken by an amazing photographer Duncan Kerridge (http://www.kerridgeweddings.co.uk/)