A long, long weekend.
Firstly, many thanks to many of you for all your good wishes. The wedding was about as good as it can get, and there will be many pictures for your delectation. This may take more than one post, however, as I want to try to get it all written for my own future reading, as well as for anyone with the stamina to get through it all here.
R had come home on Wednesday and we picked up her dress from the alterations lady on Thursday. F was due home early that evening, but a whole slew of things added to her to-do list made her late leaving London, even later to Brent Cross where she had to collect a set of suits for the groomsmen from Moss Bros, and very late indeed by the time she got here. One tired bride-to-be was fed, watered and put to bed.
On Friday we had to go to Leamington to collect the cake from M&S (yes, really. And it was very tasty.) F also had shopping to get done, and I needed to buy tights. These turned out to be the deeply annoying sort that only stay up if you wear an extra pair of knickers on top. Not what you want when you're dressing up posh.
We took the cake, plus the cheese cake (made of cheese, not a cheesecake.) and all our decorations to the Saxon Mill, to hand them over to the delightful Amy, events manager there and superb at her job. F had drawn a sketch of what she wanted, and Amy did us proud.
Eventually we were done and got back home, where I finally cleared all evidence of sewing away and ticked a few more things off my lists, ably assisted by R who organised bedding for house guests and Dave who made a chicken casserole. I then headed into town to have my nails and eyebrows done. Not hugely thrilled with the gel polish job on my nails, but at least they looked clean and shiny. I went straight from there to the church for the rehearsal. There had been a very nasty crash near J15 of the M1 earlier, so the Wales contingent was running late, but everyone did make it there and we walked through the paces and made various decisions about the precise details of the ceremony.
Home, then, now with bride, three bridesmaids and two young men. Another turned up soon after, and we fed them all on the aforementioned casserole, mountains of rice and fruit. Then they cleared the table and set to with a will, putting together the playlist of music for the reception, making, calligraphing (what? It's a word if I say so) and decorating the table plan and signs (each table named with a street in London one or both of them had lived in), and folding and stapling the orders of service. I was busy tweaking these, initially, then keeping an eye on the printer, feeding it sheets of the cream card we were using and taking printed sheets through to the work-gang in the dining room. It was lovely to listen to them all, working, chatting, singing along to music, generally having a lot of relaxed fun.
We did manage to get most folks to bed before midnight, though it was close in a couple of cases. Sleep descended on the house. At 3am insistent knocking on our door woke me up, however: R had been unable to sleep and noticed from her bedroom window that the interior light was on in F's car. (Their wedding present from my Mum. It's a Honda Jazz, and apparently they have notoriously small batteries.) We decided that the car keys would be in F's room, and that waking the bride at that time the night before the wedding was not an option. So R went back to bed and I, eventually, back to sleep.
Saturday morning was like the start of a holiday - you set lots of alarms but find you don't really need any of them. There was much squeeing and girls hugging "It's your wedding day!", and a remarkably orderly progression through the bathroom, while Dave heated croissants and made coffee downstairs. Then I took F and three bridesmaids to the hairdresser, where K's sister and her mother were waiting for us. It was very cold but sunny at that point.
F and I were "done" first, and I took her back home while the rest were finished. She got to work on the makeup, while I dressed and applied my own war-paint before returning to collect all four bridesmaids. Suddenly we were on the clock. The photographer was due to arrive at noon, by which point Dave and I were fully dressed and ready, but not the girls. We put out a range of light snacks - dips, blinis, paté, cheese straws, that sort of thing - so they could graze as they went, and they did all manage to have a little to eat, despite the excitement.
R was ready first, then there was much scurrying to lace F into her dress. The car arrived early, before anyone was ready, but the driver was very relaxed about it. It wasn't quite the car I'd booked, but still a 1929 Rolls, so nobody minded.
The bridesmaids left first, and I took a couple of photos of F in the house before I left too. I could have gone with the girls, which is semi-traditional, but we wanted to be able to get from church to reception under our own steam. Apparently F showed a few nerves when left alone with her dad - all morning she had been happy and excited, as she was for the rest of the day.
When I got to the church the bridesmaids were there of course. My brother had just dropped off my Mum and sister-in-law and found himself having to reverse down a very long avenue of trees to let the Rolls out.
You can just see him at the far end!
The girls looked stunning, but were very glad of their capes, which the hung onto till the last possible moment.
When F arrived I put the capes on a back pew and was escorted to my seat by a brother of the groom. We were ready to go.
My babies. How beautiful are they?
More tomorrow. Lots more pics in particular. Tired now...
R had come home on Wednesday and we picked up her dress from the alterations lady on Thursday. F was due home early that evening, but a whole slew of things added to her to-do list made her late leaving London, even later to Brent Cross where she had to collect a set of suits for the groomsmen from Moss Bros, and very late indeed by the time she got here. One tired bride-to-be was fed, watered and put to bed.
On Friday we had to go to Leamington to collect the cake from M&S (yes, really. And it was very tasty.) F also had shopping to get done, and I needed to buy tights. These turned out to be the deeply annoying sort that only stay up if you wear an extra pair of knickers on top. Not what you want when you're dressing up posh.
We took the cake, plus the cheese cake (made of cheese, not a cheesecake.) and all our decorations to the Saxon Mill, to hand them over to the delightful Amy, events manager there and superb at her job. F had drawn a sketch of what she wanted, and Amy did us proud.
Eventually we were done and got back home, where I finally cleared all evidence of sewing away and ticked a few more things off my lists, ably assisted by R who organised bedding for house guests and Dave who made a chicken casserole. I then headed into town to have my nails and eyebrows done. Not hugely thrilled with the gel polish job on my nails, but at least they looked clean and shiny. I went straight from there to the church for the rehearsal. There had been a very nasty crash near J15 of the M1 earlier, so the Wales contingent was running late, but everyone did make it there and we walked through the paces and made various decisions about the precise details of the ceremony.
Home, then, now with bride, three bridesmaids and two young men. Another turned up soon after, and we fed them all on the aforementioned casserole, mountains of rice and fruit. Then they cleared the table and set to with a will, putting together the playlist of music for the reception, making, calligraphing (what? It's a word if I say so) and decorating the table plan and signs (each table named with a street in London one or both of them had lived in), and folding and stapling the orders of service. I was busy tweaking these, initially, then keeping an eye on the printer, feeding it sheets of the cream card we were using and taking printed sheets through to the work-gang in the dining room. It was lovely to listen to them all, working, chatting, singing along to music, generally having a lot of relaxed fun.
We did manage to get most folks to bed before midnight, though it was close in a couple of cases. Sleep descended on the house. At 3am insistent knocking on our door woke me up, however: R had been unable to sleep and noticed from her bedroom window that the interior light was on in F's car. (Their wedding present from my Mum. It's a Honda Jazz, and apparently they have notoriously small batteries.) We decided that the car keys would be in F's room, and that waking the bride at that time the night before the wedding was not an option. So R went back to bed and I, eventually, back to sleep.
Saturday morning was like the start of a holiday - you set lots of alarms but find you don't really need any of them. There was much squeeing and girls hugging "It's your wedding day!", and a remarkably orderly progression through the bathroom, while Dave heated croissants and made coffee downstairs. Then I took F and three bridesmaids to the hairdresser, where K's sister and her mother were waiting for us. It was very cold but sunny at that point.
F and I were "done" first, and I took her back home while the rest were finished. She got to work on the makeup, while I dressed and applied my own war-paint before returning to collect all four bridesmaids. Suddenly we were on the clock. The photographer was due to arrive at noon, by which point Dave and I were fully dressed and ready, but not the girls. We put out a range of light snacks - dips, blinis, paté, cheese straws, that sort of thing - so they could graze as they went, and they did all manage to have a little to eat, despite the excitement.
R was ready first, then there was much scurrying to lace F into her dress. The car arrived early, before anyone was ready, but the driver was very relaxed about it. It wasn't quite the car I'd booked, but still a 1929 Rolls, so nobody minded.
The bridesmaids left first, and I took a couple of photos of F in the house before I left too. I could have gone with the girls, which is semi-traditional, but we wanted to be able to get from church to reception under our own steam. Apparently F showed a few nerves when left alone with her dad - all morning she had been happy and excited, as she was for the rest of the day.
When I got to the church the bridesmaids were there of course. My brother had just dropped off my Mum and sister-in-law and found himself having to reverse down a very long avenue of trees to let the Rolls out.
You can just see him at the far end!
The girls looked stunning, but were very glad of their capes, which the hung onto till the last possible moment.
When F arrived I put the capes on a back pew and was escorted to my seat by a brother of the groom. We were ready to go.
My babies. How beautiful are they?
More tomorrow. Lots more pics in particular. Tired now...