A quick word from Emma: I just wanted to give a little introduction to this guest post.  We have been following Anna and the Ring for some weeks now.  Anna is getting married and has her blog is fantastic.  She is an amazing writer and her posts are full of original content and beautiful images.  We are so very pleased that she has written a guest post for us!   Here she is…

So when the lovely Emma said I could write a guest post for Electric Wedding I got rather excited! Oh what to write? What do you fabulous ladies want to read about? Hmm, well I’m a bride too so I guess I wanted to write about something that has been troubling me! At this moment in time it is thinking about wedding readings. For a girl whose brain is one of a scientist rather than a wordsmith this has been a long road with no appreciable end in sight!

Indeed, I cannot seem to get enough of reading different texts and verses.  I find myself buying obscure old second hand books in the hope of finding a gem. If you have ever tussled over a book long out of print with someone on eBay I imagine it was me! We are not having a religious ceremony so no ubiquitous Corinthians or Romans for us. Furthermore I am not interested in hearing my closest family read from Captain Corelli’s Mandolin or an anthology of Shakespeare. It’s just not very us. There is nothing wrong with such readings it is just they are rather too predictable. I do pride myself on being slightly unpredictable! I recall the scene in Wedding Crashers where they place bets upon which verse is to be read. (I sort of love that film, do not judge me harshly!)

We very much want my little brother to speak but he is yet to find love (being a boy having fun!) and so it seems incredibly weird to have he speak of love. Oh the fine line of finding a reading without it being wildly inappropriate. I would be happy with slightly inappropriate but if he suggests the opening lines of Terminator 2 one more time!* Grr. Bless his youthful exuberance. Yet this is a passing issue in comparison to vows.  However* *that is another post for another day! Although in my linguistic travels I have come across a few beauties.

The following is one of my favourites. It just seems to say what I want to say. If you have any trouble finding beautiful words for your service you should look no further than the wondrous Pablo Neruda. His work evokes such heartfelt emotions. Indeed I am rather worried that his work will become boringly mainstream and lose it magically quality. Whilst most of his work has been translated from the original Spanish I find that the words have lost little meaning and are amply able to bring me to tears. Is that not what poetry is all about?

What do you think? Sit back and enjoy. I would love to hear your ideas for your readings.

Sonnet XVII

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way than this: where I does not exist,
nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

*3 billion human lives ended on August 29th, 1997. The survivors of the nuclear fire called the war Judgment Day. They lived only to face a new nightmare: the war against the machines. The computer which controlled the machines, Skynet, sent two Terminators back through time. Their mission: to destroy the leader of the human resistance, John Connor, my son. The first Terminator was programmed to strike at me in the year 1984, before John was born. It failed. The second was set to strike at John himself when he was still a child. As before, the resistance was able to send a lone warrior, a protector for John. It was just a question of which one of them would reach him first.

Hello wedding lovers!

Today I am bringing you part two of Victoria and Jon.  In this post we are looking at their very lovely venue and recepetion!

Photos by Adam Smith photography.

Tor hunted high and low for the right venue (something that I think is a bit of a theme with most brides!)…
she says:

Me 1 week after I got engaged in a venue that can only be described as awful..
‘I love it lets get married here!’
My mom’s response? ‘Its filthy!’ (as she ran her hand over the doorframe).
My dad’s response was ‘but there is no aisle to walk down – and the room is like a funeral parlour’..
And my future husbands response was ‘It is quite clear you are giddy with excitement, have rose tinted glasses on and are not focused Victoria. I am taking over the venue search’.

It was true I was so excited I could not focus everything looked beautiful, oh what a fool!

‘I wanted a church, I wanted an old venue and I didn’t want to get married local in a venue everyone had been to before for a wedding! I had a problem I either got married in a local church and had to drive at least 45 minutes to a venue I liked, or I got married at the venue (but I wanted a church!).

I was going to Warwick for a hospital appointment and on the way Jon took me to see a venue ‘I might like’. Oh my god I loved it! He had done brilliantly he had found me a venue that had a chapel on site! the venue was Wroxhall Abbey. The chapel was small and dated back to the 18th century, the ‘mansion house’ was everything I wanted it was old but not stuffy, it had character but was subtle, and I think Jon will remind me for a long time how he was responsible for our beautiful venue, and if it was left to me we would have got married in the overpriced uncleaned venue!’

Victoria’s favourite moment of the day was walking down the aisle.She says..

‘Ironically this was the moment I was most nervous about, and really would have avoided given the choice. I was worried about everything, how I looked, what people would think, if I would cry, if I would fall over- but oh my god it was the best feeling in the world. It was so lovely seeing all my friends, and as it was only a small wedding I really did get to look over to them all.

I had spoken to Jon about how nervous I was and he told me, everyone who was there would want to see me enjoy walking down the aisle and see me smiling, and I would only ever get to do it once so I was to enjoy it! I just remembered that before I walked in and when Jon turned round and had a massive smile on his face all my nerves went, as I was so happy. It was also a lovely lovely moment with my dad, before we went into the church he was so nervous- he was really emotional and very proud. He had my share of the nerves too as I was fine – I think I walked him down the aisle!’

Victoria had a fairly small wedding and says that this was the most difficult part of her wedding planning process.

‘I was really worried that I would offend people because I couldn’t invite them all day which I found really hard. However, once I got stuck into organising the day, and realised the amount of effort, time and money I was putting into the day I realised that it was actually all about me and Jon for just one day and I couldn’t ask everyone.

I explained to my mom and dad that I was not inviting great aunts, 3rd cousins and the next door neighbours from years ago, as it was the year 2009 and things had progressed slightly since the days when parents paid for the whole wedding, and the wedding party consisted of mainly over 50’s, people you had not seen since you were 5 or wouldn’t see again until the next wedding! So I did it, I was brave and I may have offended a few family members by excluding them (and I did have a few stomach churning moments as the invites left my sweaty palms for the postbox), but it meant instead we got to ask our friends (who made up 70% of day guests). We invited 60 people to the day, which I think is a small number but invited (including day) 150 to the evening so we could party with everyone!’

Victoria says that she loved organising the reception as it was all about their favourite things… favourite flowers, music and food (they had fish and chips)! One of the things she enjoyed doing the most was a photo gallery that she put together…

‘I really really enjoyed putting together my photo gallery! I am obsessed with photos and I wanted to display as many as I could. I made four extremely large collages, 1 of me and 1 of Jon (childhood, teenage photos etc), 1 with me and Jon with all our friends and then 1 of me and Jon over the years. I displayed them so that everyone could see them as they walked into the room where the reception was held, and they went down so well, there was a queue at one point to see them! Everyone who was at the wedding was featured at least once and they got so many comments and laughs.

It was brilliant making it, it made me laugh, cry, get frustrated at times when surrounded by 100’s of pictures and it virtually took a year to complete but I have the 4 framed collages forever, and I am still not bored of looking at them!’

I have loved every minute of putting this post together and I think Victoria looks beautiful!
I hope you have enjoyed reading, I know I love reading about every single detail of other people’s weddings!

Thank you Tor and Jon for sharing your special day with Electric Wedding!

If anyone else would like their wedding featured then let us know, although as I have only just stopped crying looking at these wedding pictures you may have a tear soaked response! Awwww… I love LOVE!

love

Emma xxxxx

I have to say that I am absolutely loving every minute of sharing our wedding diaries with you all! What makes it even better is when I get to show you some of the gorgeous weddings my lucky friends have had!

Today I am bringing you part one of Victoria and Jon.

Reason I love this wedding: Tor knew what she wanted and stuck to her guns – she wanted a simple dress. And I reckon she did a pretty good job! Photography is by Adam Smith Photography.

Victoria and Jon first met in 1995 when Jon joined our school (Tor is my friend from school days!).  However it wasn’t until 2001 that fate brought them together when Victoria and Jon went on a group holiday and they realised they had a mutual love for the Goonies and SMTV, which they realised was very rare! 6 years later Jon popped the question and a very excited Tor set about planning her big day!

Victoria loved everything about planning her wedding. She says;

‘People used to joke I should get a clipboard and headpiece like Monica in Friends, if only they knew I used to think ‘that would be so good I would love that!’. I was so organised (with my spreadsheets, folder with dividers etc) I would spend most nights organising things into categories and generally making myself out to be the biggest saddo ever, my mom and sister said I was like a sergeant major with my general approach.  It was just so nice organising a day that was just about me and Jon!’

Victoria’s dress was by Paloma Blanca. Victoria told me that;

‘Every shop I went to had big dresses to choose from which were really lovely but just not me. Everytime I asked for ‘plain with absolutely nothing on it’ I was met with a blank impression, I love big dresses don’t get me wrong but they on me they looked all wrong. They just wore me rather than the other way round. I wanted to still look like me, and didnt want Jon to think ‘Is that you Victoria beneath the dress?’

I found my dress by chance as I was going back into the fitting room in another dress I didn’t like… it was fate the designer was Paloma Blanca and my dad always used to sing Una Paloma Blanca when I was little, so it just felt right!’

Awwwwwwwwww!

Victoria’s beautiful dress was set off with these beautiful white flowers from Amelia Littler.

I love this wedding!  I have been lucky enough to look through Tor’s disc to put together this post and I have to admit I cried all the way through it, she looks so happy.  Look out for part two later this week where we will show you the ceremony and reception (just as gorgeous)!

Love

Emma xx