Hello! Long over due wedding report! I'm writing this mainly for myself, to remember the day, etc, but I also love reading and seeing other wedding reports on here, and all the lovely flashes, that I thought it would return the favour! Hehe.
How we met.
At an Irish bar in Cambridge. I was back from university for the Easter holidays. We had mutual friends, and I got talking to him in a club. I ignored him at first when he offered me his seat (being the "No! I don't need a mans help, I am an independent girl!" type of person!) I clearly remember texting two of my friends that night, complaining that everyone was with someone expect me! Haha! (It always happens when you least expect it!) He convinced me to strawpedo a drink, which I couldn't do, and tipped it all down myself.
We had a long distance relationship for three years, as I had just started uni, but he always came to see me at weekends, and we'd spend the summers together. He has such a caring nature, and I think we bought the best out of each other. I bought him out of his shell, and he encouraged me to stand up for myself, and work for what I wanted. We were together 9 years before he proposed! The proposal was lovely. He made my favourite dinner on new years eve 2012 asked me to close my eyes, and asked me what I would remember from that year. As it had really not been a very good year for me, (heart surgery, my mum in hospital) I outlined some of the things that would stick in my mind. He then asked me to open my eyes, and there is a ring box on the table. He got down on one knee, and thats what I remember the most from 2012 
The Hen do.
The hen do gets a little mention, because it was FANTASTIC! It was a complete surprise for me. Long story short, me and my friends went to Brighton, where they had arranged go- ape, a beautiful apartment, a superman stripper, meal and the party bus! (Some peoples idea of a nightmare hen do, but PERFECT for me!) The best thing about it was they had arranged a theme, and they had all dressed up as animals. As one of my favourite animals is the herring gull, one of my friends had MADE a herring gull costume for me, which was absolutely incredible! The amount of thought that went into the weekend was amazing, and I cannot thank them enough. I had an amazing time! Heres a photo of us all looking great!
Ok, so on to the wedding day!
I had decided on a subtle superman theme (subtle for OH's sake) and the colour scheme was blue red and yellow (superman's colours!) I had a mild panic about the colours thinking it might look like a childs birthday party, with very bright primary colours everywhere, but from the look of the photos, I think it turned out really well! Also, our wedding day was the 25th of September, which actually turned out to be Christopher Reeves birthday! (Superman from the Superman movies!) When I found that out (as I honestly had NO idea) i was absolutely thrilled and amazed, and SO happy! Hehehehe!!! It was like it was meant to be!
Well, the few days before the wedding were stressful to say the least! Don't leave things till the last minute! I had decided to make 1001 origami cranes, and then we both had to figure out a way to string them all together. This was about a week before the wedding, (to string them together. We had made the cranes before hand!) when both of us were working until a DAY before! (Advice! Take a few days off before your wedding! lol) We got there in the end, but I had a biiig headache and there was still so much to do. LUCKILY the venue let us decorate the marquee the day before, otherwise I would have NO idea what we would have done!
Our first crane strung up! Can you see how tired OH looks! Haha! We had 1000 more to string! We got there! Certain songs on the radio still remind me of stringing and glueing lots and lots of origami cranes onto fishing wire in the kitchen!
My sister, one of my bridesmaids and my mum came to stay with me the night before the wedding. We watched the great British bake off, and just relaxed. We had fish and chips for dinner, and just chatted. I went to bed quite late. Whoops!
I woke up SO early the next day! (About 5am!) I wanted to get back to sleep, but the nerves had kicked in, and i had to go to the toilet twice. I gave up on sleeping, and started texting people replying to their messages. Finally, I heard my mum get up, so went to speak to her, and waiting for my bridesmaid to wake up from the living room! My final bridesmaid arrived at about 8am! She was SO paranoid she wouldn't arrive in time for hair and make up, (as she was camping somewhere) but she arrived in PLENTY of time, so no problem! I got a text from my husband to be (he always sends texts every morning to me before I go to work) and didn't want to break tradition, which was sweet.
My bridesmaids and mum went down to the salon down the road to get their hair done. I had to wait in the flat, as my hair and make up lady was coming over. So, for a little while, I was completely on my own! It felt a bit surreal after all the people in the flat/talking and hype, to silence. I read the card my sister had given me, and it made me well up. She made me promise I was to read it after she'd gone! I wasn't on my own for long, as the hair and make up lady arrived, and got to work, blowdrying my hair. Because of that, I didn't hear the door bell, and got a very worried phone call from my photographer asking where I was! lol. I let her in, and thats when my mum and sister came back first from the hair dressers. Their hair looked fantastic! Especially my sister, who wanted her hair up, and it looked amazing! My bridesmaids also gave me and OH a present of zip wiring like Superman in Wales (the longest zip wire in the UK I think!) We are doing that on our 1 year anniversary! 
Amazing present! Here are a few from the morning.
Oh yeah. That apple I'm holding is one of the only things I ate the entire day! I couldn't manage toast, so an apple had to do. I think it was the nerves. But, I couldn't eat much of the wedding meal either! Very gutted about that, but I still had a great day!
My friend had given me a superman garter as a present, which was fantastic! I wore that all day!
I had made everyone superman cards with their initials enclosed in the superman symbol, and written something personal in everyone. My mum cried, and I welled up a lot, so had to have my make up done again! It was worth it though, to see their reactions.
Meanwhile, at the venue……...
Don't ask…..although I love the Superman pose OH is doing!
As none of the bridesmaids had seen my dress, I really wanted a reaction shot, so here it is!
My dad had also arrived at this point, so he is in the shot as well! At this point I have to say that I was so happy and impressed with my bridesmaids choice of dress. I let them choose their own, as long as it was bright blue, and as all of them live in different places, there was no way of co-ordinating the colour to match. I wasn't worried about it. But even though each blue is different, they all match SO well. All of the dresses were bright blue in their own way, and the fact that they are all different worked well with each of their body shapes. They had red shoes on as well, which worked so well with the colour scheme! Yay!
Talking about colour scheme, when the flowers arrived, they were amazing! More than I could have asked for. The blue red and yellow worked SO well. So bright and colourful and fun (exactly how we wanted the day to be )
The flowers I have in my hair were a quick purchase costing £6 each! I had no idea what I wanted in my hair, so bought a selection, and we ended up using the cheapest ones! (Which worked the best in the end!)
So, here I was, ready to go and get married! I was worried about the weather, as it had rained the day before, but it was AMAZING weather ALL day on the day. We were so lucky I will leave it here for now, and come back to it a bit later. I hope you have enjoyed it so far! Or enjoyed the photos! lol.
Part 2. Ceremony.
One of Ricks Groomsmen had a nice car, so he had driven to come and get me. After my mum and the bridesmaids left, it was just me and my dad, and it went from hectic to being quite quiet again. Me and my dad are close, but not very good with emotion, so we hung around the flat for a bit, I asked what time it was, and it was about 1.30pm (getting married at 2pm) so I said, we'd better get going! Ricks groomsmen was brilliant at being a chauffeur. I think he was quite excited to be an important wedding car driver! Hehe. To help with the nerves, I was chatting away to him most of the way. I knew if I spoke to my dad, I would get waaaay too emotional, so we all chatted together. M did make a joke that he could drive straight past the venue, if I changed my mind! Made me laugh. One of the highlights though, was when we got to the venue, everyone was still outside. So M stopped the car, not knowing what to do. If he drove any further, everyone would have seen me! He used quite colourful language to demonstrate his frustration (forgetting my dad was in the back with me! But we both found it very funny!) M got out of the car, and ushered them inside. Im not quite sure where the other two groomsmen were!
We had a little photo-shoot outside the venue before we were ready to go in! Heres the venue in all its glory.
Then it was time to go in! Scary! I was very nervous, but still had to keep it together to tell my bridesmaids when to go in! Haha! (We didn't practice beforehand) So, i was just concentrating on the music! (We walked into an instrumental version of Time of your Life by Greenday) The first two bridesmaids walked in waaay too fast, so i was whispering to my sister to walk slower, waaaay slower, and she nailed it! I had asked my friend the night before the wedding to take control of the ceremony music on the iPod. It was such an unfair thing to ask, (so much pressure. I know I wouldn't want that responsibility!) but he came through, and did it perfectly I don't know why I didn't ask him sooner. So many other things on my mind I suppose!
(The cranes you can see hanging from the ceiling are just some of the cranes we put up around the venue. Blue red and yellow ones of course!)
Then it was my turn!
OH's reaction (I'm assuming to the music starting) Love this photo.
As soon as I rounded the corner, I saw one of my uni friends I haven't seen for years, and instantly got emotional, so decided at that point to just concentrate on OH. As soon as I saw him, all my nerves disappeared. I was just happy, and kept my eyes on him. He looked very handsome in all black with his bright blue tie. Again, I was worried about that combination, but he looked so good, and I had no need to worry! My dad told me I was shaking as I was walking down, but I didn't notice that! When I got to him, his reaction was brilliant, as he has never seen me in make up, and I never do anything to my hair! lol.
We did our own vows, which I am so happy about, and there were so many laughs throughout the ceremony. I managed to keep it together though. I like that I have antlers here. Hehe.
When we started signing the register, we had Another One Bites the Dust by Queen playing, which had massive laughs from the guests. At the time I was wondering what everyone was laughing about, and then it clicked! When we signed the register, OH said I should wear make up more often!!! I'm not too sure how to take that, but he couldn't stop looking at me, which I would take as a compliment! As I'm half japanese, we did the peace sign sitting at the table for photos. (A very Japanese thing to do) Couldn't quite believe we were married at this point. It just seems so surreal.
Then the mingling and chatting and general relaxation as a married couple! We had bucks fizz waiting for us, but I hardly got a chance to drink it, as people were congratulating us right left and centre! We didn't want to do a receiving line, but I got cornered by everyone coming out of the venue to talk to me, while OH wandered off down the garden and let people come to him! Still, it was nice to talk to everyone! Could not stop smiling. We went off for a little photo-shoot, and I am SO happy with the couple shots of me and OH. I was grinning from ear to ear all day! Also, there were so many people who had made an effort with the Superman theme. OH's mums husband had a handkerchief in his pocket with the superman logo on, one of my work friends had a superman tie clip, and most of the men had a red yellow or blue tie! It was brilliant! I didn't ask them to do it, but it worked out so well anyway! My friend also made a great comparison between me and Superman (not my most favourite Superman, but still cool nonetheless. See below!
Me, OH, the photographers and videographer, climbed over a fence to get into a field to get some shots. Totally worth it!
The day was amazing. Everyone was just so happy. My dad, OH and the best man did a speech. My dads was so well thought out, and really good. He had some funny stories, and it got very emotional at the end. Everyone came up to me telling me how good my dads speech was. I felt a bit sorry for OH, as it was a tough act to follow, and he is quite nervous anyway, but he did me proud, and I love watching his speech back, and all the nice things he said. Best man's speech was brilliant, as we all thought it would be. He was winding OH up about it for months, but it wasn't too bad/embarrassing in the end!
We had a buffet BBQ for our meal, which looked fantastic, but I couldn't eat any of it! SO gutted about that, but thats just how I felt on the day unfortunately. It didn't stop me having a good time though, but our venue is closed to the public and only open for personal events, so I can't even go back to taste the food! 
Everyone else thought the food was fantastic though, so thats good! I had to go out twice with my mum and sister to loosen my dress, as its a corset back, and I started noticing the pain when I sat down! Second time round it was loosened enough, and I felt comfortable again. I only noticed once I sat down. It felt fine through the ceremony!
Something that my mum did for us, was to write everyones names in Japanese on the back of the place cards. I thought that was a nice touch. We had also made tiny origami cranes to sit on top of each place card as seen below.
Cutting the cake was a funny experience as we got through the first tier, and then the knife wouldn't go any further! I think the knife landed on one of the plastic things they use to hold the cake up! So our cake cutting is basically laughing photos, which makes for a different style of cake cutting picture!
Our cake was amazing! It was a Superman cake (obviously!) but the art work on it, was more than I could imagine! It tasted great as well. The venue cut half for the evening, and we took half home. We spent the next few weeks eating through large portions of cake! lol.
We then had our first dance, which was slightly embarrassing as we just moved around a little. Our wedding videographer did a fantastic job of making it look like we'd actually cheographed something, when in reality we'd just stood there and swayed a bit. I remember talking with OH saying, "what do we do? Everyone's watching us, hehehehe" etc. My mum later on said that it looked like we were saying loving words to each other! Hehe. We danced to Man and Wife by Michelle Featherstone.
Then everyone started partying! I had a great time. One of my favourite photos is actually of me, my dad and sister dancing to "Daddy Cool" We had talked about a father/daughter dance, which didn't happen, but we joked about playing "Daddy Cool" and my dad would come sauntering onto the dance floor, and we would point at him, and sing "Daddy, daddy cooool!" Later in the evening, I requested this song, and us three all danced together. My dad was at the bar at the time, but as soon as he realised what song it was, he came straight up!
I requested the Superman theme song from the movie to be played, as I get a bit emotional whenever I hear that song! Everyone came onto the dance floor, but no one really knew how to dance to it! So everyone just stood there pretending to fly! Haha! Still, wouldn't have changed it for the world!
My sister has no idea how she got into the middle of everyone! Haha!
So, I think thats about it! Sorry its so flash heavy! Just a few more for you all! And thank you for all the help, and advice, and for all YOUR reports and flashes, which I love to read and have a look at. Hope you enjoy this, as much as I enjoyed writing and re-living it.
Ooo! One other thing, that I nearly forgot! Me and OH had BOTH worn Superman underwear, without telling each other. Great surprise at the end of the night 
