Sheonaidh & Richard - Wedding report 621 views

Sheonaidh & Richard
29 September 2007
2pm, Fountains Hall, Fountains Abbey
Followed by a reception at Harrogate Golf Club


My Wedding Report

My report starts with a near disaster. We were leaving London to head up to Yorkshire for the wedding. The car was loaded, I’d ticked everything to pack off my list. We were ready to go. Or so we thought. Then I remembered I meant to take a little handbag with me to put my makeup in for the day. I ran back to get it, opened the wardrobe and saw the one bridesmaid dress I was meant to take up staring back at me. I NEARLY FORGOT THE BRIDESMAID DRESS! If it hadn’t been for the handbag I would have had one very upset bridesmaid in jeans.

Luckily the day itself went much more smoothly. I woke up on the Saturday and it just didn’t feel real. I was floating around in a weird state where I was kind of nervous but mostly just not connecting with the thought that in a few hours I was getting married. I decided to go to the hairdresser by myself, so I could stay calm. The hairdresser I’d chosen didn’t actually know it was my wedding day, I was only having a blowdry, so when she asked what I was doing that day she looked a little surprised. I sat there doing what every bride does on her wedding morning, worried about the weather! It was grey, overcast and windy, it was not looking good. But it wasn’t actually raining so I decided that was at least something, given the awful weather we’d had all summer.

Back to the house and my friend arrived to do my make up at 11am, we cracked open the Bucks Fizz, I still didn’t believe I was getting married!

But suddenly the house was filling with people, the photographer Sally arrived and all the bridesmaids. They all got to sit around and watch me have my make up done while they drank the Bucks Fizz and compared shoes. Then things got even more chaotic as the flowers arrived. This was the moment I’d been worried about. I had told the florist the flowers I’d wanted and the shape, but I really didn’t know what they were going to look like and she’d suggested some extra bits as well. I’d also gone for different flowers for me, the Maid of Honour and the Bridesmaids, I’d been so worried I wouldn’t like them but they were perfect and having the different bouquets for the Maid of Honour and Bridesmaids worked really well.

Soon after the flowers arrived so did the Groom and the Best Man. They were the only ones able to come by and pick up the button holes and corsages for the wedding party, and the seating plan for the reception. I hid in the kitchen while they collected everything. The Best Man drives a Ferrari and I’m told their onward journey with the big box of flowers and an A2 seating plan was not hugely comfortable. The things men do for love!

Next came getting into the dress.

Last time I’d tried it on I’d ended up in tears, convinced I looked dreadful. This is quite common among all the brides I’ve spoken to, so if it happens to you, don’t panic! Once I’d been secured in the dress, with my hair and make up done and my jewellery all in place I couldn’t believe it was me. I looked and felt more beautiful than I ever have before, so it all worked out in the end! Then came the dilemma. The week had turned very cold and in a panic I’d bought a fake fur shrug, which only arrived the day before, just in case the day was gloomy. I also had the veil I’d originally meant to wear. Which to go for? The weather was looking a bit better the consensus was to wear the veil and have the shrug for later, But I still hadn’t tried the shrug on with the dress. I figured I’d better check the shrug looked ok if I was going to wear it later so I tried that on. Well, as soon as I put it on I knew I had to wear it. It was just the perfect finish to the dress, I felt like a movie star in it!

I then stood around in the living room waiting for the bridesmaids to get ready, didn’t want to sit down and crush the dress, didn’t want to walk about in case it got messy. I then got to do another panic I think is common to all brides. Where are the cars, and why is nobody else ready! Luckily before I got to Bridezilla like the Best Man called to let me know everything was ok at the venues and the coach had delivered all our guests to the Abbey with plenty of time (apparently they all sat in the café and had a cup of tea while they were waiting!). He also said they’d passed our cars on the way to the venue so I knew they were on the way. They eventually arrived at 1pm, but they got me there at the perfect time so they obviously knew what they were doing.

The next crisis of the day came when I went to get into the cars. I went outside and there was a big moving of cars so everyone could go in the right order. What none of us had realised was that a huge swarm of little black flies (like green fly only black) had congregated outside my brother’s house. They all decided they loved my shining cream dress and promptly covered me! I had bugs everywhere, in the shrug, over the dress, everywhere! I was terrified I’d squish them and have bug blood all over my dress. I had to dive into the bridal car for sanctuary while all the other cars moved away and pray that I wasn’t sitting on any bugs that would leave marks all over my bum.

It was about now the nerves started to set in. The drive from my brother’s house to Fountains Abbey is about 30 minutes. I sat in the car thinking about the vows I was about to make and how happy I was to be doing it, but also how scary it all was. Fortunately distraction was provided by the worry that my vintage Bentley was not really built for the Yorkshire hills. There were times I was convinced it was going to give up and we’d end up rolling down the hills it was bravely attempting to crawl up. We made it though, and suddenly I was at the venue. There was time for a few photos and brief words with my mum who was waiting outside.

Then I was whisked upstairs to speak to the registrar, I have no idea what she said to me as at this point the reality of what was happening had finally sunk in! I was so nervous all of a sudden! I had to check spellings and details on the registrar, but to be honest they could have called me Queen Elizabeth and I doubt I would have noticed! When it was all over and the registrar had gone back to the ceremony room it was time to make my entrance. Dusty Springfield was singing What are you doing the rest of your life and everyone was waiting. I hadn’t practiced this and I’m sure I went a bit too quickly. It was just wonderful walking up the aisle with my dad and seeing Richard waiting there for me and all my friends & family watching.

The ceremony is a bit of a blur! My right leg was shaking so much that I thought I was going to have to ask for a chair as I felt I might collapse. But somehow I stayed standing. Possibly helped my Richard breaking the tension! He was so nervous that when he was saying his vows he stumbled over my names and ended up calling me Shamona! I didn’t think I was going to stop laughing to say my own vows!

The ceremony was lovely, the readings were perfect and it was just overwhelming looking at Richard and making the vows and hearing him make his. http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2387/1661536904_47f74adbf8.jpg I would love to do it again only in slow motion so I can savour every moment. This bit really does go so quickly so I advise all you brides to be to stop and look around. The moment when the Registrar pronounced us husband and wife and we kissed was absolutely the happiest moment of my life so far.

I couldn’t believe that we’d finally got to this point, all the planning, all the dreaming was over. We were married. We said our vows and then came the signing of the register. We did it once for real and then posed with a blank register and a pen with no ink for the photos.

Grinning like idiots, we headed outside for the champagne reception.

The weather had warmed up a little so we could have it outside as planned, with all the tourists peering at us! Managed to get a few glasses of champagne and then headed over to the Abbey itself for more pictures. At this point some elderly tourists were heard to remark that it was a terrible shame none of my bridesmaids were holding my train as it would get awfully dirty. But if they had I would have missed out on these gorgeous pictures!

The photos took up the rest of our time at the Abbey. Sally, our photographer, was so good at this point, getting us all organised and picking lovely spots for the photos. The best thing of all was as we were walking over the sun finally came out and blue skies appeared! I’ve never smiled so much before or been so comfortable about having my photo taken! I swear, I normally hate being photographed but on the day I was so happy and felt so beautiful that I loved every second of it. The relationship you have with your photographer is really important here, if they make you feel comfortable you’ll look so much better

As we finished off the photographs the guests took advantage of the tea van that was catering to the tourists.

After all the champagne and canapés they all just wanted a nice cup of tea! My American relatives were very entertained by the sight of all our guests queuing up for a cuppa.

Finally it was time to head off to the reception. The guests made for the coach and Richard and I left Fountains Abbey in our Bentley to head for Harrogate Golf Club. It was lovely having this time just the two of us, we got to chat and look at each other and say “we got married!” a lot. That’s another thing I’d recommend to brides to be, make sure you get half an hour just the two of you after the ceremony, you’ll spend so much time speaking to other people that you’ll really value some time just the two of you to take it all in.

We got to the golf club and everything had been set up perfectly.

The staff were amazing from the moment we booked the place, they don’t do many weddings but they did us proud. We had drinks in the bar area and chatted to our guests some more, I was trying to make sure we spoke to everyone. So glad we only had 68 guests rather than 100s, I don’t know how we’d have coped otherwise!

We went in for dinner and I discovered that my dress wasn’t made to sit down in, or eat in. The boning was so tight that I just ate a tiny bit of my meal and was full. The food was very good, lovely smoked salmon for a starter, then roast beef with Yorkshire puddings and all the trimmings, with sticky toffee pudding for dessert. Everyone said they really liked the food, the caterers did such a good job.

We’d had a little quiz as well which everyone seemed to enjoy, we chose stills from romantic movies and the tables had to name the film from the picture. It matched with our movie couple table names. Having the quizzes to mark also gave me something to do while everyone else was stuffing away the food!

After dinner were the traditional speeches and the cutting of the cake.

Then the staff cleared the tables so we could get to the dancing. We’d decided to hire a jukebox for the wedding rather than book a DJ. The guests got to choose their own songs and it was a good talking point.

The only issue was it takes a while for the cd to change after a song so there were gaps. We wouldn’t have got that with a DJ, but everyone enjoyed themselves and we danced all night. Richard and I had been considering slipping off around 10.30pm but in the end we left at midnight with everyone else. It was just so much fun, I could have kept going for hours if they’d let us!

But we did have to leave, so our taxi arrived and we waved goodbye to everyone and set off for the hotel. We’d booked the honeymoon suite, the Moet Vintage room at the Hotel du Vin, Harrogate. Well. It was the most amazing room I have ever stayed in. The bed could have fit 5 people in it quite easily. There were twin baths and twin showers (came in very handy the next morning) and it was just incredible. We were both still really buzzing so we drank the champagne the hotel had left for us and read our guest book and cards and just talked about the day.

It really was the happiest day of my life. Everyone always says the day goes quickly but I never realised how quickly. I really do recommend catching some time with your husband during the day so you can realise what’s happening. If it hadn’t been for the car ride we might have hardly spoken all afternoon! My other top tip is to trust the professionals. I let them get on with it, trusting that they’d all done enough events to get it working, and they all did me proud. It also meant I could relax on the day as I wasn’t thinking “I must check this, I must check that”. The staff at Fountains Abbey and Harrogate Golf Club were absolutely wonderful, Sally Langstaff our photographer was a gem, they all got it sorted out for us so we got the day we’d dreamt of and the photographs to remember it by.

Now I’m just enjoying being a Mrs, looking at all our photos and planning for the rest of our lives.