Saturday 4th February – Manor Hotel, Meriden
Although I haven’t posted very often I have been lurking on and off for the last 2 years, and feel obliged to do a report as I had a lovely good luck thread - thank you!
So to start with, who are we? lol. Myself and David are both 24 and live in Birmingham with our kitty Archie. I am originally from Bucks but moved to Brum in 2006 to go to uni. We met that year on a networking site called Faceparty, exchanged a few messages, swapped phone numbers, and after calling and texting non stop for a week or so decided to take the plunge and meet up. I won’t lie and say it was love at first sight, but we definitely clicked and have barely spent a day apart ever since. It wasn’t a big romantic proposal sadly. We had only been together about 2 months and as we were cuddled up in bed he whispered in my ear “will you marry me?”. After looking at him bewilderedly, laughing hysterically, asking repeatedly if he was joking and realising by the look on his face that he wasn’t, I said Yes. After another few minutes he suddenly started back tracking and saying maybe it wasn’t such a good idea after all, and that we should probably wait a while! He was worried what our parents would think with us being so young and having been together such a short time. We discussed it and decided that it was just a commitment, to show that we both knew we wanted to be together and were in it for the long haul, but that it would definitely be a long engagement. We told our friends and went out and celebrated, but decided to keep it secret from our families for a while longer. He got me a cheap ring from Argos (I was a student and he was in a crappy job), and that was it for a while. We told our parents after about 18 months when we had moved in together, they still thought it was too soon but were ok with as we made it clear we weren’t in any hurry to actually get wed. After another year or so David had enough money to upgrade my ring to something much nicer and sparklier, and I guess that’s when we started to think a bit more seriously about planning a wedding. I endlessly browsed the internet and read magazines, but we never got as far as setting a date as we hadn’t really started saving properly. Then about 18 months ago it dawned on me that our anniversary (6 years to the day that we met) fell on a Saturday in 2012, and after that my heart was set on 4th February and there was no persuading me otherwise…
Tuesday 31st January
My last day at work. Arrived in the morning to find my desk covered in balloons, banners and confetti and was so excited I just wanted to turn around and go home right then. It was so hard to concentrate and all I could think about was all the things I had left to do, it seemed like the longest day ever. Every time I had to sign something I kept thinking that this could be the last time I would sign in my maiden name at work. In the afternoon I was presented with a card and bunch of flowers, and one of the girls had made me a really cute heart shaped cake. As I walked out of the office I couldn’t believe that I would be back in 3 weeks as a married woman!
Wednesday 1st February
Spent the day cleaning the house from top to bottom as we had a friend coming to stay and cat-sit while we were on honeymoon. Also packed everything up to take to the venue and couldn’t believe how much stuff there was. Even without all the dresses which were at Davids mums, the dining table was piled high with bags and boxes!
In the evening we had planned to go out for a nice romantic meal, to spend some quality time together before all the family descended the following day. When David got home from work he said he’d just had his mum on the phone in tears and from the sounds of it his brother and granddad had dropped out of the wedding. David phoned his brother straight away and basically due to some stupid family feud about money, which we had absolutely nothing to do with, they refused to come. We begged them and even offered to pay for their travel and hotel, but it was still a no. I was absolutely furious that they had done that to us, especially at the 11th hour when all their food and drink was paid for and the table plan was done. We still went out and tried to put it out of our minds, but it put a bit of a dampener on the whole evening ☹️
Thursday 2nd February
David spent the morning frantically calling all our evening guests to see if there was anybody who could make it in the day as well at such short notice, and luckily one of his friends and partner were able to come, so at least we didn’t lose any money on the food and drink. At midday David dropped me off in town to meet my mum off the train from Bucks, while he went to get our rings polished. Me and mum went to Debenhams for a makeup consultation at Lancôme as I was doing my own make up, and I spent a scandalous amount on 3 items lol. Then we met Davids mum at the hire shop to collect all the men’s suits which she was kindly transporting for us as we didn’t have enough room for them all in the car. We then headed home where my sister and cousin (2 of the BMs) shortly arrived in a whirlwind of excitement… I think they were more excited than us! We nipped out to get some pizzas for dinner and then me and David went to collect our cake. The lady making it was a friend of a friend and we had never met, just corresponded by email, so I was a little apprehensive. We could not have been happier when we saw our beautiful cake, it was identical to the picture I sent her and she had done such a good job. It weighed an absolute ton and was balanced on me knee in the car, so it was a slow and careful drive home! We had something to eat and then all decided to have an early night as tomorrow was due to be a busy day.
Friday 3rd February
We were all up and showered early as me, mum and the girls had a 10:30 nail appointment. The receptionist asked us to take a seat and said somebody would come and see us in a few minutes. After sitting there nearly half an hour and getting very impatient we went to ask what was happening, only to be told they had no record of our booking! They apologised and said they could squeeze us in but we would have to wait another half an hour, so we decided to just leave it as we were running short on time. So off to Boots we went to get French manicure kits to do ourselves later!
After a quick bite to eat it was back home to finish off ironing and packing for the honeymoon, and making sure we had everything organised. At about 3pm we packed up all the cars to take everything to the venue and off we went! I went and checked in as I was staying both nights and found we had been given a beautiful four poster room, it was lovely. Then it was all hands on deck to get our reception room all set up for the following day. The tables had all been laid so we just had to dress them with the centrepieces, favours, etc. Instead of place names we had a mini photo frame with each guests picture to mark their place, so I had to oversee as my BMs weren’t sure who was who! lol.
When we were finished we went and quickly got changed, and came back down into the hotel bar where guests were starting to arrive. Most of my family travelled up on the Friday night and stayed in the hotel so we had a big family meal with 22 of us in the evening, and it was lovely to relax and catch up with everybody knowing that everything was in place. After dinner David and the groomsmen went back to our house where they were staying the night. Everybody was watching us and wolf whistling as we were trying to say goodbye so we snuck outside and had a little moment together. It was so surreal to think after all this time it was finally happening, and the next time we saw each other would be at the end of the aisle! I said good night to everybody and me and the girls (my other BM had now also joined us and was sharing my room for the night) went upstairs to do our nails. We had a few glasses of wine and a good giggle while we pampered ourselves, and before we knew it it was midnight and we decided we should probably try and get some sleep.
