Hello Wednesday!

My favourite part of our wedding was the ceremony itself. We were lucky enough to get married in St John’s RC Cathedral in Norwich, which was a really beautiful venue.

Because it is so big, where we were standing was quite far in front of where all the guests were sitting, which meant that it really felt like we were the only ones in there at some points which was really nice (not that it was nice to feel like we didn’t have any guests but it didn’t feel as overwhelming!

We had 3 hyms, ‘Vow to Thee My Country’, which is my favourite, ‘Amazing Grace’, which was my Nanna and Poppa’s favourite (so it was nice to remember them with), and ‘How Great Though Art’, which was Matt’s Grandma’s favourite.

We had two readings. The first was our religious reading, which was a selection of several parts from ‘Song of Solomon’. This was read very beautifully by Charlotte (hurray!), as you can see in the picture above! The second was ‘Why Marriage’ by Mari Nicols Hanning. This was read by our friend Obi. We felt this summed up our reasons for wanting to get married perfectly. It reads:

Because to the depths of me, I long to love one person,
With all my heart, my soul, my mind, my body…

Because with this understanding
The possibilities are limitless.

Matt also read this as part of his speech later on, which was lovely.

Everyone said that we looked like we were having a really good time during the ceremony, but to be honest I think it was more we couldn’t help laugh, as several things went slightly askew… first the microphone cut out as we were walking down the aisle (it went boom quite loudly, I thought for one minute it was a sign, ha!), so a lot of people couldn’t quite hear us, which to be honest was just as well in one part, where Father James got my surname wrong! It was just like Four Weddings and a Funeral! Hahaha!

As I said my name right – we were all ok (although we did have to check with the registrar)!

Matthew also tripped over my veil when we walked up to do our vows – bless him, it was rather long, I think he got confused…

We then got all of Matthew’s younger cousins to do the bidding prayers, which was nice because it got them all involved in the ceremony.

We walked back up the aisle to ‘Here Comes the Sun’ by the Beatles (the organist played it for us, it sounded lovely).

I loved our ceremony – try and take it all in because it goes so fast! It is why you are there and the reason why all your friends and family are there too – there is no need to be nervous at all.

Next up – our part-ay!

Love

Emma xxx

Hello Bank holiday Monday!

Oh dear…writing this with a bit of a sore head this morning…we all went to Notting Hill Carnival yesterday! Still, onwards we go with my wedding story!

I wasn’t nervous at all about the wedding service itself – I was actually really looking forward to it! But I was REALLY nervous about walking down the aisle!

I had a whole vision of things that could go wrong. I could run out of music, or I could trip up, or I could go at the wrong time… would I cry… the list was endless! Plus as we were getting married in a cathedral, the aisle was REALLY long!

I loved the idea of it, but I was just really nervous at the thought of so many people looking at me (even though that’s the idea!).

It turns out, as with everything I worry about – there is no need to worry. When we arrived, we came through the doors (which open onto the aisle), and I could see all the guests down the bottom end, turning around to have a look. The thing is, the aisle was so long that at this point all they could see were our silhouettes, which I thought was quite cool.

We were all just standing there for what seemed like ages but what was probably only a few seconds – thinking, what do we do?! Do we go? None of us could remember from rehearsal what on earth we were supposed to be doing! Then Father James appeared – what a relief! – and told us all what we had to do.

We had a lovely archway of flowers that we all walked though – we walked down the aisle to the ‘Arrival of the Queen of Sheba’. Matthew is the worlds fastest walker, and as a result I now always walk really fast everywhere (otherwise with him I would get left behind ha!) – so it was really hard for me to not walk really fast and to slow down!

Luckily my dad was brilliant at this, even though there was a couple of times were I was practically dragging him along! Everyone said after how nice it was that we didn’t leg it down the aisle, as it gave them time to see us!

I can’t remember seeing any specific faces because there seemed to be so many – but I do remember seeing Matt at the end and feeling very happy

I didn’t fall over (not that it would have mattered), I didn’t run out of music and I didn’t get lost. All the worrying for nothing. It is one of the nicest parts of the day and you are only going to do it once, so just ENJOY it, and remember how excited everyone is to see you!

Love

Emma xx

Friday Friday hurray for Friday…

All is good this weekend! It’s Bank Holiday (long exclamation of yesssssssssssss) – I’m having a date night tonight with my husband of 5 weeks and then we are all off to Notting Hill Carnival this weekend. It’s par-tay time.

So we are now up to the bit where I went to the church. So at this point I have already mentioned that we were all in a massive panic.. half an hour late and practically glugging champagne from the bottle. We miraculously made up our lost time at this point, and the cars arrived and we all trooped downstairs.

It took a while to troop, because my hotel room was about 3 miles from reception. We had two cars, both were vintage morris minors from the 1960’s, the girls went in a red one called Ruby and I went in a white one called Molly.

I have to say that at this point I was still absolutely bricking it about walking down the aisle. The aisle as you will soon see was very long. However at this point, when we got in the car, my Dad said ‘There is nothing you can do now about anything that could go wrong, you can just sit and relax now about it all’ and I thought ‘good point!’.

I have to say (and a lot of people have said this to me so I know it must be true!) – I was very calm at this point and not at all nervous! Apart from the aisle bit, I felt pretty laid back! I thought I would be on the verge of a nervous wreck but I wasn’t at all. So for all you brides to be, look forward to this bit because it really is FUN!

We had now gone from being late to early (only us), so we had to drive around for a bit. It was well cool seeing people walking up to the church to go to the wedding as I went past! So when we arrived we were right on time.

Here is me and my Dad. He was pretty calm too, and he is the real life version of Basil Fawlty!

We had a really lovely moment when we arrived where we all stood and posed for the below photo, and Isabella our little flower girl was holding onto Rachael’s hand. Sophie stood and said ’smile’ to us all, and suddenly from out of nowhere we heard this little voice go ‘CHEEEESE!’ and we all looked down and Iz was repeating ‘cheese’ over and over again as Sophie took the pictures! It was so cute – her Mum must have told her to always say ‘cheese’!

So… at last…we were all here and assembled and ready to go in, so we opened the doors and off we went….

More on Sunday!

Love

Emma

Hello Wednesday!

Now, I am going to spend a whole post today just on one little area. And that is bridesmaids! I looked everywhere for bridesmaid dresses I liked for my wedding. And as any of you who read my previous post on the subject will know, it wasn’t without its drama’s!

Yes indeed – I hunted high and low, and when I finally found the dress I liked – the shop assistant called me the day before (yep, the day before) to cancel it (having waited 5 weeks) because they no longer stocked the dress. Step forward my friend Greenwood, who saved me from a bridal rage I never thought there was! G-wood drove me to Brent Cross, where she walked up and down the aisle of the changing room, trying on dresses for me!

My girls dresses were from Monsoon and I loved them! They looked so pretty with the flowers, they all looked so beautiful and colourful! I loved it! My bridesmaids were my friends Cazza and Rachael, my sister Helen and my Maid of Honour Alex.

They all also had flowers in their hair (flowers from Libby Ferris) which looked so pretty!

As a present I got them all a little silver necklace which said ‘Love’, which they all wore on the day. Below is me, my sister and my mum! Look how lovely my mum looks! Her outfit is from Jaques Vert.

Now I also can’t let this post go by without mentioning a very special little person! My oldest friend Lizzie’s little girl Isabella. Miss Isabella is almost 3, and she was my flower girl!

She pretty much stole the show.

She wore a bright pink fairy dress with wings from Lucy Locket, and instead of flowers carried a butterfly wand. She had a halo of flowers in her hair and wore little gold sandals from Monsoon. She looked gorgeous against the sea green bridesmaid dresses!

Here she is posing like a true superstar!

Matt, his dad, my dad, and the best man Tom all wore candy coloured striped ties. His groomsman who were our friends Jonny and Andy plus his four brothers Tom, Jona, Lolly and Seb all wore the same tie but polka dotted. Here is my favourite picture!

Hope you liked!

Love

Emmaxxx

Hey wedding lovers!

So while I am still on the getting ready bit of my big day – I thought I would do a little post on what I wore.

So, my dress as I have mentioned before was from Claire Pettibone (Lucia). I got it from Blackburn Bridal Couture in Blackheath in London. You must all go there as Russell and Mandi are fabulous. I’m taking Charlotte!

My dress had a detachable train which was great for the Cathedral but then it came off for the party!

My flowers were from Libby Ferris. I had seen a cover of Cosmo bride with loads of candy coloured roses on it, and I took that in to show her!

I had pink, dark pink, pale yellow, white and a sort of burnt purple roses and the girls had the same but mixed with peonies and just in the pinks.

My something old was a little six pence that the lovely people at the car company gave me, which my dad drilled a little hole in and we tied a blue ribbon through and tied it round my bouquet.

My something borrowed was my mums pearl earrings and my something new was my dress!

My underwear was from Rigby & Pellar – see previous posts where I rave for ages about how great they were!

I did all my own make up, I loved doing it. I had a half hour on my own just sitting there with all my nice new stuff from NARS and Dior and MAC and had a lovely time!

I din’t have a specific colour scheme, I just wanted it all to be as colourful as possible, because it is summer and that’s what summer is about!

My shoes were from Rachel Simpson, I looked for everywhere to find a nice pair of gold sandals and these were perfect. I have to admit though that I changed into a pair of white flip flops from topshop after the dinner!

My jewellery was from Yarwood White, I think the necklace went with the dress perfectly and everyone asked where it was from, they thought it was vintage. My mum got it me for my birthday!

Hope you like!

Love

Emma xx

Hurray Hurray it’s Fri-day…

My wedding tale continues – and today I am all about the hair! All photos by Sophie Laslett (except the first pic which is by my mum).

I was insanely lucky with this. My hairdresser Stuart has done my hair for AGES (since I lived in the Midlands), and I still go back every few weeks to have it done with him. No one in London has ever come close. So not only was I lucky enough that he did my hair (and all the girls and my mum) on the big day, but he came to the wedding too.

When I went up to have my hair trial, I said I wanted to look like a ‘boho Cheryl Cole with a bit of Jennifer Anniston thrown in’. And within half an hour he had done it. No faffing, half an hour and we had it sorted.

I had a little plait across the front (like a picture of Jennifer Anniston I had seen at the Oscars haha) and then he made it all bouffy at the back – back combing it and curling it. I loved it. I added in a couple of lovely little hairclips from Yarwood White and it looked fab.

I will say however that the morning was not without its drama’s… poor Stuart was half an hour late because the hotel car park was in an impossible location that was only slightly harder to find than the holy grail itself… so this led on to a chain of events where all the girls hair was running late too, and so when the flowers/cars/Sophie turned up it was utter chaos, with no one ready and me downstairs in full regalia sorting out room changes and photographs!

So…. make sure you allocate a bridesmaid per thing thats turning up. They can’t help if they don’t understand what is going on and all you can do is stand there looking terrified! So one for flowers, one for cars etc etc. that way everyone is waiting for their own job, and it is easier to control.

Also, and this is REALLY important MAKE SURE EVERY ONE KEEPS THEIR PHONES WITH THEM (including you as I lost mine almost immediately and didn’t find it until the next day) – at one point it was me and Sophie upstairs in my room (which was lovely because I got some nice pics), but no one else! And I couldn’t find anyone! And for some random twist of fate, my room was about a 3 mile walk from reception… which didn’t help!

Anyway. The good news was suddenly everyone turned up at once, including Stuart, to put on my veil. My veil was MASSIVE. My dress was not big, and because I was getting married in such a big venue I needed to add a bit of drama. So I added the biggest veil ever!

This picture makes me laugh – here is Stuart hair spraying my veil up – Mandi from Blackburn Bridal said if I hair sprayed it up then it would stay all bouffy – so here we are in an action hairspray shot!

Note how Cazza is opening Champers. This is EXTREMELY important. My poor mum had bought champagne and orange juice but when all the chaos began we didn’t open it… at the point of hairspraying the massive veil I had gone beyond orange juice and had cracked straight on to practically swigging it out the bottle. Good times…

Another big tip… If, like me you are having ’super-veil’, then make sure someone is on hand to supervise it. By this I mean pick it up.

Alex my MOH did a sterling job until I went out to have my photo taken with the cars after the ceremony… it had rained while we were inside and I trailed it all over the floor and the end got all wet… which made it heavy! She was not impressed I had gone without telling her! This meant that she then had to pick up 1.a wet veil and 2. constantly stop it from going anywhere near my dress!

So always tell your MOH where you are going if it’s wet

Anyway, after half an hour of chaos (including 10 minutes where my mum lost the pin off her flowers – my poor mum, it really was a constant flow of things happening!), everyone was ready, back on time and back on track!

And then we all had a nice glass of champagne.

Then we were ready to start the 3 mile trek down the stairs to leave for the church! Stay tuned….

Love

Emma xxx

Hello Wednesday!

Okey dokey, so…. grand drum roll please…. pictures are back, and here we go – my wedding!  I am still a little bit in awe of how good Sophie’s pics are – she is wedding genius beyond compare!

So I thought I would start with a few pics of me and my very handsome groom… because although it is easy to get tied up in all the details, really it’s all about the two of you, being together, and getting married. To quote my favourite song, in the words of the great Beatles – all you need is love. Yes indeedy! So here we go..

All photography is by Sophie Laslett..

My dress is from Claire Pettibone from Blackburn Bridal Couture, Matthew’s suit is from Reiss.  My necklace is from Yarwood White (so are my hair clips), and I borrowed my mum’s pearl earrings.

I loved my dress (it had a train that came off so it was easy to party in later), which I wore with a big veil in the church, and everyone looked so lovely on the day!

I will fill you in on the rest later on this week. Hope you liked!

Love

Emma

Ahhh Monday, here again!

So, onto the night before the wedding…

The night before the wedding all of team bride went out in Norwich for dinner – me, my mum and dad, my grandpa and my 4 bridesmaids (my sister, Alex, Cazza and Rachael).

It was really nice to have a fairly chilled out night before the next day (although we had to be careful not to drink much)!

Anyway, the reason I am writing about this, is because half way through the dinner, the girls gave me a present which was so fabulous I have to tell you all about it!

They gave me a big red photo album, a ‘This is your life’ book, and inside they had filled it with photographs of all the different points of my life! They had gone round everyone at the hen party and asked them all to send in photos they had of me, and also got them all to write a little message to me. Then Alex put them altogether in a book. So I had this lovely book full of photos right from when I was born, all the way up to now. They had even put in a picture of my cat Louis!

Us at dinner with the book