09.07

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TEA IN THE GARDEN.

A few months ago when Jo first put her Maid of Honour, hen-weekend-organiser-in-chief hat on, she asked me if there was anything specific I’d love to do as part of the celebrations- and if you’ve been reading here for a little while, I’m sure you can guess what my reply was. Afternoon tea, of course! Sitting down to a feast of tiny sandwiches, and towers of cakes and sweet treats and pastries is up there amongst my all-time favourite activities, and is a pretty unbeatable way to spend a sunny summer afternoon if you ask me!

Over the past year or so, I’ve been lucky enough to have some pretty special afternoon teas. We’ve gone fashion-themed at The Berkeley, sampled a modern take on the classics at Selfridges, and delighted in Laduree’s classic French offering. But a rose-themed tea put together by my Mum and my Mother in Law, hosted in one of my favourite places in all the world? Well that’s truly something special. My Mum and Julia had been in cahoots for a couple of weeks putting together the tea party, and they did the most beautiful job on it! I mean, would you look at that table? Roses everywhere, even on the chinaware!

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^^ We each had a floral mug to take away with us as a party favour- the sweetest idea, right? ^^

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Between them our Mums had made my favourite treats from both sides of our families- Julia’s famous carrot cakes and miniature sticky toffee puddings (baked in individual cases to hold a sea of toffee sauce!), Grandma’s rice crispy cakes (recipe handed down to my Mum, who’s got them down to a fine art now!), as well as a veritable feast of other desserts and sandwiches cooked up by them both!

My Mum did her usual trick and overcatered spectactularly (I mean, she made three cheesecakes to serve 11 people, and quadrupled every single recipe she worked from ;), which, since it meant we all got to take away boxes stuffed with the leftovers, turned out to be quite the happy accident! The leftover slices of raspberry and honeycomb chocolate tiffin I’d demolished by early afternoon the following day, and Jason and I polished off the last of the crispy cakes whilst marathoning OITNB two nights ago. It’s been a great few days, really it has!

Oh, and don’t worry, I’m going to ask my Mum for that tiffin recipe to share with you here. It’s *killer*. Like, ‘make pointless visits to the kitchen just for the excuse of snaffling another bite from the fridge’ kind of killer’. I had to eat the lot in one day just to get it over and done with, really…
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^^ Sticky toffee pudding for one! Seriously the tastiest ever. Julia’s got the recipe nailed! ^^

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Our niece (and baby bridesmaid!) Sienna spent the afternoon pottering around the garden hunting for snails, and then terrorising my sister with them! I like to think of it as retribution for all the years Cesca spent driving me to distraction when she was a tot, and our 8 year age gap seemed oh so very insurmountable! ;) And now look, I have to stand up a step from Cesca in photos just to get a little help in the height department! Where on earth have the years gone?
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And with a whole lot of photos and a happy frolic in the garden later- we’re done with the telling of the hen weekend tales!

I can’t even begin to say how touched I was by how much effort my nearest and dearest went to to make the weekend so very special.

It was the greatest ‘send off’ into married life I could’ve wished for.

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07.07

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And so the wedding celebrations begin! {p.s. The teapot contained ice for a picnic. I’ve not taken to carrying one around just on the off chance I might fancy a cuppa…}

I remember my early teenage years as being pretty much an endless series of sleepovers. My best friends and I would spend our weekends and holidays hopping between each other’s houses (or rather, being taxi-ed around by our long suffering parents), taking nothing with us but a toothbrush because we knew we’d all wind up raiding one another’s wardrobes anyway. We’d stay up into the early hours of the night talking about everything from boys to whatever gossip was hottest at school to our art GCSE projects, and our days were filled with nonsense like dressing up in the silliest outfits we could concoct (then taking 1001 photos, of course), eating ourselves stupid, and maybe (if we’d manage to wangle it with our parents), heading out to a party armed with a four pack of alcopops to share between us. It was bliss.

And so it turns out, when your best friend organises for you a three day hen weekend sleepover (a bachelorette, for my American readers!) that encompasses everything you loved most about those carefree teenage days, you’re in for a pretty special time!

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All I knew about my hen party was that we were heading down to Chichester on Friday evening, and that we’d spend two nights staying in a little country cottage before heading up to my Mum’s for afternoon tea on the Sunday. My cousin Sophie picked me up a little before 7 after work on Friday, and after getting ourselves so badly lost on the drive that we actually went through the Hindhead tunnel twice and made a brief accidental detour into a caravan park, we finally arrived at Flintstones cottage! We (my sisters-in-law-to-be Nat and Clare, maid of honour Jo, cousin Sophie, and soul sisters Tania and Freya) polished off a few rounds of fajitas, and then got to the main event of the evening. Tequila!

Now, you’ll know that I’m not the biggest fan of alcohol. Sure, I’m happy to indulge in the odd glass of wine or cocktail, but anything beyond that? I’m out. In fact, I’m such a notorious lightweight that Jo came armed with ample suppliers of painkillers (for headaches) and lemonade (for watering down my drinks!)! But do you know what? I’ve finally found my calling- I can handle tequila like a trooper! Salt – tequila – lemon…and not even a shudder! I hope you’re suitably impressed ;)

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We woke up on Saturday morning feeling surprisingly sprightly (after such a late evening of games and silliness the night before!), and even managed to sneak down to visit the ponies and have a wander around the wheat fields before settling in to breakfast.

After a few rounds of toast and croissants, the girls and I suited up in workout gear (Jo requested we all bring with us ‘something we could move in’- intriguing!) and then proceeded to spend the rest of the morning in a state of hysteria. You see, Jo had arranged for a dance teacher called Sarah to come and teach us a routine to ‘Work It’ (a song I once choreographed a dance to for an assembly at our very-Catholic-indeed senior school, not realising that the lyrics are out of this world inappropriate!;), and it was seriously the most brilliantly fun way to spend a morning! Sarah was the sweetest, and we wound up with aching bellies from laughing so hard! Since there’s not a single person on earth who looks attractive whilst photographed midway through performing the running man I’ll save you from the photos, but just know that making up dance routines is most definitely just as fun at 24 as it was at 14!

After giving the performance of our lives for the various people who pottered past our cottage whilst we did one last rendition of our dance routine (they loved it, I could tell), we made a quick change from leggings to dresses, armed ourselves with picnic hampers, and headed off to Priory Park in Chichester.

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Priory Park was beautiful- I’d never visited Chichester before this weekend, and now can’t think why not! After demolishing our picnic (roast chicken, salads, quiche…champagne. You know, the usual Saturday afternoon picnic routine!) we went for a potter around the town centre, and into a vintage and antique fair that tested every ounce of will power I have not to walk away with armfuls of vintage dresses and recovered Scandinavian enamelware. Be still my heart.

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^^ Next stop- cocktail o’clock back at the cottage! ^^

Strawberry daiquiris and mojitos were on the menu for the afternoon, so we set about crushing ice and muddling limes with mint and sugar and adding liberal amounts of rum to strawberries. And we made some good’uns!

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The final surprise of the day was to come via Jo’s laptop. We settled round the dining table to play the Mr and Mrs game, but instead of it being just a regular set of Qs and As, Jo had asked Jason to record himself asking me the questions and then sharing the correct answer instead! It wound up being a pretty emotional afternoon- the ‘what did I say when I asked you to marry me’ question resulted in all 7 of us getting just a *touch* teary-eyed! And when I say a ‘touch’, I mean that *some* of us had to leave the table to go and get supplies of tissues…Clare ;) Can you even imagine how we’ll all be at the wedding?!

The evenings were maybe my favourite part of the weekend. We stayed up late both nights, but on the Saturday evening we stayed bundled up on the sofa talking until almost 3am. Spending quality time with some of my favourite people in the whole world, laughing and drinking tea and snaffling biscuits and putting the world to rights- it did my heart good! In fact, I honestly can’t remember when I last laughed as much as I did this weekend!

Final stop on the hen weekend adventures to come tomorrow- a summer garden tea party!

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Posted in DAY TRIPS, FAMILY, FRIENDS, SUMMER, TRAVEL, WEDDING, WEEKEND BREAK

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05.07

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Up until I’d say probably mid-way through June, I was totally blasé about this whole wedding planning gig. ‘Stressful?’ I’d say, ‘Do me a favour’. But then the final weeks began to tick down, and the realisation that there’s a very good reason couples hire someone to handle everything for them hit me like a ton of bricks. There’s just so much to do! Liaising with contacts from venues and churches and suppliers, forms to be filled in, invoices to be paid, bottles to be bought by the crateful, and stationery to be designed- all small individual jobs, but they stack up like you’d not believe! I take my hat off to anyone who DIYs lots of elements of their wedding, really I do!

To be frank with you, the past few weeks have stretched Jason and I more than I’d ever imagined they would. Between the wedding admin and each of us working for ourselves (and all the tasks that go along with that), we’ve found it hard to keep being calm and kind and considerate to one another as well as juggling late nights and to-do lists and work. We found we kept talking about ‘powering through’ and ‘just getting through these next couple of weeks’, and almost forgetting why it is we’re doing this all anyway! Isn’t that the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard? I mean, we wound up bickered about handwriting (handwriting!) whilst filling in a supplier form at midnight the other evening. I think that tells you everything you need to know about how ridiculous things have been round here lately! ;)

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When the silly stresses have built up, it’s returning to the little things that’ve made us most happy. Playing our first dance song, and talking about the vows, and hearing our banns of marriage read in church over the past three weeks. Our vicar speaks often about ‘a life enriched by marriage’, and it’s a phrase I keep coming back to and feeling warmed by when it seems as though the tasks are piling up and time’s running away from us.

We’re now at the stage of planning out the wedding morning schedule, and booking in a ceremony rehearsal two days before the Big Day. We’ve decided that the rehearsal will be the last time we’ll see each other before the 17th, and that makes me feel fluttery with nerves and excitement and ALL the emotions! So many of our married friends and family have said that they found the rehearsal to be almost more emotional than the day itself, so I’ll be readying myself with the waterproof mascara and about 85 packs of tissues ;)

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But now, we’re counting days, not weeks. Twelve days only, to be precise! Doesn’t it feel just yesterday to you that I shared the news that Jason had asked me to marry him, and that I (so he says, and likes to remind me often!) thrust my hand in his face for him to put the ring on before I’d even said ‘yes!’? ;) (What can I say? He did such a good job convincing me a proposal wasn’t on the cards, in the moment I was just too overwhelmed with shock to behave graciously!)

I think we’ll end this little wedding-related stream of consciousness with a happy list, because I can’t think of more perfect moment to count some blessings! So, my friends, here’s a round up of the little moments that’ve brought me joy this week…

1. Watching my peonies open up and bloom! I’d almost given up hope they were going to open, but they’re just as extravagant and blousy as I hoped they’d be!

2. A Thursday night BBQ at Jason’s Mum’s house! Jason’s sister and her family flew in from Canada on Thursday morning for the wedding, so we spent the evening celebrating. Made me even more excited than ever to be gaining so many brothers and sisters in law!

3. Almond butter and Marmite on rice cakes. I honestly could eat an entire pack of rice cakes in one sitting, I’m *that* obsessed with this flavour combination. You must try it!

4. Soaking up the sunshine outside in the garden, whilst firing out emails at a rate of knots. The very best!

5. Ice. Ice in coffee, ice in water, ice in elderflower cordial- basically just all the ice.

6. The glittery butterfly wrist tattoo my niece did for me on Thursday. If only glitter tattoos were real, I’d have one for sure!

7. Freckles on my nose, forehead, shoulders, hands…

8. Taking time out to do a little yoga each day. It’s so amazing at helping you switch of your brain and allowing a little time simply to  b r e a t h e.

9. Putting together our playlist for the wedding! The most fun we’ve had whilst wedding planning in weeks, for sure! We’ve chosen some corkers too…ALL of the 80s classics!

10. Having my best friend home from her travels! Next up is her graduation (as a fully fledged Doctor, oh my!) and then we’ll be heading down that aisle!

Oh, and one more for luck, frog-dog Teddy in the photo below makes me happiest of all. I didn’t realise we’d manage to catch him mid-pounce until I was reviewing these photos on my laptop. Isn’t he the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever seen?

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Right, twelve days to go. Let’s do this thing…

p.s. I’m wearing a crop top from H&M, and a similar skirt can be found here.

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Posted in LIFE LATELY, WEDDING

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02.07

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Being in the midst of a wedding countdown has been just the excuse I needed to test out a whole host of new products. I’m never normally very adventurous when it comes to beauty (or…anything, really), but in the interest of ‘being my best self’ and all those other schmaltzy terms churned out by bridal magazines, I’ve been branching out! And since I’ve discovered some stellar new products this month (well, new to me at least), I’d say branching out has paid off!

Outside of the beauty department, we’re talking jewellery, summer tops, and hair tongs. Oh so very girly this month. Let’s do this!

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Kiehl’s Midnight Recovery Concentrate – £36 for 30ml.

The fact that this beautiful blue bottle of oil is now sitting in pride of place on the shelf in my bathroom is all thanks to Kiehl’s clever marketing tactics. I was handed a sample whilst walking past the Kiehl’s Covent Garden store a few weeks ago by an assistant, tried it, promptly fell in love, and bought a bottle first chance I got! Smart move Kiehl’s, smart move ;)

I use it in place of my evening moisturiser- you simply press a few drops between your palms and then onto your face, then follow up with a little facial massage to help the oil sink in. It leaves my skin so smooth and evened out, and isn’t greasy or heavy in the slightest. Total miracle product. *hands up emoji*

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A&F camisole – £16

Up until this month, I’d not given Abercrombie a second glance since leaving my teenage years behind. When I was about 17, the *height* of cool was to wear a pair of A&F trackies with a super low cut baby doll top, and then team it with mega backcombed hair and a side parting so low you essentially looked as though you were wearing a very hairy helmet. I remember rocking that exact look to college, and feeling like I’d peaked in life.

Now though, A&F is pretty grown up! I popped in a couple of weeks ago whilst shopping for my honeymoon wardrobe (sounds fancier than it is, mainly consists of good ol’ Monsoon bikinis!), and came away with this steal of a summer top. It’s light as a feather and has the prettiest back detailing (I bought it mainly because it reminds me of my favourite leotard from back in my dancing days- is that bad?), and goes with literally everything under the sun. I’m tempted now to pop back in and pick it up in a rainbow of colours…

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Florence + the Machine ‘How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful’

Oh, how do I love thee Florence? Let me count the ways.

I pounced on this album the very second it landed on Spotify, and it’s totally killer. Amazing to blast out whilst driving, and just as uplifting and soulful as you’d expect from a Florence album. ‘Delilah’ is especially lush…but to be honest, it’s impossible to pick out a bad song on the album. Also, can we take a moment to admire the fringe the lady herself is rocking on the album artwork? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more perfect fringe in all my life. Kind of makes me want to have one cut in myself…

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Astrid & Miyu New Tricks Star bracelet – £39

Isn’t this little bracelet a beauty? I got to take it away from an event I went to with Bailey Nelson and Astrid & Miyu during the month, and have so loved wearing it. I’ve always admired those women who can stack up delicate jewellery like this and have it come together looking effortlessly chic, so maybe this’ll be step one on that journey? ;)

Also, and kind of a sidenote- peonies! They’re amongst my ‘most loved’ things in June for sure! I picked up a bunch from Waitrose the other day, and they’re just now beginning to bloom. Aren’t they just the best flowers? So blousy and extravagant!

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Babyliss Pro Curl 210 curling tong – £18

This hair tong has been something of a revelation for me. You see, my hair doesn’t take well to being forced into a style. Straightening it takes an age (and the waves have come back by the time I’ve worked from one side of my head to the other), curling with GHDs works okay but never seems to hold in my hair as long as I’d like, and that combined with my very limited amount of patience with hair styling leads to me having pretty fuzzy, unruly hair most of the time.

ENTER THE BABYLISS 210!

Not only is it a snip at £18 (18 pounds! Can you even believe it?!), but it works *so well*! It takes 20 minutes tops to curl my hair from start to finish (I have it on the hottest setting, 210 degrees), and the curls soften out to the most effortless romantic waves. The first time I used it was in the evening right after I bought it, and the second day results can be seen in this post here. Not bad, huh?

An all-out game changer! (And did I mention how cheap it is yet?)

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Diptyque ‘Philosykos‘ – £58/50ml.

Have I told you before that I don’t like perfume? Yep. I’ve just never got on with it at all! Fragrances never last and always smell strange on me (I’ve had an obsession with Chanel No.5 for years but it smells SO terrible on my skin) and I usually find them to be too sweet. To be honest, men’s cologne is usually more my cup of tea than women’s perfume!

That’s all changed this month though, thanks to Diptyque! Their fragrances are more complex and layered than any I’ve smelt before (with the exception of one from Penhaligon’s I’m lining up to be my wedding day fragrance…) and Philosykos is pretty much everything I look for in a perfume. Fresh at the start, woody and vaguely masculine after half an hour or so of softening on the skin, and so long lasting. I’ve been putting it on even during days spent at home, just for the pleasure of smelling it all day long! The perfect summer scent, if you ask me.

Tell me, what’ve you loved most during June? :)

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Posted in BEAUTY, MOST LOVED

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