The big report - part 1

I had this posted in my LiveJournal, but since it is friends-only and I can't just link to it I thought I'd copy it in here. When I get to the honeymoon part there will be more knitting-related content here than in the LJ anyway! :)

Ok then, as I have threatened, here is the first part of my report of the last few weeks - I'm hoping that I can remember, because I really want a kind of record of it...

I don't have many pictures of the wedding itself yet - we had a photographer (a wedding present by my uncle), but he hasn't sent me the pictures yet, and there were snapshot cameras on every table, which I have just sent off for development, so all I have for now is the pictures that one of my friends took and gave to me on a CD the morning after the wedding. I seem to look like I'm either drunk or not quite awake in most of the pictures, so I won't inflict too many of them on you, but I thought I'd post at least a few, including a picture of my dress:

These are the best pictures out of the lot - the dress is layered, with lace on the bodice, and different kinds of lace ribbons that were wrapped around my neck.


I think this one shows the layered lace of the bodice a bit better...


Our cute little wedding 2CV. This car is probably older than I am - my mother's best friend (and, now my surrogate mother) used to drive it before she had children and after that it just sat in the garage for years until her husband had it done up. He is now so proud of the car that nobody but him is allowed to drive it. :) The flower deco was done by S, their daughter.


And another one that shows the flowers a bit better:


The wedding was lovely - lots and lots of little things went wrong, but I think some of those things will be amongst my fondest memories of the day - who else can say that their husband tried to put your wedding ring on your wrong hand? D struggled for quite some time until it occurred to me (doh!) that the ring was never going to fit on that hand and thought to tell him:

Me: *stage whispers* Wrong hand!
D: You've got to be kidding me!
Priest: *bursts out laughing*

I also couldn't remember half of my lines and had to read from the tiny little emergency copy I had made of the vows to put on the bench in front of me - unfortunately I didn't have my glasses and the writing was minuscule, so I ended up having to make up half of it. Imagine me, fluffing my lines, trying to bend down towards the bench in an inconspicuous way so I can read better... ;)

The ceremony was at 3pm, and afterwards we went to my father's house, where there was Pimms in the garden. My bridesmaid and maid of honour, were absolute stars and had spent the entire Friday baking 130 savoury muffins, because on the original invite we had promised the guests coffee and cake... In the end it was just too much hassle to organise all that for over 100 people so they were served the (very weak, so all the people who didn't know the drink and were mistaking it for lemonade weren't completely drunk before the main reception) Pimms instead. After that we strolled over to the reception venue (just 3 minutes walk away). There was a champagne reception, then food, and finally dancing, which went on until 6 in the morning! :)

There were some hick-ups *coughcoughdadscough*, but overall fun was had by everyone and, to be quite honest, I was so glad that all the planning had paid off and that people were dancing and having a good time that this alone put me in a partying mood. Also, we had invited mainly friends, with a bit of close family, and to see all those people who had travelled from afar just to spend this day with us, was incredibly touching.

Most of the wedding party met up again the next morning for a casual breakfast at my dad's house.

Overall, we loved it but were completely and utterly exhausted on Sunday evening. Thankfully, all we had to do was pack, fly back to the UK on Monday morning, re-pack and fly out to Boston on the Tuesday morning! :)


The whole Wedding event looked like this:

Thursday:
* Civil service (registry office) with close family and friends.
* Lunch after.

Saturday:
* 3pm Church ceremony
* 4.30pm - Pimms reception in my dad's garden
* 6.30pm - Champagne reception at the evening venue
* 7.30pm - Buffet
* Afterwards: dancing

Sunday:
* From 11am onwards - Coffee, tea, and breakfast for anyone who wants to come along.

There will (hopefully) be some more and some better pictures when I get the pictures from the photographer...