Other people’s weddings

Firstly, my apologies for the lack of posting over the past week or so.  I have no excuse other than the fact that the UK appears to have developed a summer and I wanted to enjoy it.  Personally, I think that sitting in the park is a good enough excuse!

This weekend A Man and I attended C and P’s wedding and it was beautiful.  The ceremony was held in the chapel of Magdalen College, Oxford, where the three of us read law and was followed by a reception at the Four Pillars Hotel.  The weather held and it was sunny but not too hot and I attended my first ever ceilidh.

C and P in the gardens of the Four Pillars Hotel. C was stunning in a Pronovias Porto dress.

Annivers-i-date

As I said before, it was A Man and my anniversary on Friday and on Saturday we went for a fun date to Weymouth and Portland Bill.  And this time we came back with photos!  Twas a good good fun day and, following the epic 3 course meal I cooked on Friday night and all of the yummy food I ate on Saturday I basically couldn’t move come Saturday evening.  The weather was lovely and perfect for biking the hour or so over to Weymouth.

When we got there, we had some lunch, sat on the beach, did some shopping and ate an enormous cream tea at the Sandcastle Café

Those scones were huge! And yummy. And very good value.

I cooked A Man a 3 course meal in celebration of our anniversary last night. Here’s a run-down of what we had, via my cooking blog.

recipeforprocrastination

Hi there!

Yesterday was A Man and my anniversary.  It’s now 6 years since we’ve been engaged, and our wedding is finally less than a year away! As I had the day off and he was working I decided to cook a yummy 3 course dinner, complete with actually setting the table nicely, with a tablecloth.  I must admit to going a little over the top.  I bought fillet steak when rump would have done the trick, but the steak was short-date so substantially reduced.  There was also no need to make quite such an enormous dessert, but I’ve only got one spring-form tin and it’s that big.  It’ll hopefully get eaten during the week.

My menu was:

Starter Home-made duck liver parfait with a side salad and herb ciabatta toasts
Main Peppered fillet steak with baked potato wedges, tomatoes and flat mushrooms, served with a peppercorn sauce
Dessert Vanilla…

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Past, Present and Future…

Nine Years Ago Today…

I met A Man.  You’ve already heard about that story, so I won’t bore you with it again.

This Time Next Year…

I’ll (hopefully) just be waking up (or more likely have been up for 2 hours already!), ready to begin my day as a bride, about to marry my best friend; the man I love.  That’s kindof what this entire blog is about, so I won’t bore you with that either.

Six Years Ago Today…

A Man asked me to marry him.  That’s the story I’d like to bore you with.

Warning!  I have no photos from that day whatsoever!  I know, we’re rubbish.  It just never occurred to either of us that we might want some…

Beauty is only skin deep

Or so goes the old adage.  But let’s face it, we’re all a little bit on the vain side, and everyone wants to look their best on their wedding day.  Everyone will be looking at you (with good reason; you’re the reason they’re there!), hundreds of photos will likely be taken of you which will immortalise you however you look, and this is the day you are declaring your love for your other half; you want to look your best for him or her, don’t you?

I’m not exactly known for being particularly bothered about my appearance.  At school I was a fairly late bloomer in terms of fashion, makeup, and hairstyling, and it took me a while to find and be comfortable with my own sense of style.  I have a feeling it had quite a lot to do with my growing up with 3 brothers – I had no one to experiment with on all these things.  I was also (and still am) incredibly flat-chested, and had managed to convince myself that, as boys wouldn’t be interested in me, there was no point in making the effort for them.

A good example of me not caring a damn what I look like. In our tent during our European tour, 2008.

It’s got to be sneeze-free

Something important to know about me is that I am a walking disaster zone.  If something goes wrong, it will go wrong for me and I’ll end up on yet another medication or walking with crutches again.  The thing is that it’s never particularly dramatic.  I don’t break bones.  I’ve never had a really serious illness.  I have what I recently described to my dad as “a litany of minor medical fuck-ups”.

One of those minor medical issues is a variety of unreliable allergies; unreliable in that they’re usually fairly well controlled by antihistamines but just occasionally I’ll spend an entire day sneezing, my face will go bright red and my eyes will turn to jellied golf balls.  Definitely symptoms I do not want to be associating with my wedding day!  So I decided a little while ago that I didn’t want to use fresh flowers in my bouquet.  If something was likely to set me off, it would probably be the bunch of pollen-filled beauties sitting right under my nose.  One of my flower girls is unfortunately similarly afflicted with asthma and allergies, so I definitely don’t want to inflict it on her either.

The next question to ask is just what I plan to use instead.  Of course, artificial flowers are an option, but you have to swing the balance between the ones which look fake and the ones which cost a fortune.

Orchids are my absolute favourite flowers, but I don’t know whether we’ll be able to afford to incorporate them in the wedding 😦 Silk Orchid bouquet from weddingshopshropshire.co.uk.

The Search concludes with the acquisition of The Dress

I apologise for leaving you hanging after my last post 10 days ago.  I have since clumsily fallen off of my bicycle, been on holiday to France and spent a week doing lots of walking on a sprained ankle and talking French almost constantly.  I’m exhausted!  It was lovely to have a week with my parents, brothers and A Man and we certainly did an awful lot while we were there, but I wouldn’t exactly call it a relaxing holiday – I feel like I need some recovery time now I’m home!

No rest for the wicked though – I have to fill you in on my wedding planning escapades.

And the Search goes on…

Having mooched around Bath looking for dresses, I hadn’t found anything so another trip was necessary.  This time I left A Man at home to await delivery of our new sofa bed and went with Mum, ‘Aunt’ E and A Man’s mum K to look at dresses in Taunton.

The Search for The Dress

My search for ‘The Dress’ has ended, significantly earlier than it does for most brides.  What can I say; I’m ridiculously organised.  Before I start, there’s a necessary little note to keep away a certain someone…

A great body-image related post!

Heart's like crazy paving

If you know me much at all online, you’ll probably have seen I’ve been playing around with my look lately. I tend towards casual clothing, no make up, trainers. Well, that look remains. I don’t like make up much. I prefer casual dressing. But little hints have been creeping in.

For example, lace gloves (or imitation lace at any rate). I always liked them but never had the confidence to wear them. Same with elbow-length arm warmers, striped. Always striped.

I have a tunic/dress type top that is very short that I only recently acquired the confidence to wear with leggings instead of jeans.

Picked up a couple of flowery garland headdresses, and wear them. Not at the same time; I do have limits. Anyway they’re adorable.

Today I have Elflocks in my hair. They’re available on Etsy here and they’re my alternative to dying my hair. That’s one thing…

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