The Questeds!!

Final wedding before ours is The Questeds! All our weddings this year have been completely different to each other, which is a good thing, and this one is certainly the most different. It is a camping based humanist ceremony in a meadow! Completely as we expected! We took the van to sleep in. Others had either hired tipi's or bought tents with them. The weather forecast was shocking for the Friday and Sunday and it did batter in down all day on both but Saturday was lovely. Luckily the ground was so dry it didn't turn muddy and we were able to wear our outfits without wellies!!

The giant tipi's looked great for the wedding breakfast and bar, dance floor area. The ceremony itself was outside in the meadow area. There was a bouncy castle and a range of garden games, I think the bouncy castle was a little too much for some if they had too many reception drinks!

The day again was lovely as all weddings are regardless of the type of wedding it is. We learnt today that we have now been to a wedding that had already ended in a separation, so sad. Fingers crossed no more do!

I'm glad we stayed in the van as waking up to the sound of rain on a roof is more comforting when hung over than if we were in a tent! We left the newly weds packing up the site with their families, but a great day was had by all, congrats to The Questeds!

So just over a month til our wedding! Very exciting, we are now on countdown!

The Youngers!!

Today we are off to Marlborough, a place I understand to be very posh! And very posh it was! The venue for Chris and Kate's wedding was stunning, a stately home with stables, lots of ground, a very large pond, a fancy garden I could go on. The outside area was set up for the wedding and the weather was stunning. It was the first wedding we have been to that had a friend officiate the ceremony and he was fab with personal stories and jokes throughout.

The canopes were amazing, I think we ate our weight in canopes to be honest, probably a good thing the meal was lighter with cous cous, chicken and salad. We obviously had drama at our table as one of his uni friends was beyond drunk (on the reception drinks mainly prosecco) and dropped the entire bottle of sparkling water...that smashed all over the table...glass and water everywhere! Luckily we'd all finished our meals!! I was just thankful I wasn't the most drunk person as being a lightweight I normally am!!

The speeches were great, a lot of people on Kate's side saying they were looking forward to them moving to Australia and a lot of people on Chris' side hoping it wasn't going to happen too soon!

This was also our first wedding that had a cheese wedding cake, it looked great and I guess it's definitely a way to use all the cake on the day as it was cut up for the evening buffet. Shame I didn't get a picture really.

There were a lot of firsts at this wedding as it was also the first bouquet we'd seen thrown and the first garter to be removed!! Hmmm.

We had a great time! Dancing, laughing at the drunk guy that got progressively worse after the meal! We headed back to our room at a pub in Marlborough that had all their rooms themed. Ours was the King John room, wooden bed, regal in decor, big fire place. But being an old pub the floors were all wonky! You felt drunk as soon as you walked in before drinking a thing!

Anyway another great occasion celebrated today - congratulations the The Youngers!

The Elliott's!!

First wedding of the year, The Elliott's!! Lovely day, especially as the visitors from across the pond were here to share the day too. The weather was good for the time of year but churches are cold! The meal was delicious and the pud was especially yummy!

As with all weddings the day flies by! Before we knew it they were cutting their half traditional, half Arsenal themed cake, the first dance happened and we were boogieing on the dance floor, with a cone of popcorn for the popcorn cart!

This was one of the few weddings we've been to where we were able to get a taxi home which was nice for a change.

Before the Americans left to explore other parts of Europe before flying back we had a last lunch which surprisingly not many people were suffering at, well one person was late and then proceeded to order the biggest thing on the menu! Needless to say it didn't get finished.

So all in all it was a great wedding weekend and The Elliott's I'm sure had a great time!

Save the date!!

We've booked the wedding!!! After searching many venues and visiting on open days and checking dates that were not too far away we have settled on Park Farmhouse Hotel which has a stunning barn for us to have the ceremony and evening reception in and pig sties for the wedding breakfast. We did see a lovely venue but if the weather is rubbish then there was very little inside space to use so we thought we'd go for the barn option as inside looks great and outside it is surrounded by fields that look great - and the racetrack!

So now it's time for people to save the date and us to get into gear and start looking for everything we need so signing off for now (mainly as we won't be doing much due to the lack of funds to now pay for said wedding) but be assured post wedding ala Arnie - I'll be back!

Wedding 3 - The Crossland's

Wedding 3 was The Crosslands - Tom and Claire. This was the wedding where Daniel was best man and of course he did a fab job. Everyone commented on how good his speech was, clean but funny. Needless to say it was another lovely wedding. The meal this time was a nice change of soup, sausage and mash and cheese cake and the theme was cartoon couples. I was sitting on Fred and Wilma with Zara and the ushers and the little table treat was a very nice looking cupcake - I've not eaten it yet though.

Just like any wedding where you are there for the whole day, it is a very long day! Too much wine was flowing and as probably guessed I had a very sore head the following day...and the following day after that!

Here's the happy couple and our table treat!

Wedding 2 - The McNaughton's

Wedding 2 saw us driving down to Essex for the marriage of Vicki my flatmate from Uni and her hubby to be James. The weather was not looking good for their special day as we drove through rain shower after rain shower and torrential down pours! When we arrived at the venue, which seemed like it was in the middle of nowhere, it began to rain...again. In went all the guests as quickly as possible but poor Vicki was sat in the car waiting for it to ease before getting out so the bride was fashionably late!

The venue was stunning, a converted barn whose only purpose is weddings. The outside was set up for the ceremony as well as inside but unfortunately the rain was so heavy it had to be inside. We sat down thinking well we don't really know anyone here, except the ladies I've met before or on the hen do then a little voice from behind started calling me. I turned around not sure who it was then the penny dropped and I realised it was our other flat mate from uni's brother! Long time no see!!

Luckily the weather broke and the sun came out for the photo's outside and only started raining again when we went in for the meal. Our table was guessing at what the meal was, Daniel hit the nail on the head with chicken in bacon, which was the same as Lesley's wedding. Standard wedding meal I guess. It was lovely though, and the pate for starter's and trio of desserts were yum. As were the canapes we got during the drinks reception prior to the meal. Very good wedding venue but I guess if that is all you do you do it very well indeed!

This time the theme was snowboarding! Tables were named after ski resorts they had been to, the top table was where they were going on thier honeymoon and the cake was a mountain with them at the top! Very cool! Our little table treat this time was a little different as they were flower pots with seeds and a little poem to remember thier day, very cute, we need to plant ours now.

So here is the happy couple and the mountain cake!

Vicki's Hen Do - Cardiff

It has been an extremely busy time of late at school and at the weekends as we are trying to sort the house out but this weekend is reserved for Vicki's hen do in Cardiff. When everything has been so busy Cardiff seemed so far to go but actually from Derby it was a straight train and took 3 hours, I was there way before everybody else! Luckily the hotel let me check in to one of the room as I was getting harassed by some drunken men in reception - I think the hotel took pity on me!

When everyone else did turn up and we established that our rooms were actually above a night club - not a few floors above but directly above it, needless to say a few peeps were not too pleased but we got ready and headed out for a Chinese. A few of us thought after the Chinese we'd go into town to get some drinks then ended up in the casino. Not that I gambled, but I now have membership to Gala casinos!! It was funny really watching hard core gamblers bet on every number on the roulette wheel on the off chance they would win. In the end they actually must have been losing out as although they won on one number they put so many chips down they must have been out of pocket! One guy gave us a chip so we placed our bets on the off chance to win Vicki some cash - we did about £45!

Luckily we arrived back at the hotel after the night club closed as apparently the entire room vibrates when the music plays! So we got some sleep then up at a reasonable hour for breakfast then some went off to the spa but we went into town shopping. The shopping area in Cardiff is awesome, it's massive, we got lost several times! Thinking we were on the right road to get back, in the tipping rain, turned out we were on an identical street to the one we started on! Made it back eventually in time to get ready for our murder mystery night!

Vicki had no clue, she donned her gold dress and wondered why I was dressed in double denim, and others were in tennis gear, black dresses etc. She soon discovered that everyone was dressed as a different celebrity for the murder mystery and she was none other than Paris Hilton!

It was a good night, we all had scripts and parts to play. There was some chasing done by some celebs and a little bit of scrapping too. It was a good evening. We decided to go to the nightclub that vibrates our room to check out the scene...hmmm shouldn't really have bothered. The clientele were oldish or weird, though we were dressed in our fancy dress still!! We just went to the bar, some people got changed and went back into town but we didn't see the point.

The weekend flew by, though little sleep was had it was a fab time, only a couple of days and its down to Croydon for Lesley's wedding! No rest for the wicked though then it is holiday!!!!