Mrs Josie P’s report
Me and Mr P are finally hitched! I have been living on Cloud 9 ever since and he has being using the term Wife or Wifey whenever he can.
Who would have thought that when I met the guy in the Deep Purple teeshirt when I was 17 (and I was in my baggy purple jeans) we would 8years later tie the knot! We have made it through a 3 year long distance relationship at separate universities, then spending time only the 2 of us whilst travelling, living in a tiny flat, having horrible jobs and I know there will be more challenges ahead, but I am so happy I know I have my man by my side through them all.
(engagement shot by a friend)
Sunday 19th Dec
This was the day I decided I would start staying at my mums, so we’d have 2 nights apart, just to add to the build up. Mr P drove me over with suitcases and bags galore (well I had to pack for 1. 2nights at mums, 2. a wedding and 3-minimoon!). After all my stuff was thrown into the house an emotional goodbye was said and we had our last kiss as Mr and Miss.
My lil bro gave me his bed for the night which was nice, I could hardly sleep at all with excitement, it was becoming just like xmas!
Monday 20th Dec
Day before the wedding, thankfully it hadn’t snowed anymore so I called up the coach company to check they were ok for tomorrow, all good. Nathalie from Vanilla Bus emails to say hopefully all should be fine for my campervan.
Mum and I take the final stuff to the venue – a surprise for OH. Cardboard cutouts of Star Wars characters ?
My big bro is meant to have got here by now from Birmingham, but snow has delayed a lot of things. He got to London but missed last train to us – meaning he was spending the night in a 24/7 cafe!
The gang leave about 11.30pm and I say I’m going to turn in for an early night. However I cannot sleep again. OH and I have a quick phone call before midnight comes to remind eachother the day is about love and not stressing that everything must be perfect ? I think I get to sleep about 2am.
Tuesday 21st Dec
The Big Day! I wake up at 5.30 and cannot get back to sleep, I laze in bed checking the weather. It looks ok!!!!! No more snow!!
Big Bro turns up about 6am, caught the morning train. He is tired but ready for the big day and says he wouldn’t miss it for the world. I am really touched. He starts on a whiskey to fight his tiredness.
To the hairdressers mother and I go. Hair in curlers, make up done, hair out of curlers, croissants and bucks fizz drank, BMs done. (there is more detail to this all but I shall not bore you – basically the make up lady tried to give me huge long false eyelashes when I wanted long but natural looking, at one point I looked like a drag queen...)
(me and mum)
Back home Big Bro is fully dressed and younger bros (biological and foster) are almost done too, I’m impressed as they have a few hours to go yet.
I set BMs and Bros on task of making confetti as I put on fake nails. Mr P calls one BM – we get scared something is wrong, turns out it was just to say “everything is fine, love you!” just to reassure me.
Me and the girlies walk to my nan’s house which is 10 doors away from mum’s to collect the sacred dress. Considering the snow on the floor we walked very slowly, one of us nearly fell – that would have been a good story!
Dress goes on and the whole house goes emotional. My Bridesmaids coo over me, my bros suddenly realise I’m getting married and mum needs a drink! I felt very touched at how loving my family and friends were being; we’re the kind of family that all know we love each other dearly but don’t get too soppy often. Bros go to catch the coach to the venue (running late because of how soppy they became!)
Nathalie from Vanilla Buss and her lovely Campervan appears but flowers are not here yet, this is because my florist fell over and broke her wrist! Her husband had to do a lot of the work at the venue which slowed them down. Thankfully they got there in time.
The trip in the camper was funny, I almost fell out of my seat around one corner ? the satnav went wrong, but we all got there in the end.
2 Best men help us out of the camper. My OH has 3 BestMan, one is his bro, 2 are our good friends. It was lovely having them help me out of the car and considering how much they usually tease me, to hear them say I looked beautiful was really lovely.
I can hear our “seating music” playing in the other room, but before I can get excited I am whisked upstairs to meet the registrar. They ask me how to spell my father’s middle name and I don’t know (I usually do, but I couldn’t concentrate!). I suddenly realise that through the window it is snowing again – I want to get married there and then!!!
Ushered down stairs to wait holding onto my mother’s arm – she whispers how proud she is. The Processional music starts – Elton John’s Your Song. My bridemaids walk in with a best man on their arm, but mum and I wait for the chorus before we enter. When we do I see a sea of faces, all “awww”ing at me which felt amazing, I had forgotten about all these other people – all I knew was I was seeing my man!
As we walk up the aisle I my OH turns around, he is beaming and has tears in his eyes. I can’t help but beam back. My mum passes my hands to his and says that I am all his. Throughout the ceremony we are grinning to eachother, when the registrar asks if anyone has any reason why we cannot wed I take a peek across the room and everyone giggles. My friend Dan did a lovely reading for us, then my OH and I read some Shakespeare – surprisingly we both managed to keep our voices clear!
We are announced husband and wife and we can finally kiss after being apart for 2 days (which is nothing but felt forever!). I could have kissed him forever! I have since seen the video of our ceremony (a friend did this) and you can see my 2 bros crying in the background! I have never known them to be this soppy!!
The snow is still falling lightly as we sign our register, it ended before we got to have pics but the snow on the floor looked beautiful.
and my man loved my bling, here he is checking it out (Thanks Lynsey!!)
Our reception drinks went down a treat as we quickly had the important pics taken. The Cardboard cut outs gave people something to amuse themselves and our musician played guitar beautifully! His name was Ben Eve and i would definitely recommend him.
Dinner was amazingly yummy and huge portions! I would really recommend Newland Hall to anyone. People who said they were only joining us for the ceremony (2 family members are currently going through chemo) ended up staying because they were enjoying it so much.
We had a quiz on every table with questions about Mr P and myself and a picture contest of what we would be doing in 10 years time, we gave out Xmas decs as prizes. We had pics of us as Star Wars characters, us with cats (I’m a crazy cat lady) and us with babies - Was great fun! We had a wishing tree (no pics sorry) and We also put disposable cameras on each table and asked people to take silly pictures, my Bridesmaids made sure we got some great ones!
My dad made a speech, he thanked my mum for bringing me up (he wasn’t around much then) which everyone felt was the right thing to do. Mr P spoke wonderfully, thanking my mum, his family and my nan, then went on to explain how we met in our funky clothes. The Best men were all so nervous but said wonderful things, in fact, they only said nice things, hardly anything naughty was said!!!
We attempted a waltz for our first dance to “Fascination” by Nat King Cole – I think people would have given us a 6 or 7 on strictly ?
Then we partied through the night and before we knew it, it was time for Me and my husband to leave. We did a huge circle/conga line/cancan kind of thing with everyone. Was a lovely way to end such a fab day.
Our taxi ride was spent just discussing the day and how amazing it was, we got to our hotel and our room was covered in rose petals, with champagne all ready to go, hot tub fired up! We were far too awake to get into bed, we just talked and talked the night away saying how very lucky and happy we were.
Skip our fabulous minimoon (beautiful hotel and lovely food) and we return home (carried over the threshold whilst light snow came AGAIN!) to find our friends have broke into our house, bought and set up a brand new tv for us! We were simply bowled over! Follow this up with xmas celebrations, lots of food and drink and as you can imagine you have 2 very lucky and happy people.
My advice to all brides to be is: Pick the things you want, don't feel pressured to use other people's ideas, and most of all, enjoy your day!
Just realised you cant see the xmas tree in any of these pics - haha! They will be in the professional ones when I get them.
Much love
Mrs P!
xxxx
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