Hooray! It's time to talk about the big day itself! We were lucky in that there were no weddings before ours at Hornsbury Mill, Chard. This meant that we were able to go over a couple days ahead of the wedding and fully set up and be picky with everything, which alleviated a lot of stress from the morning of the wedding because we never would have set up in time!
In the week running up to the wedding I was really worried that I wasn't going to sleep the night before and that I'd be a right grumpy git from lack of sleep! Luckily for me, I stayed over at my mum's house so it wasn't anywhere new to get used to sleeping in and the bed was super comfy. I slept like a log! However, when I woke up, it was absolutely pouring it down with rain! I always said that I would be disappointed with rain and thought it would stress me out, but I really didn't care - after all it's supposed to be good luck if it rains on your wedding day!
All throughout the wedding planning process my mum loved the idea of hosting a mini tea party on the morning of the wedding and so she spent months scouring charity shops for a tea pot, cups and saucers, a cake stand and a little milk jug. It was a perfect variety of mismatch! Then both my mum and my cute little nan baked cakes for the tea party and needless to say, it went down a treat, especially as the next meal wasn't going to be for ageeeees!
Hannah came over nice and early to start working on my hair and my bridesmaids hair too! Even my brother got in on the action, but insisted that no photos of him were taken getting his hair done (but there are a couple floating about!) I went for a half up, half down, curly, wavy style do with a flower crown pinned in on top. I really enjoyed having wavy hair, so much that I'm wondering if I attempt the curly girl method to see if I can achieve waves with no heat!
I had to get to Hornsbury Mill, Chard by midday so decided that I would put my dress on there because I'm that kind of person who would get my dress stuck in the door of the car or clean the side of the car with my dress as I got out of it. And, as it had been raining, this was definitely the best idea. So once we got there, my mum helped me into my dress, my bridesmaids tracked down a bottle of prosecco and checked in on Ross and we generally sat around and had a nice time hanging out of windows and waving at guests as they arrived. Weirdly enough, there were no nerves whatsoever!
When all the guests were seated and I was called to make my way down I was so excited. The ladies who were sent to show me the way and make sure I walked in on time found it really funny how fast I was walking. I was practically running there! I guess I didn't have the struggle of heels because I was wearing a pair of Rifle Paper Co trainers. Best decision ever!
When we got to the waiting area I saw my brother running towards me, make a sharp u-turn and run straight back into the ceremony room. It doesn't sound funny written on a blog but remembering the motion of how he quickly spun on his heels and ran in the opposite direction makes me laugh.
I'm a real time keeper. I cannot be late, I can't stand being late and it really annoys me when other people are late. I can be early but never late. So luckily for Ross, I was never going to do the fashionably late bride thing on him and he didn't have to wait around anxiously for long! Before I knew it, I was at the end of the aisle! No nerves and no tears (I was so scared that I was going to cry through it and snot everywhere!). But thankfully that didn't happen! Even Ross was a little early when it came to his vows! He jumped in and said 'I do' way before he was even asked and needless to say everyone laughed!
We had our friend Alice and Ross' brother Mark do readings during the ceremony and I'm really glad we did because the ceremony part flew by. We (I say 'we' probably more 'I') initially didn't want to do any because it was so difficult to find readings that weren't over the top mush or ones that we felt we could relate to us. But we eventually settled on Wild Awake - Written by Hilary T Smith and Recipe for Marriage - Written by Joanna Miller.
I honestly can't remember which part of the ceremony this photo was from, but I really wanted to include it. So I'm not going to make up some waffle to go with it. I'm just going to gently leave it here and move on!
Rings - tick! Signing of the register - tick! Groomsman almost setting his hair on fire - TICK! Yes that really happened! And it served a warning for the Bridesmaids who had their photo taken next and were all wearing a considerable amount of hair spray! That could have ended so badly! But luckily no one was hurt and it was just a funny story from the day.
And just like that, the ceremony was over and we were pronounced husband and wife! The rain stopped and we all emptied outside with a glass of bubbly and huge smiles on our faces! It felt like the family photo session took forever! With 3 different families to photograph and two of those not wanting to stand next to each other, it felt like a mammoth job and even then, we didn't get all of the shots I'd wanted. Somehow the list was lost, tears were shed later on but what's done is done.
Perhaps one of the funniest photos from the day is probably the one of a guest with his trousers around his ankles. Don't worry, I'm not going to post it here. He got a tattoo of a love heart with the words 'Oh Ross' inside it on his leg on Ross' stag do a month earlier and decided to drop his trousers to show Ross' mum! It's not every day your friends drop their trousers to the mother of groom so that's one we definitely look back on and laugh.
We decided to go for yellow, white and blue tissue paper hearts for our confetti and spent hours and hours in the run up separating each tiny heart so that they could be thrown! A job that I thought would only take a few hours actually took many many evenings! I absolutely love this photo for it's big splash of colour, happy faces and for revealing the culprit of who covered my hair in dried roses!
We then went off to take pictures of just the two of us. This is the terrifying bridge of doom. It's very narrow, incredibly slippery and felt like we were going to fall in and it looks like my dress nearly did!
This bridge was much less terrifying but is often guarded by two large birds (they might be geese but I'm unsure) and every time you go near they bob their heads in a way that look like they're dancing but thankfully they must have been on their lunch break or something when we took this shot.
And ta daaaa, I saved my favourite one until last.
Soon we were whisked away from taking photos to start the speeches. As always there some lovely stories, jokes and harmless banter. In true Ross style, he considered the main event as being the food. The best man thought I'd picked the wrong Thompson brother and mentioned which one he'd have chosen instead, and my dad didn't tell any embarrassing stories about me like I thought he would!
Before we knew it, we were cutting the cake, not because it was time but because it was actually going to topple over if we didn't! Most people didn't even know it was happening because it was that rushed!
We made ourselves a home made photo booth for the guests to play with. I had an old SLR that I'm not precious about, a tripod and plenty of tissue paper! It got a lot more use than I expected and going through some of the shots afterwards were hilarious. So much so, they're not suitable for posting online. You know who you are!
I'm going to stop sharing photos from here on in because we all know what people look like after a few drinks at a wedding but here some more of the most memorable moments.
- Ross got up and joined the band and played the drums along to Jimmy Eat World's The Middle. He did pretty well considering how drunk he was.
- At one point we ended up with a mosh pit on the dance floor.
- We also had someone climb into the rafters and hang upside down all the way along the venue! The band said our wedding was one of the rowdiest one's they had played in a while.
- If the van is a rocking, don't come knocking. That's all I'm going to say on that matter - you know who you are haha!
- Younger guests chatting up ones old enough to be their parents.
- Ross drunkenly fell out of bed in the middle of the night and took a huge lamp with him.
I think I'm going to leave it there because it seems to have gotten pretty lengthy. If you've made it this far then you deserve a high five! And I hope you've enjoyed a small window into our big day!
• Photographs by Daniel Standerwick