A very overdue wedding report with lots of flashes

I want MORE!!

Love the bunting theme though- very cute.

More please!

The day before: Saturday 21st May

Eeeeek only 1 day to go! When I woke up I had a little think about my almost-date-twins sammyjay and Lucie1, and hoped that their days would be amazing for them. Then I tripped over all the stuff in our living room and realised I'd better focus a bit on my own wedding if I ever wanted to see the floor again. We were due at the florists at 4 to check over everything, so the plan was to get all our paraphenalia upto the venue after that, then Mr Spoon would leave me there for the night. My parents, brother, aunties and BMs were all staying at the hotel with me, and Mr Spoon's mum, brother, sister and ushers were all staying either at our house or at the Travelodge at the end of the road, so we spent a bit of time getting the house ready for all our guests.

My parents and brother arrived at around 2.30 and added some of our table centres to their very full car (my mum made our cake so she had a lot of boxes in there!) before heading off to the hotel. Then it was time to go to the florists. Now, I'd never been too bothered about the flowers; I'd found a picture of a bouquet that I liked, and I was after something pretty similar in terms of colours, but didn't mind what flowers they used. It took us an unbelievably long amount of time to find a florist who understood this and was happy to just choose whatever they thought would work. And oh my goodness I am so glad we chose them. My bouquet was so beautiful and the buttonholes were just what Mr Spoon wanted.

Getting excited now, we went back home and loaded up the cars, then waited for Mr Spoon's family to arrive. Then suddenly we had a whole house full of people - his mum, his sister, our 2-year-old nephew, his brother and his wife, and our 2 ushers. At this point I could feel the panic rising! I desperately wanted to get out of there so we left them all in the house and we set off to the venue. When we got there we unloaded all the stuff and the ultra-efficient staff whisked it all away for the night. James, the Master of Ceremonies, came down and we had a quick chat about the next day. I checked into my amazing suite (bedroom, living room, and 2 bathrooms), which I'd be sharing with one of my BMs that night. Then it was time for Mr Spoon to go; I walked him to the car and waved him off, feeling very sad that, on the night that I felt I would need him the most to calm my nerves, he wouldn't be there.

That night I met up with everyone staying at the hotel and we went for a meal in the hotel's pub. I hadn't seen my aunties for a long time and it was wonderful to spend the evening relaxing, knowing everything was as ready as it would ever be, and catching up with everyone's news. Partway through the meal a very apologetic James came in to ask me some questions about the table plan - he was asking exactly how I wanted the room set up and was really stressing about making sure everything was perfect. This was the point where all my Monica-ness completely melted away and I became the most laidback bride ever seen. I kept telling him I didn't mind and he could do it however it was easiest; at this point he very sternly said "NO! This is not about what's easiest for us, it's about what you want!" hahaha! He has obviously encountered some serious bridezillas in his time.

I made sure I didn't drink too much and actually managed to get to bed at a decent hour. Me and my BM got into our enormous bed and chatted about the next day, until finally it was time to sleep.

Loving the report, can't wait for the next installments.

Sunday 22nd May: the big day!

By some miracle I managed to sleep reasonably well, and woke up feeling not exactly wide awake but in decent condition. I opened the curtains and glorious sunshine streamed in - perfect. My BM and I took a bathroom each (ha!) and I had a shower and generally thought about the day ahead. It still hadn't really sunk in that it was my wedding day and it all felt rather surreal. I came out of the bathroom to discover it was raining - oh. At this point I realised that there was nothing I could do about the weather, and really it didn't matter anyway, even though secretly I did want it to be sunny and warm. But there were enough other things to be thinking about, the first of these being breakfast.

The space where we were getting married was the Inner Hall, which was the main entrance hall in the hotel, and as we came out of our room and to the top of the stairs we could see all the chairs laid out for the ceremony. Most of the chair covers were on and it was all very definitely for our wedding. Eeek! Unfortunately the chair covers were wrong - we had asked for the majority to be navy blue, with around 20% of them in a dark pink to break it up a bit. However the chairs in the room looked like this:

With alternate rows of blue and pink. However, as I was now Super Relaxed Bride, I didn't give a monkey's. The lovely chair cover lady was still there, just finishing off, and I went for a chat with her and never said a word about it being different from what we'd ordered. I figured that they were after all just chairs, and who was going to know anyway? She wished me luck and I thanked her for everything, then we were off for breakfast. My other BM and her fiance were already down there so I ate an enormous cooked feast of a meal and we sat chatting and looking out at what my BM called "the crochet lawn", which was such a great mental image.

Vanessa the hairdresser was due to arrive at 9.30 so the 3 of us headed back to our enormous room and got down to the serious business of getting changed into bathrobes and preparing to be pampered. I was first for hair so Vanessa began her architectural magic, armed with more hair pins than I've ever seen in my life. We were watching the weather and it's sunny, then rainy, then cloudy, then sunny... very confusing! My dad turned up and I put him, my brother and my uncle on bunting duty; I found out later it was the worst job I could possibly give them as the venue told us we couldn't use drawing pins and they couldn't get the stuff to stay up! In the end they had to hide drawing pins under White Tac but ssshhh! Don't tell anyone! They did an amazing job though, look:

Meanwhile, back in the Pamper Zone, my mum had joined us, and so had 2 lovely makeup women from the hotel's spa. My hair was fully constructed by this point so Vanessa moved onto my BMs and in the other room my mum and I had our makeup done. Around about now was when our tog turned up and straight away I knew we'd chosen the right man; he put us all at ease straight away and we barely even noticed him taking photos! By now it was starting to get a bit busy, with people popping in and out, but generally the whole atmosphere was really calm and even kept commenting on how relaxed I was!I still don't think it had properly sunk in at this point and I was just floating around, completely oblivious to anything.

Once our makeup was done, my mum disappeared off to construct the cake - she was really nervous about this so she'd done really well containing herself and not flapping round the room in a mad panic! I could tell she was happy to leave as I knew she couldonly relax once she knew the cake was alright. I'd pretty much run out of things to do by this point so I sat and painted my nails while my BMs continued their journey through the hair and makeup factory.

AND I've just realised what the time is! I have to go out soon and I'm not even dressed yet ? I am officially the worst report writer in the history of Hitched. I'll try to come back to this later but don't worry, I will finish it eventually!

Tease!

Booooooooo!!!!!!!!! You big meanie!!!!!!!!?

You can't keep us all in suspenders like this!?

I WANT MORE!!!

Ohhhhhh come backkk!!!!

I love reading this!

Sorry sorry sorry! I thought I'd get it done before I had to go.back now though. Here are some pics of the makeup-ness, if that helps:

My lovely mum:

And the cake that she was so worried about!

Will get back to the reporting now!

Ahhhhh what a tease. I wanna read more. Come oooooonnnnnnnn.........

So, I was ready, my mum was constructing a cake, my dad and brother were finishing the bunting, and my BMs were nearly ready. Vanessa finished everyone's hair, gave me a massive hug, and off she went. I was starting to get jumpy now - clearly I needed to keep myself busy to stop the nerves from kicking in. Luckily we had a handy bottle of champagne for just such emergencies. I phoned reception and a very helpful man brought us some glasses, then I rounded up my BMs, my parents and my brother and we sat round drinking for a little while. By now it was 12.15 (the ceremony was at 1.30) and not one single member of my family was dressed at this point! Oh well.

Once we'd drunk everything, my parents and brother headed off to get dressed and the BMs got into their dresses. They looked incredible and I was so so proud and thankful that they were there with me on my big day. I love this picture as they're trying so hard to behave themselves but we were giggling away!

Meanwhile, Mr Spoon and his clan had arrived, and we could see other guests starting to appear too - my room overlooked the entrance to the hotel so we could see cars coming down the drive and guests walking across the gravel. It was getting exciting! Our tog was mingling with the guests and getting pics of everyone. Here's my lovely husband, waiting:

Finally it was time for me to get into my frock. Except we couldn't get it down from the curtain rail. Oops. One quick call to my dad later, the dress was accessible and I was being zipped in. The tog came back and got some lovely pics of me and the BMs in the room. Here's one of me frock for you, I know a few of you wanted to see it!

Then my family reappeared and I think they were pretty impressed with my bride costume ? My dad told me I looked beautiful and I told him to stop it because I was going to cry. James the Master of Ceremonies popped in, then the registrar arrived. The nerves were kicking in by now and I was so nervous I couldn't remember how old I was! We were standing there counting the years since my date of birth to double check we had it right, how embarrassing.

Time for a quick family shot:

Then my brother took my mum downstairs and it was time to go go go!

Loving this so far. Your dress is gorgeous

Spoony - you look absolutely stunning! Love the bunting and the cake! Ma Spoony is vay talented! Super report.

I had to enter the room via a long sweeping staircase and by this point we all had the fear of falling down the stairs. I was sure I was going to trip, my dad was worried about going too fast, one of my BMs just knew she was going to fall and then take me out on the way down, and the other one was sure she'd get the giggles. We're professionals, you know. Anyway, there we all were at the top of the stairs, I was starting to get little glimpses of all our guests below us. Then the entrance music started: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFAqPn0jgEc James gave us "the nod" and we were off!

As we turned the bend in the stairs, I saw my auntie, who for some bizarre reason was sitting right at the back. She looked up at me and whispered "You look stunning". At the same time, I saw my gorgeous friends on the other side of the aisle, all grinning like loons and with tears in their eyes, and I could feel myself starting to get emotional. We stopped at the bottom of the stairs and James adjusted my train for me. At this point it finally, finally hit me: at the end of this aisle was Mr Spoon and he was waiting for me and we were going to get MARRIED!!!! From that point on, I only had eyes for him as we walked down the rest of the aisle.

This is him watching me come down the stairs. His brother (and best man) is clearly less than impressed!

When we got to the front, my dad uttered the now immortal words "I think we did that a bit fast" - just as the music stopped. We just sort of stood there in a "now what?" fashion until the registrar took charge and took my bouquet to put on the table. I hugged my dad and then it was just me and Mr Spoon at the front. We'd asked for the ceremony to be performed with us facing our guests, as we didn't want to have our backs to them. It felt very intimate and like everyone was truly a part of our moment, which was exactly what we wanted. My brother read A Lovely Love Story by Edward Monckton, and Mr Spoon's sister read an extract from Gift From the Sea, by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, which summed up exactly how we both feel about marriage. Then we read our vows and - woo hoo! - we were married! It all went so quickly. Mr Spoon's uncle later said that he thought he was going to have to throw a bucket of water over us during the vows hahaha!

Lovely photos - especially love the one of Mr Spoon looking at your arrive. Makes me go all fluffy!

❤️gorgeous dress❤️

Lush dress - now I would like more please!! ?

OH MY GOD I can't believe I forgot to tell you the best bit of the whole ceremony! When we did the vows, Mr Spoon got my name wrong! My name is Melanie, but he got all muddled with his letters (bless him) and said Melody instead! I noticed straight away and was thinking "hmm, should I say something here?!" but by then it was too late and we were onto the next bit. I don't think too many people noticed but trust me, it is proving to be a great bargaining tool/ weapon in negotiations and arguments ?

The ceremony was over before we knew it and we left the room to cheers from all our guests. In the hotel reception there was the most welcome sight ever - a man with two drinks. hoorah! We'd done it and could now have a good old knees up. By now the weather was beautiful, so we went outside into the sunshine.

We thought our tog was simply waiting for us to greet everyone before he stepped into action with the group shots, but it turned out he was snapping away the whole time. This is one of my favourite photos from the whole day, and it was completely unstaged; we had no idea it had been taken until we got the photos back:

He also caught a glimpse of my blue shoes of wonder:

We mingled and hugged and kissed and laughed in the sunshine, until it was time for the group shots. Now this was when we absolutely knew for definite definite that we'd chosen the right tog. We both hated with a passion the bit at weddings between the ceremony and the meal, where the bride and groom disappear for hours and the photos seem to take forever. We couldn't imagine anything worse than having to spend ages having our photos taken and not getting to spend time with our guests. When we met our tog we talked about that and he completely agreed with us; and to give him his due I've never seen anyone whip through the group photos so quickly! Which was a good job really as by then the wind was picking up and there was a very short shower which drove most people back inside. Group pics done, we went for a wander in the grounds for some coupley photos.

Next post will be purely lovey dovey pictures, don't say I didn't warn you.

This is the one we'veused on our thank you cards. I showed this to a woman I worked with and she said I had the figure of Pippa Middleton, which made me snort very loudly.

Some more...

It started raining again on our way back inside, so Mr Spoon did the chivalrous thing:

We joined our guests for a drink and nibbles, and we still had plenty of time for chatting before the meal. It was great to catch up with friends that we hadn't seen for ages. My friend P's little girl is 2 and she was mesmerised by the sight of this strange woman in a long white dress; she kept calling me a princess, crawling into my lap and touching my tiara in awe (thanks Lynsey!). I seriously think she should hire her out, she really made me feel special and it was great to have her there! My nephew (also 2) played me a beautiful tune on the piano, hopefully the hotel staff didn't mind too much. Here he is with me and then with Mr Spoon:

Then it was time for the meal; we did speeches first as everyone was nervous about them. My dad's speech was great (even if he did tell everyone about the time I got a policeman to help me get into a club when I was 16 - oh the shame). It was slightly embarrassing in places!

Mr Spoon's was lovely too, even though he decide to embarrass me as well! He told everyone how, when he was waiting to propose to me, I was hiding in a wardrobe. Oh well, it is a funny story I suppose. His speech was also really emotional as he talked about his dad, who died in 2002.

Then it was my turn; I just read mine out as I was too worried about forgetting everything and doing it wrong. I got a bit teary during mine and I made all my friends cry; we've got some great pictures of them allwelling up while their boyfriends just sit there, completely unaffected!

Mr Spoon's brother was very nervous about his speech as he is very shy. But he did such an amazing job! He'd put photos of Mr Spoon on every table, showing him at various ages and in a selection of embarrassing situations! Everyone laughed a lot and it was brilliant. I think he maybe even enjoyed it a tiny bit.

The food was delicious but I couldn't eat much of it; I wasn't off my food at all but did feel really full even though I hadn't eaten since breakfast. I really enjoyed it though and we spent a lot of time between courses going round and chatting to everyone. While everyone was eating they were also working hard on our Play Doh cake topper competition; we didn't have a cake topper so asked everyone to design one for us. I wasn't sure if this would work but it was probably one of the best ideas we had - everyone got really into it and we had some amazing creations. Here's just a few of them:

The winner was entitled "Newcastle on a Plate"; observe the look of pure joy on their faces!

Everyone was also busy writing messages for our noticeboard, which we had instead of a guestbook:

Aw I am loving the soppy pics!!

Lovely report, can't wait to read the rest!

We had just enough time after the meal to move into the bridal suite and have a very short sit down before we needed to go back to meet our evening guests. This was when something weird and hilarious happened - Mr Spoon went to bring his bag in from the car and had been gone for ages. I opened the door of our room to see if I could see him and there was a woman walking towards us; she was staying at the hotel. She saw me and squealed, and came rushing over babbling "oh how gorgeous, oh congratualtions, did you get married here? Oh how lovely!" We had a nice chat and then she asked if she could take a photo of me! I didn't really know how to say no so she took one, then spotted my mum and insisted on having a photo of her as well! Then she hugged me and disappeared! To this day I'm not entirely sure if I imagined her or not.

When we got downstairs all our evening guests were arriving, so it was time for more hugs and chats and drinks. Then it was the cake's big moment:

After we cut the cake, we had our first dance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLEtGRUrtJo

We didn't really want to do the awkward shuffle while everyone stood and watched, so we'd planned to ask everyone to join us on the dancefloor. We prepped our families and the ushers and BMs so that they could lead everyone in the dancing! Luckily, it worked, and one of my favourite memories of the whole day is of watching everyone we loved the most dancing around us, either as couples or in big groups of friends. It was amazing. Then my friend K and her boyfriend came and actually danced with us, so we were dancing as a 4:

Gradually, more people joined us...

Until we were just one huge circle!

Then the serious partying started, with much dancing and drinking. We all danced our little socks off and had the best celebration ever. Plus we had 5 wedding crashers! They just stood at the bar drinking so we decided to let them stay seeing as they were paying for their own drinks. My BM and I did make them dance with us to Love Shack though. Got to make them earn their keep somehow.

The last song of the night was Queen's Don't Stop Me Now - it was a fab end to a wonderful day, with everyone dancing around like crazy. As the disco ended (and my dad hastily took the bunting down so the hotel wouldn't spot the illicit drawing pin usage), those of us staying at the hotel wandered off to the cocktail bar for a nightcap. Mr Spoon and I said goodnight to everyone at around 1.30am and giggled our way to the honeymoon suite.

And that's the end! Sorry it's so long but it is so much fun reliving it and so hard to cut bits out.

N&Ps:

Venue - Linden Hall Hotel, Northumberland www.macdonaldhotels.co.uk/lindenhall

Tog - Sean Elliott www.seanelliottphotography.co.uk

Tiara - our very own Lynseys Designs http://lynseysdesigns.co.uk

Flowers - Secret Garden, Jesmond www.secretgardenflowers.co.uk

Herbs, bunting, tea cups, and stationery - various garden centres and charity shops and the sheer bloody-mindedness of Mr Spoon and I.

And thanks everyone for the lovely comments so far!

Oh my gosh... so so so beauitful.

? <--- happy emotional tears!!

Oh Tina (or is it Melody,lol) that's a beautiful report. I absolutely loved reading every bit of that. Your photos are beautiful. Congratulations x

Congratulations. Throughly enjoyed reading your report. Beautiful pictures

What a fabulous report, it looks like everyone had a wonderful day, especially as you had wedding crashers!!

x

Gorgeous dress, gorgeous headband, gorgeous bride and amazing photos x

Fantastic report, everything looks fantastic and your dress omg its GORGEOUS! Congratulations x