MR & MRS : Q&A
I promised to answer any questions you lovely lot threw my way throughout the Mini Wedding series and here we are! I've waffled at you for almost 6 weeks now (sorry!) and along the way I have been making notes so I could type up this little post for you all.
If you left a question, hopefully you'll enjoy finding the answer in here and if you're just here for the photos and a bit more gossip about our Big Day then I hope you enjoy these little nuggets too!
I've split this post in to two sections, kind of! First up I'm answering all the direct questions, true Q&A style. The second section is more about sharing some funny highlights and 'bloopers' because perfect weddings don't exist without a bit of falling over and cringing! ENJOY!
Q&A
Before I start, I just want to say a BIG THANK YOU to everyone who sent these Qs! It's been a bonkers few weeks so If I missed yours out please forgive me and feel free to comment below so I can add them in.
any regrets?
Hmm... I don't do regrets but I do wish I had been a bit more on it where food was concerned! haha! I'm usually first in line but with everything going on, we were last to grab our food from the vans and eat so I totally missed out on having seconds of everything!
Funniest moment of the day?
Oooh I have a few of these... here are my top 3!
1. Seeing my Mama (my 82 year old Grandma) dancing to Ludacris, Stand Up! My sister has THE BEST video of it and I will treasure that gem forever.
2. Being the only dicks on the dance floor when me and my bestie ended the night dancing around to Too Many Dicks - April caught us on video too. BRILLIANT!
3. Being told to 'Give us some sass?' when we were we out for photos in the village with Danny. I don't think I will ever know what sass is and this photo proves it! Will on the other hand was a natural in front of the camera...
Most stressful element?
I'm sure Will could tell you about loads of pissy and stressy moments we had in the planning and organising of everything but I think the most stressed I got was when I realised how much more money we would have to pay for a tipi after we were let down by an original quote. Budgeting is HARD and even though April and the Cambridge Tent Company were absolutely brilliant and it worked out perfectly in the end, having to find another 30% of our original budget to pay for something 6 months before the day hurt. However, I wouldn't change it for the world because it was worth every penny and that's what credit cards are for...right?
Anything you didn't get to enjoy yourself after all that planning?
YES! We missed out on Jack's Gelato! By the time we came back from a few photos and chatting to everyone, the trike had gone *sob* It's OK though, we've definitely made up for it with a couple of trips to his shop since the wedding so we got over it quickly.
What's helping you beat the post-wedding blues?
Genuinely, I'm not sure I've had time to feel blue after the wedding as we've had SO MUCH happen since, what with honeymoon adventures, catching up on work and welcoming Buddy the Sunshine Van into our lives.
Bet you can’t guess where #buddythesunshinevan got his name from 😜
Writing these blog posts has also helped keep the 'honeymoon period going'. I've been reliving so many wonderful memories through Danny's photos and we still have Mark's video to look forward to too. Maybe I should answer this in a few months time, especially when the evenings start to draw in and I start missing the sunshine more. You'll probably find me curled up in a corner, sobbing into a wheel of cheese...
What moments made the day special for you?
Oooh! So many! From spending time with my sister, Mum and Niece when we were getting ready, Dad walking in and asking me if I was getting married in Pyjamas - then his face when he saw me in my dress later on. To seeing Will's face as I walked in to the tipi, dancing with everyone while the band played, hugging SO MANY people I think the world of in one day, and cutting into the BIGGEST, most beautiful tower of cheese with the tiniest knife ever!
I would like to know what your absolute favourite part of the day was/What was your most favourite 5 seconds of the whole day?
As well as the moments mentioned above, I think this next photo sums up one of my most favouritest moments in time. Sitting down with delicious food and a big G&T with The Beard was bliss!
How much did your face ache after all the smiling?
Ahahaha, it still aches! I have honestly never felt so happy, excited and face-achey after one day and would do it all over again in an instance!
Is there anything you would have changed or done differently?
Hmm... apart from having Bernard's watch so I could have spent at least an hour with everyone catching up properly... no, I don't think I'd change anything.
I’d love to know what one piece of advice you’d give to someone else planning a wedding
Just do you -as in you and your fiancé(e) and fuck the rest. It's SO HARD to plan a wedding as it is, let alone without having to take everyone else's twopence worth into consideration too. You have to do what makes you both happy, because at the end of the day, you simply cannot please everyone... and why should you on YOUR day?!
It's the most selfish I think I've ever been in my life and as uncomfortable and guilty as I felt along the way sometimes, I'm SO HAPPY we stuck to our guns and ignored every eye roll or tut about skipping out on certain 'traditions' or expectations. It seems that everyone had a great time and enjoyed the party at the end of the day and that's all we ever wanted.
Because fuck seating plans!
Are you going to do something as epic for your first anniversary??
Ooooft! Well I'm sure we won't be throwing another gigantic party anytime soon or booking any far flung trips (as much we'd LOVE to return to Réunion again!) but I think an adventure in Buddy will definitely be on the cards! BEEP BEEP!
He's going to kill me for sharing this snap but YEAH I MARRIED THIS HOT PIECE OF ASS!
Is there anything you did because you felt like you had to (because it's tradition etc) and afterwards you realised you didn't like/want?
In the end, we definitely didn't do anything because we felt we had to, I mean other than being considerate of others by providing food options, sorting extra cake for vegan and gluten free guests and making sure we signed all the legal papers etc.
Hopefully, throughout these posts as I've opened up about what we decided on along the way, it's easy to see that we made sure we planned something true to us. There are some traditions and parts of a wedding that we absolutely wanted to include, for example, I always wanted Dad to walk me 'down the ailse' (into the tipi!) but having my Mum, Mama, Sister and Niece also walk in with us was something people didn't expect yet it was so special and meant a lot to me.
My whole family walked 'down the aisle' with me - MY SQUAD GOALS!
How did you organise all your crafting and decorations?
LISTS! Oh how I love a list (or twenty!) Honestly, I spent the first few months scribbling lists and ideas on random sheets of paper but it wasn't until I got my Rock'n'Roll Bride x Veronica Dearly planner that I really felt like I got my shit together.
God send of a planner by @veronicadearly x @rocknrollbride 🙌🏻 #joandwillsnextadventure
The DIY project plan in there really helped and I also tried to schedule half a day a week in my calendar to crack on with anything wedding related. Using the planner (STICKERS!), online calendars and phone reminders to have regular catch ups and 'project' nights with Will was super helpful! Oh and GIN. Many a 'planning night' was helped with gin!
Did you find it hard to balance what you wanted with the ideas of others?
No. haha! Well, obviously Will and I had a lot of conversations about the different ways we'd like to do things but we came to compromises quite easily and we were always floating around the same pages so I don't think we had any huge conflicts between us.
To be honest, we kept a lot of stuff to ourselves throughout the planning so it was almost a case of inviting people and just telling them to turn up and have fun!
If you had one bit of planning advice, what would it be?
Talk to each other, work together and share tasks with your future partner. I have NO idea how these brides who want to do it all and control every little thing cope. I couldn't have done it without Will's calm, rational planning (and spreadsheets skills!) to balance out my over excited, anxious and 'CAN WE DO ALL THE THINGS!' creativeness. Sounds cheesy but teamwork between us from the very beginning really did help.
Finding this sneaky graffiti in my planner reassures me I've found a good'un 😂 #LforLove
Also, EVERYONE needs an APRIL! I must sound like her biggest fan (and I AM!) because in every post I've gushed over her skills and how much she helped us pull everything together and I REALLY mean it! Working with April took a lot of pressure of Will and I leading up to and on the weekend of the wedding, she was a super star! If you don't want to rope in family and friends to help on the day (I wanted them to just turn up and have fun, without any expectations or jobs to do), then having a coordinator to make sure everything runs smoothly and look after everyone is priceless.
how much cheese was eaten?
Oh my! The CHEESE! I think we had ordered enough for about 100g of cheese per person and we had around 120 guests to feed so there was A LOT! One of the things we were most worried about was people being hungry but I have it on good authority that nobody was and with some cheese, crackers and bread left over, we had PLENTY to snack on!
We still actually have some cheese left in the freezer (nick named the Cheezer!) and it makes me smile every time we rummage for another block. We might get through the left over Cheddar by Christmas...
Cheesus Christ! That's a lot of cheddar!
did anything go tits up on the day?
Haha! Well this leads me nicely onto the second section of this post! Hopefully you've enjoyed reading my replies to some of the questions you lovely beans have asked and now I'll tell you about some of the hiccups we had along the way.
Don't get me wrong, nothing seriously went wrong at all! We were super lucky with the weather, everyone had a lovely time and everything we planned worked out in the end but I want to remember some of these moments because they make me chuckle and also make the day feel REAL (if that makes sense?)
Anywho.. here are some silly 'outtakes' and things that went on behind the scenes.
bloopers
it's bad luck..
To see the groom before the wedding, so they say. Obviously that's a load of balls but on the morning of the wedding on my way back from paddle boarding I saw Will and his brother drive past me in the car. I was on my bike and they were driving back from collecting some food bits.
I spied them, got excited and waved quite enthusiastically, forgetting I was on my road bike which is twitchy AF compared to Pi and before I knew it I was off road and in a bush.
Something about fish on bicycles....
So, you know... that was quite unlucky!
are you local?
You may have heard, but another couple were getting hitched on the same day as us, and it seemed like they were a pretty big deal because they're royal or something!
Even though we had booked the village hall well over a year before the day and had no control over when the royals picked to have their day, it seemed to upset some of the locals that we had 'taken over' the hall and green and prevented them from having a party of their own there.
I picked up this AMAZING bunting (for bants!) in We Built This City on my birthday. It's by Dolly Loves Dallas and was strung beautifully in the pavilion loos on our big day!
We knew NOTHING about this until we all arrived to set up and one of the chaps was there trying to finish putting up a giant flag pole by the hall. I felt quite bad when it became apparent how grumpy he seemed about it all but in the end it wasn't a problem and everything was absolutely fine. Their lovely flags went up, we got everything set up in time and after some late night printing, we had some large PRIVATE EVENT signs to pop up out front... just in case. haha!
good one Jo
For those who know me, it won't come as a shock that I had a couple of special moments on our wedding day... well, lets call it a hat trick:
1. On the way into the tipi, I panicked and almost walked the wrong way. It wasn't a very complicated route, there was barely any space to go wrong but I tried.
2. Dad had high-fived me as he 'gave me away' in the run through on the day before the wedding. It felt like the perfect thing to do on the day too.. except I forgot how bad I am at high fives. I have no idea how or why but I only went and almost missed his hand! The face of embarassment was obviously caught perfectly too...
At least it didn't end up as a high five to face, eh Dad?
3. I fucked up my speech. But not in the way you might expect. It was a very hot day and our glorious cheese cake was starting to... well look a bit slidey so we had agreed with April to do the speeches and then cut the cheese before we let everyone loose on the food vans. Originally we were going to save it for the evening/before the first shuffle dance.
Anywho, I got up and thanks to nerves (maybe gin to) I delivered my speech then happily told everyone to go nuts and help themselves to food before skipping off and forgetting about the cheese completely. Much to poor April's dismay when she had to run up to the mic and call the stampede back! Sorry April...
Caption competition for Will & his Brother's expressions here 😝
pampering fails
I think most people like to pamper themselves a bit before a special occasion and honestly, I do too sometimes (it's always nice to have an excuse to get a fanny wax or paint my nails!) but for whatever reason I didn't really factor any of that in to my plans leading up to the big day.
It wasn't until the day before we were setting up that I realise I hadn't booked in for a hair cut (for the hair on my head or elsewhere!) and I hadn't cut my nails, shaved my legs or plucked my eyebrows for months! Oops! So as you can imagine (actually best not to!) there was a bit of last minute, panic preening... or should that be pruning... that needed to be done!
In the end, I didn't have a hair cut or paint my nails but I did have a bath, de-fuzz myself and tried to make my nails look presentable. I had a go at painting them the night before the wedding but I was SO TIRED after setting up I couldn't even paint a thumb nail neatly so gave up and just rubbed coconut oil into them.
You know what though, none of it mattered! I felt even more like myself - yes, a bit of hobo chic is my jam! My hair still looked amazing (Thank you again Siân!) and nobody gave two hoots about what colour my nails were or weren't. Pamper yourself, don't pamper yourself, as long you feel like yourself on the day it shouldn't matter should it?
toilet humour
This won't come as a shock to anyone who has ever spent longer than half an hour with me but I wee A LOT. I genuinely have a pea-sized bladder and coupled with bathroom anxiety it means I'm known for always needing to run off to the loo. So naturally I was quite nervous about a day where all eyes would be on us and there might be long periods of time when I couldn't sneak off.
Don't worry, no accidents happened but there were two emergency wee moments! One right before the ceremony, I remember the slightly panicked look on my Mum and sister's face as I ran in to the pavilion loo's moments before they walked out of the door to enter the tipi but it had to be done!
The second one was when we were back in the village having some more lovely photos taken. I was trying my best to hold it but it got to the point when I was considering hitching my skirt up and weeing in a bush when I realised we were literally minutes from home. Thankfully Mark and Danny were very understanding and let Will pootle me home in the van so I could run in to the house (trailing half of Fen Ditton Meadows in my skirt) for a pit stop. Sorry again guys!
fattybumbum
I broke my skirt. Correction, I popped out of it! I sat down for the first time on the day, to eat with Will and the excitement and clearly one too many burgers before the big day meant as soon as I moved and reached to pick up my G&T I felt a little 'PING' and my skirt suddenly felt looser! EEK!
I was in the middle of chatting to someone as it happened and the look on my face must have made them think I'd shat myself. I was part laughing, part embarrassed and part terrified I'd end up flashing my pants to everyone! Luckily, the skirt held it's own and I didn't have to worry about flashing anyone, I just kept my jacket on for the rest of the day so nobody could see I'd bust the top of my skirt. And that folks, is why I had my jacket on for our first dance and refused to take it off for the rest of the day!
I also dropped the first bit of food I picked up that day right down my front! *face palm* I tend to throw food down myself quite often (obviously not intentionally) so at least I stayed true to myself on the day. My poor skirt still has delicious buffalo sauce stains down it... must try and get it cleaned!
THANK FRICK FOR THAT!
Congratulations! You made it to the end of the longest running series of blog posts I've EVER done! I'm not great at blogging to promote my work or the business but when it comes to personal adventures and shouting about others and what they have done to help us, I find the waffle comes a little more easy.
I hope you've enjoyed the series and once again, if you got this far WELL BLOODY DONE! I promise the wedding talk will take a step back now, with normal ad-hoc posts resuming mighty soon! The only other blogging plans I have for now (other than little monthly updates) are around our honeymoon adventures - I know, I know, that's kind of wedding related but I want to tell you about the beautiful places we visited because it would be criminal not to share them with you all.
So until next time, (adventure time!), I'll wish you all a very HAPPY FRIDAY and thank you all a bazillion times over for reading and keeping up with my waffle - I hope you enjoyed it!
☀️