Taking a very very brief respite from the world travels to document something a ‘little’ important to me – our WEDDING!
Yeap after 11 and a half years the small furry one decided to make the best / worst decision of his life and ask me to be his wife.
The proposal happened on Feb 16th (super romantic, top of the Shard in London) and we spent every hour of every month for several years planning it in meticulous detail…
Just kidding, we got married just over three months later, on the same day as the Royals…. somehow we managed to snag a cancellation at Bakewell registry office!!
It was a small, quick and cheap do as neither of us are big white wedding fans and quite frankly the cost of weddings these days is an almighty mickey take!
Once the word wedding is used you can literally see pound signs in people’s eyes. So most stuff was sourced via the wonder that is the internet! Including this lovely confetti made from lavender and rose petals, the smell was divine.
Being a little bit crafty I like making things myself including this upcycled photo frame found in a local charity shop.
So . . my wedding dress was off Ebay – £50 of your English pounds for a Chi Chi gold lace tea dress, easily the prettiest and most girly item I have ever owned . . The man wore a navy suit that he already owned.
The dress was made a little more personal by adding a wide grey satin ribbon and pretty pearl and diamante patch again from Ebay.
Below are my bargain Ebay shoes with possibly the best things ever – clip on ‘shoe earrings’ from China that can be removed and added to other footwear – £2.99 per clip. Gotta love internet shopping!
The shiny earrings I have had knocking around for years, I think they were from Accessorise many moons ago.
Also below is our cute little engraved ring box – bargain of the century as when it arrived there was a tiny crack in the lid so I got a complete refund and got to keep the box! Bonus!
The little gold clutch bag was a steal from the British Heart Foundation for £2.99.
I made all the ladies corsages from individual silk roses from a local florists – Robert Young’s in Matlock and wrapped the stems with charcoal grey ribbon.
I am rather proud of them so enjoy lots and lots and lots of similar pics of them!
And a few more… complete with little pale blue name tags, designed online with the marvellous Canva design app and sneakily printed off for free . . . then tied with hessian string from The Range.
The bridesmaids bouquets were made from artificial silk flowers from Home Bargains and cost a mere £2.99 per bunch.
Again wrapped in charcoal grey, satin ribbon and finished with little lace ribbons. All from a local haberdashery shop.
My bouquet (which I am super proud of) was made by my own fair hands (with no prior floristry practice) from silk flowers from The Range and came in at around £20 in total.
The Bride and Groom coat hanger decals were a bargain Ebay buy (trend emerging here!) that were 99p each.
Basically I stole lots of ideas off Pinterest and made them much cheaper myself……..
A sparkly pearl and diamante headband (from China naturally) for £6 finished off my cheapo bridal get up and I have to say, I am pretty chuffed with the results.
Own makeup done and dusted I wait for the car to come get me. (With a little boogie to Billy Idol’s ode to White Weddings naturally)
Originally I was just going to drive myself but I got treated to a swanky Range Rover Sport complete with wedding ribbons, thanks to a friend of my new sister in law 🙂
So I got the full bridal experience after all… still not very elegant though I am afraid . . .
At 10.30am we rocked up at Bakewell Registry Office – not the most attractive of buildings but given that we were lucky to have stunning weather, we could get most of our snaps outside in the pretty market town by the river.
We kept the wedding party small – 16 people in total (which was about 13 people too many for my crowd phobic husband)
Here are a few informal phone snaps taken in the sensory garden by the river. I was incredibly lucky to have my very talented friend take the official pictures and I can’t wait to see those soon!
The large silver helium balloons were a last minute addition, grabbed the day before from Hobby Craft and amusingly transported home in my tiny car. Where obviously they refused to remain tethered and floated up to obscure my rear view mirror.
This coupled with the fact that, after biting my nails to the quick for the past 25 years, I decided to get full on fake nails for the do, created endless problems as I was basically unable to function in any way shape or form with the acrylic talons on . .
However I did feel very princessy for the day, which is a nice feeling, although not one I would want to do too often!
Following lots of snaps we head for some proper pub grub at The Gate, in Tansley. None of your insipid melon balls and tiny portions for us.
Nope people got to have whatever they wanted, whether it was a mixed grill or a burger and chips. Much better to actually have a choice of what you want!
I’d also made my own favours to pop on the pub table (thanks to Pinspiration! and Hobby Craft . . )
Even though I had not let on that it was a wedding (again, penny pinching) my wonderful sister in law had stepped in and arranged for the table to be decorated with balloons and confetti, again giving me the little wedding touches.
All in all it was a perfect day for us, laid back, informal, small and inexpensive.
Not everyone’s cup of tea and certainly not for anyone who has dreamt of, and planned her wedding day in meticulous detail for her whole life.
But I’d far rather save those thousands of pounds that get spent on the pointless stuff to fund our ongoing world adventures. Luckily we’re both firmly on the same page with what matters to us.
We’re not young, hopeless romantics that believe marriage is the be all and end all, or that it is a saving grace. In the end we just knew that the time was right for us. Not when other people thought we should do it, not because society told us we should, but because we wanted to.
That’s why the readings we chose reflect our attitude to love, life and commitment, knowing that it is not the superficial fluff, the staggeringly expensive ring, the big white wedding, the 100 head sit down dinner or the staged first dance. None of that is us.
“Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your root was so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part.
“Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. that is just being in love, which any fool can do.
“Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.
“Those that truly love have roots that grow towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms have fallen from their branches, they find that they are one tree and not two.”
And here it is – proof that we are now officially married and all grown up or something like that..
Scaffolding, Seamus Heaney.
Masons, when they start upon a building,
Are careful to test out the scaffolding;
Make sure that planks won’t slip at busy points,
Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.
And yet all this comes down when the job’s done
Showing off walls of sure and solid stone.
So if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be
Old bridges breaking between you and me
Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall
Confident that we have built our wall.