Gbutterfly's Wedding Report Sunday 8th July 2012
Sorry it has taken SOOOOO long for my report, we've been waiting ages for our photos and as they have just landed on our doorstep today, finally I've sat down to my report.
I found hitched when I was reading an online magazine, and became hooked! I joined soon after we got engaged in September 2010. Although I'm quite shy, and often have been known to comment on posts rather than dare to put up my own, all the help, advice, and caring from everyone on the forum married, married for ages, soon to be married or otherwise helped hugely!
I met OH when I visited my family in Liverpool, and we hit it off straight away. We both actually said that we felt like old friends when we first started going out, we're both incredibly soppy, and sensitive and in him I had a best friend and soul-mate. After a few weeks of going out, he took me out to dinner and asked me to be his girlfriend all official! We never looked back, after a year of being a couple we moved in together. At first it was quite tough, he'd never lived on his own and expected all the cleaning to do itself, and I've lived on my own since I was 19 and am really independent so it caused a lot of frustration. Some of you may remember the endless problems I had with his family, as I was always given a hard time, and felt like I was never good enough.
On the 18th September, we'd decided to have our closest friends round for a Man V. Food Themed party, and I'd be doing all the cooking, etc, making HUGE burgers and so on for a bit of fun. I had no idea that it was all planned and he proposed in front of my best friends. We've never been the typical couple, I was wearing scruffy clothes at the time covered in flour from making the burgers, and was so shocked instead of saying YES, I punched him affectionately on the arm! I say affectionately, he says it was really painful…. haha! We set the date for the 8th July 2012, 5 years exactly from the day we first met.
In May 2011, we suffered a massive setback. I started experiencing serious shoulder pain, and had a month off work. Months of hell later, I was rushed in and out of A&E, hospital appt after hospital appt and finally I was told I would have an surgical intervention of an epidural for several degenerated discs in my neck and upper spine, which had been discovered on the MRI's they had done. I had the epidural on the 14th October, and reacted very badly, I lost the feeling in my right leg, and most of my right side. I was told I had a bleed on the brain, and was off work for around 5 months. Throughout that time, my maid of honour put us through hell and eventually backed out, his parents put us through hell and even suggested at one point that he should leave me rather than be tied down to an invalid, but through it all he stuck by me, even though sometimes I thought he'd have been better off. The doctor's said to me I might never have children, I would be on stupid amounts of medication for the rest of my life, and so on. One night, when H was crying his eyes out at the thought of all we were going through, I just decided I couldn’t do this to the man I love, and I promised myself I would get better. That was new year's eve 2012. I begged him to take me out to the dock to see the fireworks, at this stage I couldn't really walk so he helped me to the car, and I wrote a few wishes in a bottle which I threw into the water at the stroke of midnight. That month I got into a rehabilitation scheme, and started to learn to walk. By February I was able to return to work. Every night he would take me round the block and each day my legs got stronger.
Everyone said we should cancel the wedding, everyone, but I just couldn't. People get sick every day, they still get married, and I was determined not to let this stop me.
From March to July, all we did was plan the wedding. In June, one of my two remaining bridesmaids pulled out. Devastated, we still carried on. We had numerous attempts by the in-laws to get the wedding cancelled they even threatened to phone the hotel but we knew we could do it.
Saturday 7th July 2012
The weather wasn't great, and we'd booked to be outside for the wedding. Another 2 people pulled out, making that 5 in total. Our florist called to say our red flowers had arrived and they were pink! After many stressed calls back and forth, they agreed to give us a lot more red roses to make up for it. My best friend and maid of honour (the last one standing) arrived to help us take everything to the venue. We sat on the carpet in our lounge putting sweets into jars, and laughing about everything that had gone wrong, and also how excited we were.
When we arrived at the venue, we had a quick meeting with our toastmaster, and the venue wedding team to run through everything packed away in boxes. I got a phone call from my uncle who I hadn't seen in over 15 years to tell me he had checked in his room and could he come downstairs to say hi. I ran to the reception and waited, heard my name and right out of a storybook happy ending he grabbed me for a hug, he's an ex body builder, massive man who never cries and he literally hung on me sobbing for over 10 minutes. I'll never forget it.
My mum rings to say
she's feeling left out, and can she come earlier than the evening to be involved.
We all laugh, typical of my mum to want to know what's going on 
She arrives
later on with my gran via the train station opposite the hotel, and we all go
across to pick them up. It's all very overwhelming, we all sit laughing for
hours in the hotel bar, catching up on the years we've been apart. H's other
best man arrives, we hardly see him as he is in the marines and he makes me
promise to be good to him, and gets a bit emotional. I look over at H and he
winks, and it's then I realise that we did it, here we are and we're about to
get married tomorrow!
We all go out for dinner, about 20 of us who all stayed at the hotel the night before, and all end up in my room drinking champagne until 2am! Mum kicks everyone out. My best mate who is a bloke, runs back to give me a hug before he runs out the door. Feel very overwhelmed, it's not like him to be so soppy. I have to text H to come back to my room to pick up all the printed vows and readings! Mum bans him from giving me a kiss. We draw a huge bubble bath after he leaves, and do our beauty routine like queens in our massive, gorgeous room! As we turn off the lights, I whisper to my mum I get married tomorrow! She says today, baby, you get married today.
Sunday 8th July 2012
We all wake up and go have breakfast, H is made to have his breakfast in another part of the hotel so we don't see each other on the morning. I can hardly eat, feel a bit sick so run up to my room for a bit of quiet time. It doesn't last long, it's 8.30am and the videographers are already there….the makeup and hair lady arrives at 9:30am and it's such a mad rush! I present my mum and maid of honour with their personalised dressing gowns, getting ready outfits and gifts. My mum cries at the dressing gown, and says she's always wanted one that said mother of the bride! Since I've never seen her really cry before at anything, that makes me cry! She opens her card from H, and sobs even more. Another memory I won't forget. My maid of honour is so astonished by all the gifts I got her, she says I'm going to pay for it at Christmas, which makes us all laugh!
I hear a knock at the door, my best mate is there sheepishly asking if we can put his buttonhole on. Once we've finished taking the mick out of him for it, we put it on and send him on his merry way. My two younger brothers arrive in their suits, with the buttonholes on wrong, and we have to fix them. I get upset when I see how smart they look. It's about 11am, and they say H (who is always late for everything, literally) is ready to go and receiving guests downstairs! We only get married at 2!
My bridal bouquet and the bridesmaids bouquet arrives, I literally cannot believe how gorgeous they are, and think back to the lovely girls on hitched who suggested pink flowers to go with the red to make the colours more vibrant! Thank you! They made my gran a smaller version of my bouquet and I get that sent down to H to give to her, he told me later that he handed it to her, and she started crying, she couldn't believe it was for her. She kept saying "are these flowers all for me??!"
The sun is shining but there's a few clouds, the hotel ask us for decision. They say H has said for us to have the ceremony inside in the palazzo suite (it's so beautiful in there), drinks and photos outside then to the wedding breakfast room for the rest of the day. I agree. I remember thinking we just made our first proper decision together. We've made millions of decisions before, but it just made me go all smooshy.
Everyone's nearly ready, I have no idea what time it is, everyone keeps saying I am the calmest bride they have ever seen. My room is full of people, two photographers, two videographers, venue wedding planner, makeup artist etc etc. I just do feel calm though. My card from H arrives, I laugh when I open it, there's a little note saying got this from a shop round the corner, it's the best bloody card they had! Hope you love it anyway! I do! On the video you hear me say "he wrote I ADORE YOU in capitals". It all feels surreal.
The venue planner comes in and she says I'm running late, and the registrar isn’t happy. It's 2:15pm, I apologise and said I had no idea what the time was. The photographer needs more pictures, and I can't find my ruddy underwear! I end up throwing on some of normal knickers and fly out the door at 2:20pm! I have an entourage behind me, we reach the double doors before the stairs and my mum is staring at me, she says "wait.., it's hit me. Just look at you, I can't believe I made you. " I grab her hand, and say don't be nervous, let's do this together. We open the doors together and walk down the stairs.
I arrive downstairs, and the doorman kisses my cheek, which makes me smile from ear to ear. He's a lovely old fella, who said he'd have me off H's hands in a heartbeat. So cute. As we walk towards the room, I hear everyone milling around. The registrar shouts at me from down the bottom of the corridor, what time do you call this young lady! She's fuming, and everyone around me wants to smash her face in but it just doesn't upset me. I'm getting married, hello! She's really rude to my mum, and dad, and to the hotel while I give my details to the other registrar, but it just didn't worry me. I heard her say, keep me waiting does she know who I am!
My dad grabs my hand, and we start to walk down the aisle. Everyone's staring, I look behind me to see what they're looking at, realise it is me in my white dress! H isn’t crying yet but I nearly am. The ceremony was amazing, I held him up and kept him going when he wanted to cry and he did the same for me. We were the only ones there in that room, I honestly couldn't tell you what the guests were doing. The only other thing I remember was the nasty registrar scolding my photographer, and just generally being nasty to everyone, including my little brother nervously doing his reading. It's like a dream, they say we're hitched and we sign the register. Our other best man's kids run up and we play with them for ages, kissing each other and completely unaware of everyone else.
We did a little cheeky dance down the aisle, as they announce as man and wife. I have no idea how I had the confidence to do that, but at the time it just felt amazing. The room has been set up by the hotel, everything is exactly how we asked it to be. H's aunt made the cake, it collapsed the night before so she'd stayed up til 4am that day making a new one! You couldn't honestly tell.
My dad is amazed we had flame lilies on the tables, it's the national flower of my country, Zimbabwe. The food goes down a storm, and it's time for the speeches. Suddenly, I feel really nervous and sick. It's time for me to do my speech in a minute. Mum makes me cry doing her speech, and I have no idea how I'm going to do my own, but I do. The lights of the video blind me and I can't see anyone really so it's just like I'm talking to H. I say to him before I start. We did it. We did it. Everyone said they started to cry when I said that.
It's time for more photos, my dress feels amazing and everyone can't believe how much weight I've lost! Our videographer comes across to tell us he cried too in our speeches!
My advice to those getting married. Don't sweat the small stuff, or sometimes even the big stuff. Bridesmaids may drop out. In-laws may be horrible. Lots of things could go wrong, but never lose sight of why you're getting married. Over the 18 or so months, all of the help and tips and tricks, and general I’ll sort those bastards out from the hitched gals helped get me through to my special day, and I remembering saying to H our day wouldn’t have been the same day without Hitched.
