The Big Day: Part Three: Onto the mansion!

I left you in Part 2 in the vicarage garden. We bid goodbye to all those who were not coming onto our reception (it had strict rules, including no stilettos with a square heel under 1cm sq!) and drove off with CBC's old flatmate in his Mercedes in hope that our instructions would lead everyone there safely. They did, except for our lovely photographer and a few other, whose Satnavs died!).


 The place of our reception was a place long known to me and featured several times in this blog- Valentines Mansion which, if you are a Great British Bakeoff fan, was the setting for the Celebrity special series, earlier in the year.







 It is a gorgeous Georgian mansion that fulfilled all those Catherine Morland and Henry Tillney/Elizabeth and Darcy dreams. Also, it was really important for us to feel that our venue was not just a marriage machine which several others seemed. This is a place which is used by the community for and the public all the time for a variety of different uses. It was, however, a little difficult in terms of the fact that it is quite a blank canvas as you just hire the venue, the rooms and the tables and chairs and everything else is up to you! Great in some ways, but rather daunting!

However, it has an amazing series of gardens and places to explore which are very beautiful as you can see from the background of the pictures above!

We arrrived at Valentines and guests drank prosecco and us non-alkies drank rose and elderflower fizz, made by my Mum with canapes.  It was really nice being able to chat to friends as they arrived in clusters though I did keep looking around for where our lovely, lost Photographer was.

Eventually, she found her way which we were relieved and thankful for.  How horrid it is to be lost in an unfamiliar place.  The family went off for some photos, though very few and CBC and I did a few and then we joined the guests for dinner.

Valentines is a little quirky and very Regency in that our guests had to be divided into different rooms:  The Holcombe room with wide fire place which led onto the veranda was a very grand affair for 10 friends, the bird room, quirkily holds cabinets, once full of stuffed birds, now full of origami creations, and held 12 fields. The gallery held 28 friends and various contemporary art paintings (and the evening entertainment) and finally the Drawing Room upstairs held the remaining 50 people, including us!

 Dinner and decorations: Long before the wedding, I had spent many many evenings using a butterfly craft punch to cut literally thousands of turquoise and music score paper butterflies.  Believe it or not, one very clever guest guessed the composer (Gustav Mahler, in case you're wondering) from the butterflies on his table!).  These were scattered all over the tables like confetti and also my little sister (the blonde bridesmaid) made all our name cards with some of the music butterflies and smaller vellum ones she punched.

 
Flowers: All my dear blogging friends were party to the disaster of the late-blooming wildflowers and so plan B was to buy plants for the tables but this also went awry as those available at the time were awful and motheaten and quite simply not worth the money so instead, the morning of the day before, a friend and I simply went to Tescos and bought bunches of flowers in shades of red, orange, yellow and white and I issued a general plea for vases as well as locating about 10 in charity shops that day!  My mother spent a while arranging them the night before and please tell her they look pretty,because she thought she did them badly which I firmly refute! (please ignore the doll below which made it into all the cake shots!)

 

Our caterers provided a delicious 3 course meal which I believe everyone enjoyed- I certainly did!

The speeches were after dinner which were lovely on behalf of all three parties- my Dad gave a nice speech, which only mentioned my aged 3-year  obsession with toilets once, CBC's speech was generous and kind to all the many people we had to thank and lovely towards me, citing the magic of music camps and rabbits which were integral into our getting together and his Best-man's speech was quite frankly, the nicest and most tame Best-Man's speech I have ever heard and only involved a few embarassments for CBC which I, of course, wont mention here, *Cough Cough,missing planes*!


 Treasure Hunt:  Right after dinner, our venue hosts needed to clear the tables for the evening reception so we had planned a Treasure Hunt to ensure that everyone enjoyed and got to see the wonderful and extensive grounds of the Mansion.  .
Each team received a map of Valentines, a list of clues and the treasure hunt leader (our furtherest travelled guest- from China!!!!) showed them a hyena to kick off the first clue (Answer to the hyena was a Haha!)
 The treasure hunt was that little bit too hard and cryptic and What we DID not bargain for was how highly competitive the teams became and how they doggedly refused to give up the chase.   We divided them into 3 teams- Owls, Pigeons and Rabbits and they each had to find the letters hidden in the Valentines gardens and features by solving cryptic clues. Each had their own treasure, wrapped up and hidden in the anagram location, within the mansion.  We were very lucky, having laid them the night before (CBC and treasure leader were gallavanting round the park at 9.30pm!!!!) that the public did not choose to take them, especially as some of them were hidden in the Kitchen Garden which also houses the cafe!
Our entertainment for the guests also included some outdoor games which we had purchased:

Archery:
 


Croquet: which, like the treasure hunt, also got a little too competitive!!!
 
Rather later than planned, was the cutting of the cakeS!!!

The first cake was a French patisserie cake which was a lovely custard, strawberry and summer fruits light sponge with chocolate curls which came from our favourite family-run business, Le Moulin in Hornchurch.  It was covered in fruit, including Physalis (and sadly,  I didn't get to eat any!)


The second was rather lovingly created by my Mother,who makes amazing cakes. She spent months on this fruit cake, handcrafting over 600 flowers so I could have my wildflower meadow in cake form, if not in real flower form.
 C 

It was so exquisitely made and so personal and unique and we loved it!  She even had special Swarovksy letters made for the top.

I was just so sad that she had, by this time, gone home sick, as she felt really ill and didn't get into enjoy her moment of glory.

Right after our photos and cutting of the cake, I went off to the Regency Parlour to change into my evening outfit as there was no way I would be able to swing dance in a long dress.


My dress of choice was a Vivien of Holloway white satin dress with turquoise stars which I teamed with a turquoise sequinned belt of old and a pair of flat canvas shoes from Shoe Zone (glam aren't I?!)  and the obligatory swishy petticoat I already owned!
 Our first dance, which you must have seen in my wedding day video was a lindyhop routine to Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,  which we had SUCH fun learning and dancing to! 
Straight after our routine, the Cunning Plan Ceilidh band kicked off with our fun ceilidh with the absolute sweetest caller!
 A constant stream of people danced all evening and the band were so kind to stick around so late as we actually started the ceildih 2 hours late after delays over speeches, cake cutting and having to do the photos at that late time!

 
One particularly special thing for us was that they agreed to play and teach Childgrove, the dance that my ultimate favourite heroine and hero- Catherine Morland and Henry Tillney first dance together in Northanger Abbey, the TV series.

 

Whilst all this was going on, other things were afoot.  Food upstairs in the drawing room, sweetie buffet in the Holcombe room and my favourite part of the entertainment.

You have long known of my hat obsession and extensive collection.

I decided that though I couldn't afford a hired PhotoBooth, what I could do was to bring my own camera and tripod and most of my hat collection.

These, I set out onto a table at some stage after the meal including the Mansion's own hat stand along with other props.  This proved to be the hit of the evening with a constant stream of people trying the hats on, taking photos and generally having a laugh!

Ha ha, photobombed!!!

I think I got them all back!!!


After the Ceilidh finished, a set of 90's disco music rounded things off.  It then remained my duty as the hirer of the venue, to try and clear it up in the space of an hour which was a little stressful considering the amount of things to clear, the amount of helpers and the amount of headache!  However, we achieved this and finally CBC, myself and family were able to set off to at last get some sleep.

We had a wonderful time at the Reception as did our guests and the only thing I would do again is to try and organise more help and a better system of clearing up at the end!
 

I will probably round off these posts with a few more things I wanted to write or include, but I fear this will never get published if I don't hit the Button now!


Photos Copyright of Karen O'Reilly at www.kaphoto.co.uk

The Big Day Part 2: The ceremony

So there I left you in Part 1 waiting at the doors to the church.

The ceremony was held at my parish church in my home town.  I attended this church up until the age of 7 from birth and though I was never one of those children that had planned my wedding from childhood (indeed, aged 12, I declared to myself, that I was sure I would never get married!), if I ever visualised a wedding ceremony, for anyone, it was always this church.  My older sister said this too- she always visualised All Saints.  We spent many of our Saturday afternoons singing in the church choir for weddings during our childhood, so we had witnessed many there!

As I walked up the cracked paved path with new rose bushes on either side of the arched door, planted lovingly by the vicar, the sound of the first music began.  CBC and I, both being musicians, had taken great pains to find unusual music choices, which we loved and wanted to avoid any of the traditional or usual subjects like the plague.  No Wagner or Mendelsohn Wedding marches, Queen of Sheba or Widor's Toccata.



The pre-ceremony music was Thomas Arne's The Morning:  it was played by five friends: Voice, sopranino recorder, violin, viola, cello and harpsichord.  As I stood there with my two sisters, niece and Father, I held the beautiful tones of Hermione soaring above the throbbing string parts and I stood with my eyes shut, saying a silent prayer to my Father in Heaven to bless this marriage.

The piece finished and CBC left his cello and took his position at the head of the aisle and Anne, recorder player hurried to the back of the church to take her place playing flute for the wind quintet.



The music of choice was movements 3 and 2 of Ligeti's Bagatelles for wind quintet (flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, french horn).  The first one is very unconventional for a wedding as it is in 7/4 time and is quite clashy and modern sounding.  I loved it for this fact!  My one Uni friend who was there absolutely loved that I chose a piece by Ligeti who we'd studied at University and said our Professor would have been proud of me!

They finished the fast movement and began the slow, dreamy movement in 3/4.  My beautiful niece started walking down the aisle.  BUT, the clarinettist had forgotten to change to his A clarinet and began playing on his B flat clarinet.  To the lay-man, this basically means that every note he was playing was one note higher than it should have been and would make it sound dreadful!!!! I was peeping through the door at the back of the church and realised in one note and tried to hiss a warning!!!  Luckily, the oboist stopped and pointed out! They began again.  The dreamy flute and burbling clarinet began and my niece continued.  Check out my Mum's face as they were SURE she wouldn't walk alone!

My beautiful sisters followed a minute later, billowing gracefully along the long aisle.

Finally, after our vicar greeted me at the bottom of the aisle, I walked up the aisle- it was a perfect dreamy flute moment. I could not contain my delight and grinned at all insundry, Cheshire car-style!  Finally, I fixed eyes with CBC as I proceeded up the last part.

I have to confess at this moment, that CBC's thoughts on me reaching him were sheer-delight that I was wearing a long-dress as my Mum and I instigated a successful- long-term red herring on CBC that meant he thought I was wearing a short 60's style dress!
He in turn, looked stunningly handsome in a navy blue Jaeger suit with Kalla lilly boutoniere, Canadian turquoise cravat to match the bridesmaids, brown brogues and turquoise socks.

My current vicar welcomed everyone, along with our previous Vicar, a dear-friend, who had travelled from Whitby to help take the service.

CBC and I sang lustily to Love Divine all love's excelling (the Welsh one, not the Stainer version).  I sang my heart out and to my horror, as we sang the third verse, I felt myself welling up and promptly burst into tear (you know how you try to stop it, but that makes it worse and a huge howl erupts out of you!  Luckily, the sound of my dear friend playing the organ meant that only CBC, my Dad, vicars and choir saw!

We had the welcome and declarations, upon which, a suspicious glance was given to the congregation, who luckily had no legal objections!

Our next hymn was Stuart Townend's The Lord's my shepherd, I'll not want, which a sweet teenage friend from church sang a solo for.  The church worship band played a folk style accompaniment

The beautiful flower arrangements were done by a lovely team of men and women at the church.

The church was soaring from the lusty singing from everyone!  Tis luckily that the majority of the congregation are either church goers or musicians!

Our readings were read by the two mothers and also the family friend who was like an aunt to me (incidently, who supervised my Dalek dress-making):
1 Corinthians 15, Ephesians 5, Mark and Romans and were all read beautifully.


Our vows were lovely though I couldn't help but giggle at the most serious moment of the service!  It was so lovely to say these things to each other before God and before all those who love us. CBC struggled to get my ring on and I put his on in an instant!


Another song followed: John Rutter's All things bright and beautiful and Chris, the previous vicar came to give his sermon.  It was heartfelt, honest, sincere and memorable as I knew it would be and short.  He really has a gift for sermons.  The next day, two non-Christian friends were quoting it at each other, in a positive way: it was based on 1 Corinthians 15 and involved a tramp who smelt of wee!

The blessing was a beautiful moment as P, the vicar, invited all to come forward and lay hands on us and pray for our marriage which was unexpected and beautiful. I certainly felt loved and nurtured here.

During the signing of the register, my lovely friend and his mother played a Mozart piano duet that CBC and I love playing together.

Finally, Handel's Thine be the glory was our last triumphant chorus and we really really raised the roof-tops for this one!  I don't think I have ever sung with as much heart and effusion.


Our recessional was Komm, heiliche Geist (Come Holy Spirit) by Bach and we proceeded outside for some time in the vicarage garden where we were able to chat with guests who had come for the service but were not proceeding to the reception (the reception venue had a strict limit of 100 people in the building) including two of my lovely pupils from school who came along with their Mum. The weather was lovely, everyone smiled and bridesmaids bounced on trampolines!



This was perhaps the most joyful and wonderful part of the day for me.  For that brief time, my headache abated and all felt wonderful with the world.

Rather oatmealish

Hi everyone!  Shocking that I have managed to post two days on the trot!!!!

I was really keen to get back into some of the fun linkies that I enjoyed doing pre-wedding and moving madness, so I was determined that nothing would keep me from joining in the Two Birds' Inspiration Monday challenge.

Today is someone called Blake Lively.  As the time since I last had a functioning TV grows ever longer, I seem to have even less knowledge of those in the celebrity sphere.  Speaking of which, we got a mean letter from the TV licensing people 2 days after they tried to call round wondering why on earth we haven't got a TV license. Surely, there are other people without TVs who can live without live TV?

Anyway, I digress (what's new).  This rather nice chocolate and vanilla outfit put me in mind of my bunny jumper (ASOS)and cropped brown trousers (Peacocks. Checked pattern, not visible in heinous grainy shot!) and these brown suede boots (second hand).  Not really like the original, but it was just inspiration, right? Oh if only I had the sand-coloured mac-type coat that my sister and I both once contemplated in Primark. We both bought it in brown (can't find it!) and decided not to buy the oatmeal which was ridiculous as it was really gorgeous-fitting and £9. In hindsight, we both regretted it and wished we'd just gone for it! Instead, I thought I'd go with a green mac instead!




I am  contemplating getting rid of these brown suede boots after today.  It was a nightmare to walk in them and my feet were absolutely killing after walking half an hour to school, around school all day and then the half an hour walk back home! Or, reserving them for no walking occasions!  Pity, they're about the only second hand boots I've managed to find (and like) in my gargantuan foot size!

I'm feeling pleased that I managed to do marking all the way home, come in and get on with work straight away, cook dinner swiftly when CBC got in, do the washing up, empty the bins and recycling, do a bit of blogging and then back to work!  Sometimes, I actually manage to get my get up and go!

Like the shops, I am contemplating Christmas. Don't shoot me!  As a music teacher, it is essential to be ready to go for the first week back after the holiday.  I've bought the KS1 nativity script and licenses.  KS2, I have selected the majority of songs and need to prepare resources, orchestra have already begun learning a carol (they need even more time!) .  So once I bid you adieu tonight, I'm off to arrange Angels in the realms of glory for recorder ensemble!

Right, now go and visit the Two birds and the oatmeal clad lovelies!

Click your heels 3 times

Hello, Sorry about the hiatus in the wedding posts- I will resume. In fact, I've already written the text but just trying to slowly upload the photos to add to it. My computer is painfully slow and so is sifting through 600 photos to find ones which match the account! Today, I finally wore my birthday present from my sister! She bought me these lovely ruby slippers and I just haven't had the opportunity to wear them and share! As children, we had the most amazing pair of t-bar silver glittery shoes which we used to wear with a Dorothy costume which we loved! You've seen my red glittery Toms but I wanted a heeled pair and she kindly obliged! I wore them with this grey polka dot dress which I bought in Maldon in a vintage shop a while back plus a grey cardie that rarely sees the light of day! I went to church in my new town today. I am still going to my church but I really struggled to get up this morning so wouldn't make it in time for the service so I went to this one. It's a really lovely community and the service was really inspiring and worshipful! I chatted to a couple of nice folks who told me about events that happen in the church and very handily told me about a secret shortcut footpath back to where I live that cut a chunk off my walk home. I rode a microscooter there and back! My sister let me have one she bought on Ebay for my niece for a pound as I wanted one to try and speed up my daily walk to the station (over a mile). It's pink and says Daisy on it and I am sure I look silly, however, I am fast and silly! CBC and I have been slowly settling into our new home and getting it straightened out. Largely, that consists of me trying to find places to hide the million and one items I own though I've a lot: today alone, I culled about 15 belts and an equal number of headbands plus a load of paperwork! Our landlord came round with a new fridge for us as our one was kaputt which is a relief! I thought I'd share one little view from our new home- at the centre is the wedding present we received from my Deputy head teacher and it is flanked by various woodland friends! Yes, we are both over 30 but hey, you're as old as you feel! Hope your weekend was lovely! xx

The Big Day Part 1: Before.

So, I am finally facing the daunting task of attempting to share some of the wedding with you here!

It's two months on and we've been to two weddings in the meantime of the best-man and the sister of the groom respectively.

The day was a beautiful and wonderful one which we will not forget in a hurry and I am in a quandry as to how to do it justice without boring the heck out of you! We all know how I like to waffle!

So, where I left you on Wedding Waffle part 1 was me being thoroughly out of character and doing early morning cleaning!

Many aspects of the wedding were home-made, borrowed, shared or contributed by friends which I loved.

On the wedding morning, a dear Teaching Assistant friend from school arrived first to come and do my hair.  The whole thing was pretty lucky the way it turned out.  I was sitting in the library at school and they asked about my hair and I commented that the hairdresser I had tried, had not managed to achieve the look I wanted, which was a cross between Kate Middleton in her Jenny Packham turquoise dress (see here) and Clara Oswin in Doctor Who (here).  At which point, the lovely TA asked me to show her a picture and she said she could do it easily.  She has done various beauty courses including hair and tried out the hairstyle the next day and did exactly what I wanted.


My little sister also helped in that she did my make-up for me.  She's absolutely beautiful and does her own make-up so nicely, I knew she would do a wonderful job and would make it very subtle which I feared a makeup artist might not.  I don't really do make-up, apart from Touche Eclat and black liner (which is not actually on in this photo, nor is my Agnes B lippy!)

My Mum and other sister(bridesmaid also) had also arrived at this point and were getting ready with my little niece.  They were in good spirits and we had lots of fun also with my Brother in law (who was taking the video of the ceremony) and my Step-Mum and Dad.  They were a little surprised when CBC arrived to get his cello which he had left at my house- which crucially, he needed for the wedding!!!!!!  I took the opportunity to give him a present of some turquoise Paua shell cufflinks, to match the colour scheme!

About this time, another TA friend from school turned up with the bouquets. Again, she had kindly offered to make them.  She was coming to the ceremony with a gang from school and she offered when she heard I was just going to bung some flowers together.

She tied them with some lace ribbon I had bought a while back from a market haberdashery. I wanted a simple white bouquet with lots of gypsophilia which I think is so pretty!

I was actually very chilled during the whole process and sat reading my book whilst all this went on.  Everyone thought I'd be panicked but no, I just took it all in (I did have a mega headache though, which meant I wasn't being too active!)

It was actually really lovely having a house full, even though my little Bijou house is not really big enough for them all!

Finally, I donned my dress.

Now, you may find this hard to believe, but I didn't actually ever go to a proper bridal boutique! I fell in love with a 2009 collection designer dress from Johanna Hehir which I discovered by doing a Googlesearch for Jane Austen wedding dress. I never thought there would be any way that I would manage to find one, 4 years on from that collection in a size 8 in my meagre price range, but God was good and I did indeed find one, very very reasonably!

I knew that I wanted something empire-line, simple, not a big skirt but straight down and ideally something Jane-Austen/Regency inspired.  This dress, I felt, reflected all that with a nice modernity. The pleats were a nice touch too which meant it wouldn't look creased!!!!

Despite reallllllly not wanting to spend much money on my outfit, I really wanted a Jenny Packham head-dress and wanted to embrace the Great Gatsby trend of the year and my lovely Mum bought me the beaded feather band I wore on my head. I knew I could wear this again, rather than a traditional tiara!  I also purchased some crystal and pearl earrings from a Vintage-inspired boutique in Carnaby street at the same time and bought a simple crystal cross necklace with my Step-Mum.

Finally, the lovely Char was responsible for me finding my lovely Debut at Debenhams ivory shoes which crazily, I didn't get a photo of though you can see them poking out in this picture!!!!

I then simply wore 2 bracelets I already had:  a Swarovsky bracelet given  by a child in my first ever class and a blue one I bought in Bali when I lived there.

As we waited, CBC's flatmate arrived in his Mercedes to drive us to the church in his Chauffeur's cap I found him on ebay! (again, things from friends!)

We were a little perplexed to see CBC and his best man outside the church at his car and had to hastily drive around the block to avoid him!   It turned out he was waiting to give my dad his boutonnier!

As we got out the car and waited by the entrance to the church, we heard the musicians begin and that would be the start of the service!!

To be continued....

Photos Copyright of Karen O'Reilly at www.kaphoto.co.uk She is a wonderful photographer and has some very reasonable wedding prices at the moment!