So after almost 2 years of planning - our day has been and gone, and it was everything we'd ever hoped it would be. After almost 2 months we've been on honeymoon, opened our gifts, sent out thank you cards and received our photos - so I think it's time for my report, don't you? Grab a cuppa (or glass of wine) put your feet up and I'll try not to babble. No promises though!
How we met
Now I always get a pang of jealousy reading this section on other people's reports. Our meeting was by no means romantic, if anything rather sordid and probably paints us both as pretty bad people. But we were young, dumb and I'm sure even the heroes in most stories have questionable morales at some point in their lives? Anyway, babbling already. In 2009 H2B and I met working at our local leisure centre - I was a receptionist and H2B was a life guard. We were both seeing other people at the time, we had very little to do with each other at first, but one night I was involved in organising a charity fashion show at the swimming pool - think models walking over stages across the water, dancers, singers - all sorts! As part of the night me and the other organisers had to get dolled up to do thank you speeches at the end of the show and this is when H2B noticed me - I'll admit there was a bit of a difference between my usual uniform of unflattering orange blouse (which showed any bead of sweat) with black trousers to my glitzy blue evening dress. From that moment on H2B had his sights on me. After months of cheeky flirty comments I finally noticed him and we bonded over painting the offices behind the reception desk - who said romance was dead? Now as I mentioned, we were both involved with other people at the time but as an ignorant 19 year old who had been with the same guy for 4 years I was flattered by the attention! So flirting led to a cheeky snog in the back office and we realised that we had to make a decision as we were being extremely unfair on our partners. After ending it with our partners, I'd love to say we were loves young dream - but we weren't. Neither of us took the relationship seriously at the beginning which led to a lot of tears and heartbreak (mainly on my part - karma ey?) but after a difficult few months we decided to make a proper go of things. And this meant leaving the leisure centre for a fresh start. And so our story (well the happy ever after part finally) began...
The proposal
After we did all the normal stages of a relationship (moved in together, got two cats and went on holiday) I was ITCHING for a proposal and I wasn't subtle about it. It was becoming a running joke in his family about how I would sit their with my "floating left hand" in the air because it had no ring on it to weigh it down! In 2014 we had an amazing trip to Mexico - I fulfilled my life long dream of swimming with manatees, we ate dinner on the beach, swam with turtles - it was amazing. But still no proposal. I was gutted. We then went to Spain with our close friends and their children. Still no proposal. Now people that know me personally will tell you I'm a wannabe Disney Princess, I love being the centre of attention, I'm loud and gobby and I'm by no means a shrinking violet. So with all this is mind, H2B assumed that I wanted a proposal to match my personality , so afterwards it transpired this is why he took so long as he was struggling to think of what to do. It was only after watching a flash mob proposal on TV that I had mentioned that would be too much for me and that I would want something intimate, that H2B finally felt the pressure was off.
So one Saturday in October 2014, I spent the afternoon at my friends house having a cuppa or two whilst my H2B said he was "cleaning the flat". I went back to the flat early evening where I opened the door and found the whole flat lit by candles and a trail of rose petals leading to the living room, where I found H2B down on one knee. He said some lovely things (or so I think - I was crying so much I could barely hear what he was saying) but I got the gist and after screaming yes! We kissed - made the relevant phone calls and went out for a celebratory curry! We went to bed and I was so excited I woke up at 2am and spent the remainder of the night watching those late night gambling programmes whilst staring at my beautiful new ring!
The planning
So as I had previously worked at a wedding venue - I had a rough idea of what I did and didn't want. One thing I definitely new was the wedding venue I wanted. Luckily, when me and H2B went to visit it, I was so lucky that H2B loved it too! One thing we didn't love - the price. It was so expensive! However, we decided to make some compromises. They charged substantially less for weekdays by offering special packages for weddings held on Mondays, Tuesday's or Wednesday's. So that was it. We decided Monday 1st August 2016 would be our wedding day.
Now, as is always the case, we did have a few wedding dramas - which I hope you lovely B2B's can learn from!
Firstly - my ring broke within 4 months! We were very lucky in the fact that the shop H2B had purchased it from accepted it was faulty and refunded us the money. Morale of the story - keep your receipts and / or get insurance!!
Secondly - I was put in a very awkward position where two girls who I barely knew asked me if they could be bridesmaids. Rather than having a back bone and saying no - I agreed in order to keep them happy. As time went by, these girls transpired to be not particularly nice people, which put me in the awkward position of having to tell them I no longer wished for them to be bridesmaids. Despite us still remaining friends after this - things happened after this which meant we ended up falling out big time and they ended up not coming to the wedding at all and we are still not speaking to this day. Please please please stand your ground on things ladies - especially with things like your bridal party. You don't want your memories of your day tainted by having people there that will cause issues and drama. It's simply not worth it.
Budget - stick to it. The only thing that H2B and I argued about during wedding planning was money. If you are going over budget - just put things into perspective. Do you really need to release doves? Or have wedding favours that cost a fortune? If you can afford them then great but please don't stress about it. It's always worth noting that DIY-ing things isn't necessarily cheaper (especially if you're clumsy with your hands like me!!) so shop around. I got loads of my wedding things from eBay and etsy! My dress for example - I went wedding dress shopping with my mum and fell in love with Nadia by Maggie Sottero but with the hefty price tag of £1200 I couldn't justify it, so I searched around on eBay and found a lady selling it second hand!! I got my dream dress at the bargain price of £550! My bridesmaid dresses were multiway dresses from a seller from Singapore on etsy at £35 each. The message is don't impulse buy and shop around.
We were very lucky that I was such a control freak and planned and booked most of our day in the early stages of our engagement as in March of this year I was offered a job in the midlands which meant we had to pack up and move from Cardiff to Leicester!
However, one thing I couldn't plan for was the passing of my wonderful grandfather. 3 weeks before the wedding my amazing Grandad passed away from skin cancer, although this was by no means unexpected, it was absolutely awful for the whole family. I so desperately wanted him to be there at the day - he was the most incredible kind hearted man, but what is most important is that he is now out of pain and watching over us all.
My hen
Now my wonderful bridesmaids and mother took it upon themselves to plan my hen do. I only had one condition - which was that I didn't want it to be expensive as I wanted everyone to be there so it had to be affordable for everyone! They did a fantastic job - butlers in the buff with drinks, games and food at my mums house and then into Cardiff where everyone has chipped in for a brilliant drinks package at Revolution. We were joined by my H2B and the stags later in the night and we all drunkenly fell into a taxi at the end of the night! It was brilliant!
H2B was a little worse for wear the next morning lol!
The day before
It was pretty laid back. We went to set up the venue and then went for Sunday lunch at a local restaurant - at which point I had a funny turn. I felt really tired and dizzy so my brother had to drop h2b to his mums house! I had a half groggy goodbye with H2B and had a nap from which I woke up feeling a million times better. I then went over to my brothers GF's house to get my nails done. My other BM came over and gave me a bridal goody box she had put together - it was so cute! We spent the evening watching my favourite film, Sleeping Beauty, and getting our nails done. It was almost 11pm before I got back to my mums house - I was expecting to struggle to sleep but after exchanging a few soppy text messages with H2B, I was out like a light as soon as my head hit the pillow!
The wedding day!
I woke up 15 minutes before my 6am alarm and went and jumped on my parents screaming "IM GETTING MARRIED TODAY!". I looked outside - grey and cloudy as the forecast had predicted - not long after it started chucking it down but I wasn't going to let that put a dampener on my day! At 6:30 my bridesmaids and the hair and make up lady arrived and we set to work getting ready. I gave my bridesmaids their goody bags and my parents their presents (cue lots of tears). My mum did a wonderful job of catering for everyone the morning of the wedding - making sure everyone was filled up with sausage egg and waffle sandwiches and lots of tea, coffee and fizz!
One thing everyone says is that the morning (well the whole day really) goes so quickly - and this is 100% true! Make sure you have everything ready the night before and your photographer has a list of all the photos you would like (eg photos that you want with certain people). At 10:30 our photographer arrived and started snapping away - she was absolutely brilliant. Before I knew it, it was time to get my dress on. Only drama of the day - I'd put on weight and my dress barely fitted! I'd lost quite a bit of weight to fit into my dress, but after my last fitting where my dress fitted perfectly - I got over confident and ate to my hearts content! My poor MoH couldn't do up the modesty panel on my corset back!! After a lot of breathing in and a bit of torn lace on the bodice of my dress - we managed to do the dress up!! Despite the girls being a bit more on show than I would have liked haha. Next problem - my garter was too small! But the lower down my leg I put it - it would just fall off - so I went garter-less.
After all the stress of my weight gain - it was time to go - and the rain had decided to get heavier - cue my dress being hoisted around my ears by myself, my dad and the car driver! But we managed to shove me, my dress and my dad into the car - safe and sound (and dry!!) and we were on our way. I wasn't nervous at all on the way to the church as I didn't have time to be - plus my mind was preoccupied by the driver who wouldn't shut up about his cars - the whole way to the church. Nice enough guy but telling me that the car had been rushed to the garage that morning is NOT what you want to hear when you're on the way to your wedding in the lashing down rain!
When we arrived at the church my MoH was frantically shouting down the phone at someone - she rushed over to me and was saying that could I wait two minutes in the car as her husband and sons were on the way and running late - apparently her mum had driven them down really slowly as in her words "Jess (me) is always late - she won't be on time for her wedding!" Little did she know I was 5 minutes early! Two minutes later my MoH's husband and my two gorgeous Godsons came running up the road into the church. I was actually really grateful for their late entrance as it gave me time to sit and calm myself in the car (without hearing about the mechanics of every car the driver owned!!).
It was finally time to get into the church! I stood the foyer with my Dad, BMs and flower girl. The vicar came down and spoke to us (I still can't remember what he said!!) and next thing I knew, the string quartet were starting to play my entrance song - paradise by Coldplay. Bearing in mind every time I listened to the song on YouTube in the past I cried like a baby - I managed to keep it together - right until my MoH was about to walk down the aisle and I had a mini panic attack. My MoH just looked at me and said "don't you'll make me cry!!" But My dad was brilliant and calmed me down perfectly. One thing I'll never forget is the feeling of walking around the corner of the foyer into view of H2B and see him beaming at me. I wasn't nervous, upset, anxious - just pure happiness. Half way up the aisle the front of my dress managed to catch under my feet! I'll try and upload the video my friend took of me walking up the aisle for you to have a giggle at me kicking my dress out from my feet. As we got to the top of the aisle my H2B looked at me and said "you look amazing". However the romantic bubble was soon burst by my dads phone going off! Oops! He just looked at me and we giggled as he slyly put his hand in his inside pocket and put it on silent.
The ceremony was by far my favourite part of the day - we had readings from my grandmother who read sonnet 116 and my MiL who read the famous quote from captain correllis mandolin. I sing my heart of to guide me o thou great redeemer (being Welsh we had to have this!) and I managed to kept it together during I vow to thee my country (my grandads favourite hymn). Ever since I've been with H2B I've NEVER seen him cry - not even well up. But when we were at the top of the church I looked at H2B and was shocked to see him welling up. However this sentimental moment was killed after H2B whispered an extremely crude comment about organs after the vicar had made a speech asking for donations to help repair the organ! We signed the register whilst the string quartet played a number of Disney songs. This was really surreal for me - we were in a small back room signing the register whilst all our guests were in the church waiting for us - it felt like a secret party only we were invited too!
We walked back down the aisle to here comes the sun by the Beatles on the string quartet. As we walked out of the church - it had stopped raining!! My fabulous BMs gave out home made welshcakes and pasties to our guests whilst we had our photos done outside the church.
As if on cue - the rain started and Our guests jumped on the coach to head to our reception venue. We jumped into the car and headed to the venue - the driver did carry on talking about his cars but H and I (no longer H2B) just cwtched up in the back of the car and sipped on champagne.
We arrived at the venue to see all our guests with Buck's Fizz in hand and ice cream courtesy of the vintage Icycle tricycle we had booked! This went down so well and we are so glad we booked him! I tasked all the kids with making sure they tried EVERY flavour - their parents didn't thank me for this. After spending time mingling with our guests we were called in for dinner! The food was gorgeous but I filled up on my MiL's home made fudge that we served for favours as I could barely finish my mains and gave my desert to my Godson (much to his delight!). Then came the speeches - my dads speech was Beautiful and I teared up with his tribute to my grandad. Next was H's first best man - his brother - his speech wasn't the best and H wasn't best pleased with some of the things he mentioned - but that's what bestmen are for!! Next was his second bestman his cousin who gave a lovely speech. Last was my H - who usually spends his time making fun of me - gave a lovely speech about how lucky he is to have met me. And yes the ugly crying face came out again!
We spent more time mingling after the meal and before we knew it the evening guests were arriving. We cut the cake with the same knife my parents used for their cake and were then called for our first dance - Iris by the Google dolls. I was determined to "swish" (think belle in beauty and the beast and aurora in sleeping beauty) which basically consisted of me throwing my hair around as I danced! I managed to do this without looking too ridiculous but had my princess moment as H spun me around and my dress swooshed out!
I then danced with my dad to I loved her first by heartland - once we finished I turned around to see all of my friends crying their eyes out saying how beautiful it was!
I did a bit more dancing and posing for the photobooth and then decided to be completely antisocial and sat on the patio with H and my closest friends drinking and chatting. Before we knew it - it was last orders at the bar and time to go home! H's colleague managed to squeeze us into the bar of his car and kindly dropped us off to the hotel. Where we collapsed onto the gorgeous 4 poster bed. My ribs ached from my dress, I'd been too excited to eat the BBQ buffet in the evening so was hungry again, I was wet, my dress was ruined but I didn't give a damn cos it was the best feeling ever! I did the official business of changing my name on Facebook and snuggled up with my H in bed! Enjoy every minute ladies - there's no feeling like it!
