***ATB's Wedding Report***

Loving this!!!

Eeek, love it so far! ?

Oooooooo, ATB you're teasing us!!! Looking forward to part deux!

More, more!

Oh ATB you're such a tease!

Oooo more, more, more!!

A lovely start ATB, I remember you being a professional BM Can't wait to read the rest.

OOhhhh its been an age since a good Otter Wedding Report ❤️❤️ keep it coming lady!

You've had 5 hours now to do the second part c'monnn.?

Good start......... am tapping my nails impatiently waiting for more lol :-D

More?????????x

Loving this. More please x

I have to jump a little here, to the evening of the wedding. My friend was crying and told me a story from shortly after we met, 11 years ago. I don’t remember having the conversation! She’d come from Glasgow to our little village hall to a charity night with me, and apparently I’d told her when I got married, I was getting married in my church and having the reception in the village hall. “And here I am” she snottered!

She was right though, that was my plan! MF would have liked to get married abroad, just the two of us, but wasn’t going to stand in the way of what I really wanted. So the village hall and church were booked for August 2nd 2014. My plan was a relaxed, easy going day, which we’d do ourselves from the ground up (literally, but more of that later!). I made most of the decorations myself, we had to hire everything for the hall with regards to chairs, linen and crockery as well as set it all up. I spent the year prior to the wedding collecting together vintage cut glass and crystal and making and buying other decorative items. I’m a crafty sort, I’ve been waiting a long time for this project! Invitations:

The wedding week:

I finished up work on the Wednesday, my colleagues gave me a great ‘send off’ with a decorated desk, balloons and some lovely, generous gifts. I finished, went and got my eyebrows and a pedicure done, then headed home to pack up the final things I needed. I then drove the hour out to my mum’s house in my home village, getting there at 10.45pm! By the time I’d unloaded my car and chatted to my mum and got to bed, I think I got to sleep at 12.30am, the problem being my alarm was set for 3.30am on Thursday to pick up my cousin (my BM) and go and buy the flowers for the church and hall! We got the flowers, which were totally beautiful and so reasonably priced and were home by 7am, but spent the next couple of hours getting them conditioned. I then went to pick up the marriage schedule and my mum and I went to collect her hat (which was hired) and buy the mixers for the bar as we were also stocking and paying for that ourselves. We stopped for a cup of tea and a scone, and set off for home! By this time it was mid afternoon. When I got home I did some final crafty bits like printing the menus and filling the sweetie buffet jars.

Our village hall is nice, but it was in need of a good deep clean because of all the various organisations and children’s groups who use it. The deep clean was scheduled for the Thursday morning so we’d popped in that morning to check it had been done. It had, but looked like they’d run a damp cloth over the place, not a deep clean at all. Round the edges had ingrained dirt on the floor which hadn’t come off and looked terrible. Mum phoned the ‘owner’ and complained, but they told her that they couldn’t get it off. We then went to the hall and got down on our knees to start cleaning the floor. So literally a wedding from the ground up! Just what I wanted to spend my evening doing after being up at 3.30am (after three hours sleep and a busy day). We used butter knives to scrape the crap up of the floor then washed it, it looked great after that. Just as well I’d not had my nails done on the Wednesday as I’d first planned. I thought about putting in before and after photos here, but that’s a bit too much detail!

So by the time we’d finished the floor, my friend and her husband had arrived to put up the bunting. When it was up it looked amazing. I’d used mostly pairs of my old pjs, which my mum and friends thought was hilarious (it makes great bunting).

Mum and I finally got home about 10pm, had our lunch (!) and then I think I flopped into bed at around 11pm and didn’t wake up until 8am, best sleep ever!

We spent Friday setting up the hall, it took seven of us most of the afternoon, with two more friends arriving later, one of which set to work weeding the path to the hall. MF had painted all the railings a couple of weeks prior. I really couldn’t have done anything without the help of my friends and family. I’d been really organised and had everything boxed and labelled by table which helped. The boxes were three cars worth. Ooooops! When we’d set up the hall looked beautiful, exactly as I’d hoped it would turn out.

Oh wow, everything is so pretty!

I love it! I love village hall weddings!

It looks beautiful! Keep it coming!!

Gorgeous so far, and can't wait for more...

Hurry up MRS. Loving it so far. X

Love it so far and quite want to see the before/after shots of the cleaning lol!

Loving this, Keep it coming!

(oh, and congratulations, too!)

Beautiful ATB. Can't wait for more.

Enjoying this. It is livening up a boring day at work! Loving the pictures.

Meanwhile MF had sorted out our dog, dropped her at the dog sitter for the weekend then collected my brother and a couple of van loads of beer!

From late Friday afternoon, onwards, various friends and family began arriving from all over the country and took over the little village! Luckily we had pretty much finished the hall by then, and I went to get my nails done.

We had our rehearsal which was all fine and I didn’t cry like I’d expected. Recently the normal church services have set me off, I was expecting to ‘get it all out’ as my brother (who was giving me away) practiced walking me down the aisle. But we were all good, and not emotional at all.

We called into the pub where MF would be staying that night, and we both would be staying after the wedding, to drop some things off in our room. We’d both had a busy few days so it was nice to have a breather, cuddle and say “this is it”. Inevitably MF decided this was his invitation for nonsense, when there was a knock on the door. It was my bridesmaids up to see the room and ask me for some ribbon they needed for the buttonholes! If they’d been a couple of minutes later we’d have been totally caught in the act! Oops. I managed to be straight faced about it, but MF was standing there rather ‘uncomfortable’ which I found hilarious!

My bridesmaids went home then MF, my brother, his girlfriend as well as assorted cousins and hangers on stayed in the pub. I went up to my mum’s and tied some things up, and she started making dinner. The plan had been that everyone would come up for a buffet tea. She phoned my brother who informed her they’d all ordered food in the pub. Mum was obviously totally raging by this and quite upset. My brother (typically) doesn’t listen and had picked up wrongly earlier in the day when she’d told him not to eat everything (as it was for dinner later). So that was our family dinner out the window, and when I went downstairs mum was just sitting eating herself. I now felt terrible as usually she’d shout upstairs that dinner was ready but I’d not realised she’d started on her own. My brother is very, very selfish and I think that was half my mum’s point. What did they think we were doing up at the house, we could have been invited down to eat at the pub too?

Anyway, the hoardes appeared back from the pub. MF was mortified by the upset that had been caused, but he’d just gone along with the crowd, oblivious of what was supposed to be happening. The mood lifted a little as we all spent the evening chatting and drinking fizz. Just before midnight MF was taken away to stay at the pub. I’d been oblivious to the time until my cousin who’d been counting down (I’d heard him counting down several times but thought it was until last orders at the pub!) until midnight, announced they had to go as it was getting close to midnight! Quite sweet of a bloke I thought, I’d not have realised! I then went to my bed about 1am, but couldn’t sleep and I think it was about 3am before I finally got some shut eye. My brother had, helpfully, sent me a photo at 2.30am of MF in bed fully clothed with the message “groom’s had too many tequila slammers” Oh dear!

I woke about 7.30am with a bit of a sore head! I drank a couple of pints of water which sorted me out. It was a weird feeling, I was very calm but felt like I was quite confused too, wondering if it was really happing! My mum and my SIL were the only two others at the house. When they got up we headed to the hall to check it hadn’t fallen down (!) and let the cake lady set up. I couldn’t believe how much the lacework on the cake looked like fabric, it was stunning. The sugar flowers were not what I had asked for (this is going to be a theme – more of that to come!) even though I’d given her photos and drawing, but they were nice all the same. I’d got toppers from the lovely Kate at Love on Top and they are one of my favourite parts of the wedding decor, everyone commented on them!




The hall was still standing, and the cake lady asked if she could take some photos as apparently brides talk to her about all aspects of wedding planning and some ask her for decor advice. She’s had some say to her recently that their venue is “just a hall” and she took photos of mine to show them what can be achieved which was very flattering. She totally loved he toppers too and had previously taken Love On Top's card to have when future brides ask her where they can get toppers from.

We went home and had breakfast, at this point I was too chilled out and were quite happily drinking tea when I realised it was after 10am, the bridesmaids were arriving at 10.30am and hairdresser at 11am. I jumped in the shower, and by the time I’d got out my bridesmaids had appeared. They’d brought the bouquets, signalling my one and only huge bridal meltdown......

As I’ve said, I did most aspects of the wedding myself. I’m a control freak, and like things my way. I’m also very laid back, but only on account of my organised and controlling ways. Of course there were several things I couldn’t (or didn’t want to do) myself. The cake being the first thing, which wasn’t as I’d wanted as I mentioned previously. Now we come onto the bouquets. My cousin/bridesmaid is an ex florist’s assistant so is a dab hand at flowers. She’d helped me buy the flowers for the church and hall, but didn’t feel confident enough to do the three bouquets. This was fine by me, and I had ordered them from the florist where she used to work. It was one of the few little extravagances I’d had, they were really very expensive but I thought they were going to be beautiful and worth it. Mine alone was nearly £100. What made me all the more upset as my bridesmaids had then gone in as a surprise and paid for them all for me, such a lot of money as a gift from them and they were not what I wanted at all, I saw them and ran away howling upstairs to get dressed (with the plan of jumping in the car to take them back).

When I’d booked We’d spent ages with the florist discussing every little detail and I had a mood board of flowers and bouquets. All of which were loose hand ties, and very ‘bushy’ in form. I’d specified that I wanted ‘massive’ and oversized, and showed the florist pictures of such bouquets. This was party the reason I’d expected it was costing so much, which was fine, as well as the expensive flowers I’d chosen.

What arrived was a small, perfectly spherical ball of flowers. Beautiful Peonies and roses crammed into a ball, with very little greenery. Not terrible if that’s what you wanted but it was so far removed from what I did, I was so, so upset. The bridesmaid’s ones were slightly better, as in not such a tight ball, but not as big as I’d hoped.

My bridesmaids didn’t really know what to make of how upset I was, and my mum just sort of said “I can see what you mean”. Even though I was now dressed I’d not have made the 20 mile round trip to take them back, and time to get it sorted since the hairdresser had now arrived. The hairdresser remarked how calm I was, she’d not realised what she’d missed 10 minutes previously. She said, by way of trying to comfort me, that with every wedding something ‘big’ goes wrong. This was my thing and the rest of the day would go perfectly (she was nearly right!).

My bridesmaid didn’t want to start messing with it but I really didn’t give her any choice or I would have done it myself! So she reluctantly cut into it, added more green and shook it! We tied it back up and it was better, still not anywhere near what I wanted, but would have to do.

I’m not really one for having photos of myself around, and I’d planned to have a big picture of my bouquet done as print for the bedroom. It’s the sort of thing I’d buy, but thought it would be so special that it was actually a picture of my bouquet. Well that’s not going to happen now, sadly. Looking at my bouquet, an ‘outsider’ would not know anything was wrong, but it meant a lot to me. I’d also planned to put it on my Dad’s grave but didn’t want to in the end.

After bouquet-gate we were a bit behind with hair and make-up but we were all still calm! Hairdressers finished up and left. I then did my own make up and did my bridemaid’s eyeshadow and blush. We had some lunch and it was soon 1.45pm. My plan was to get into my dress at 1.30pm, so we went upstairs to get started!

What a great report so far.... waiting for more ! x

Oh I'm so sorry about the bouquet - and I completely know what you mean. Anyone else might say "whatever, they're just flowers" but when you've taken time to try and explain your vision to someone, when you have such a clear idea of what you want, and then you don't get what you essentially paid for, and there is no turning back, no fixing it, you have a right to be upset!!

ATB, you have left us hanging for far too long! Where is the rest?!

More, more, more xx

Just remembered we haven't heard the end of this as it were, more please!! And so sorry to hear about your bouquet!

I've just jumped in at the end of your report and realised it's not the end! I will look forward to the bride photos.

Finish it!!!!!!!

Only you would scrub the Hall on your hands and knees lady!

I'm so, so sorry, I was waiting on the disc of pro. pics to come back so I can upload them. Unfortunately I'm dissapointed in them so won't be putting them up anyway - so I'm going to crack on with my report without them. I've only got a couple of guest pictures so far so I'll use them. Sorry folks. The thing with the photos has knocked the wind out of my sails a bit ?

Anyway - I'll be back shortly!