S&D… The Wedding

Hello again Eng­lish Wedding!

I know, I know it’s been far too long! It’s been a mad rush since the wed­ding, David’s gone back to his third year at uni and I’ve just started my mas­ters, we both now spend most days run­ning around like head­less chick­ens try­ing to keep up!

It seems like the wed­ding was yes­ter­day, but also like we’ve always been hus­band and wife — it’s a lovely feel­ing. If I’ve not left it too late and you’re all still inter­ested.. here’s how our wed­ding went.

I woke up in bed next to Katie, one of my brides­maids. I paced around the house for a few min­utes before get­ting up and hav­ing a bath with Vivi­enne at around 6am! The nerves had actu­ally started mak­ing me feel hor­ri­ble, I was so, so edgy and couldn’t really talk to Katie or Louise (who came round later). They tried to get me to eat some­thing but I really couldn’t. The flow­ers were deliv­ered, Vivi­enne went to Mary’s to get ready, and soon we were fly­ing down the road in my flow­ery Polo to get ready at my Mum and Dad’s house. Everything was pretty much set up from the day before, and every­one was run­ning around putting the final touches to the mar­quee and tables. 

Louise and I were beau­ti­fied by Ema, who was amaz­ing and totally put me at ease. Trudie and Danielle our pho­tog­ra­phers also turned up and were absolutely fan­tas­tic, run­ning around get­ting shots of all the lit­tle details and us all get­ting ready. They knew exactly what we were after and couldn’t have done a bet­ter job. I gave all my brides­maids pearl ear­rings and a pearl bracelet as a lit­tle thank-you, and crafted them some lit­tle boxes to fit with the day too. As they got ready look what was caught in cam­era… Dad still fin­ish­ing off his speech!

After arriv­ing at Gar­den­stone at 9am, sud­denly it was ‘time’. The dri­ver arrived to take my brides­maids to the church in a lux­ury Roller, and I was told to get dressed. I’ve never been so ner­vous. Louise helped me into my dress and fixed my veil whilst try­ing to dis­tract me so I didn’t get too emo­tional! As I walked down the cor­ri­dor to meet my Dad and get in the Polo to go to church I started welling up, but some­how man­aged to keep going and dis­tract­ing myself from it all becom­ing too much.

Gulp. Time to get mar­ried. Now, it’s com­mon knowl­edge that my mum is the most organ­ised per­son around, so organ­ised and ahead of every­thing that she booked the bridesmaid’s 5 minute car jour­ney half an hour before the cer­e­mony! In the mad rush of things Dad, Trudie and I left about 5 min­utes after the brides­maids, only to realise that we were insanely early and had to turn back! If any­thing it was a huge bless­ing as it dis­tracted me and sud­denly I lost my nerves. There’s some­thing about the fol­low­ing pic­tures of every­one arriv­ing and wait­ing with a sense of antic­i­pa­tion that gives me butterflies.. 

I think the cer­e­mony pho­tographs speak for them­selves. Notice how my frozen face turn into a great beam­ing smile after about 5 min­utes have passed! David looked amaz­ing and once I dared look him in the face (I was too ner­vous to for the first few min­utes) the best feel­ing swept over me, and I beamed from then on until I went to sleep that night. As Rev. Pam was talk­ing of mar­riage lead­ing to chil­dren, Vivi­enne ran up scrib­bling away on an Order of Ser­vice and stood between us! One of my favourite shots is that of me hug­ging David, unseen to every­one else, just after we’d signed the register.

Awk­wardly, David’s ring didn’t quite fit (on our wed­ding video you can hear him say­ing “I hope it fits” and then my face scrunch­ing as I squeeze it on!) Suddenly we were both on top of the world, no more nerves, just ready to relax and see every­one that had come to cel­e­brate with us… includ­ing a police­man who hap­pened to be dri­ving past who promptly came over and ‘arrested’ David say­ing “I’ll do you a favour now and take you away!” and some­thing along the lines of hand­cuffs being bet­ter than a ball and chain!! Also, check out our drive away, beep­ing our way through the village!

Back to the house and time to relax, David and I arrived first and had a pre­cious few min­utes alone together where he helped me take my veil off and we had a few excited cud­dles and squeals of “We’re mar­ried!!”. Every­one milled around drink­ing bub­bly and hav­ing canapes while we got a few pictures. 

The speeches really went down a storm. David’s brother Greg was mas­ter of cer­e­monies and did an amaz­ing job, prob­a­bly tor­tur­ing him as he went along nearly as much as Jack (Dav’s best man) did! Our video­g­ra­pher said he has never seen a groom get such a relent­less ham­mer­ing from speeches before! Apolo­gies in advance about the pic­ture of David on his stag do which Greg plucked from thin air at one point..

 Next up was food, tea and cake. It went down a storm but I don’t think I man­aged to nab any cake, my mind was still run­ning at a mil­lion miles an hour and I didn’t even notice it! Carli and her team were amaz­ing, I’d rec­om­mend her to any­one. There was a bit of a breather at this point, we cut the cake, the men­folk kicked a ball around, ‘love & mar­riage’ was play­ing in the back­ground, and Dav and I had a few more pho­tographs. A per­fect lazy summer’s afternoon.

Pretty soon the evening guests arrived and David and I did our first dance. Why does nobody tell you how embar­rass­ing and cringey it is? David and I aren’t the best ‘slow dancers’ but for­tu­nately the band came on straight away after­wards and saved our blushes, we all had a good knees-up and the dance floor was full until the early hours. At one point, under the band’s instruc­tion, every­one cir­cled David while he ‘danced for his new wife’. Bro­ken foot or not, he does a bril­liant ver­sion of ‘Night Fever’. John Tra­volta eat your heart out. I’m pretty sure the extreme danc­ing is what tore my del­i­cate antique dress to shreds!

The Andy John­son Band were absolutely amaz­ing, they really set the atmos­phere which helped the party carry on into the small hours.

The end of the night was a blur; I can’t remem­ber much apart from: every­one being blown away by our neigh­bour Roger’s dan­ger­ous danc­ing, Katie and Eliz­a­beth were taken home by a friendly police­man pass­ing by, we com­pletely for­got to hand wed­ding cake out (mean­ing the next day there were 3 tiers to work through!), Mag­i­cal Maz’s Sainsbury’s bag pop­ping up in pho­tographs, cousin Jessica’s 21st birth­day at mid­night, David some­how end­ing up with a som­brero and an ital­ian apron on, some cheeky responses to our ‘guest­book cards’, some even cheekier draw­ings, and a cer­tain guest (Bod­ders) giv­ing us the very beau­ti­fully pre­sented gift of 6 tum­bler glasses ‘wrapped’ in a Boyes bag! David and I were whisked off to the Ton­tine and drunk­enly ordered a bot­tle of Cham­pagne and promptly fell asleep in a dou­ble bub­ble bath.

It was the best day of my life. I’m sorry this has waf­fled on for so long but I couldn’t cut any of it out if I wanted to! Every­body was so gen­er­ous and we were blown away by everyone’s gen­eros­ity. We both spent the next few days feel­ing over­whelmed by how well it had gone and by how lucky we are to be sur­rounded by such a great crowd.

I can’t wait to hear what you all think. And finally, thanks for hav­ing me Eng­lish Wed­ding, and let­ting me tell my wed­ding story, I’ve loved every minute of it!

Lots of love and hope­fully Claire will let me sneak into the blog in the future!

Sally xx

All wed­ding acces­sories (hair­bands, cor­sages, cake top­pers etc): What Katy Did Next

Pho­tog­ra­phers: Trudie and Danielle (get in touch with me for their details)

Mar­quee: Per­fect Day Mar­quee Hire

Cake: Mr & Mrs Maker

Tea & Cake ser­vice: The Olde Young Teahouse

Brides­maids’ dresses: Rise

Flow­er­girls’ dresses: Next

Bride’s dress: Antique from eBay

Groom’s suit: Marks & Spencer

Flow­ers: But­ter­flies Florist

Hair and Make-up: Ema at Effigy

Hog Roast, BBQ and Canapes: Hog Spit Roast Company

Every­thing else: DIY