13.09

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Instead of peppering the past few wedding posts with links and sources, I thought it might be more helpful to compile a round up of all the suppliers we used for our wedding! Do let me know if I’ve forgotten anything you’d like to know about, and I’ll add in links. So here goes! Our wedding, bit by bit…

Car :: Bentley ‘Flying Spur’, Church on Time.

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Fragrance :: Penhaligon’s Iris Prima eau de parfum, via Birchbox.

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Dress :: The ‘Victoria’, from Surrey Brides

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Necklace :: Riva Diamond Hoop Pendant + chain, Monica Vinader
Earrings :: Elsa Peretti Diamonds by the Yard earrings, Tiffany & Co.

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Bridesmaids’ gifts :: New Tricks Star Necklace, Astrid & Miyu.

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Stationery :: Designed in-house at Flourish, Jason’s agency (a one-off, I’m afraid!), but printed via printed.com, who we’d highly recommend.

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Bespoke calligraphy :: Judy Broad.

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Flowers :: Michelle Rust.

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Jason & groomsmen’s suits :: Grey Herringbone Tweet Belmont lounge suit, Hugh Harris {Jason’s was bought and so was cut bespoke, but all others were hired off the peg}

Jason’s shirt :: Slim collar bar shirt, Reiss.
Tie bar :: Gold plated tie bar, ASOS.
Tie :: Navy knitted
Groomsmen’s ties :: Pink knitted

Pageboy’s suit :: Navy slim cut boy’s suit, Next.

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Bridesmaids’ dresses :: via Boden, sadly no longer available. (Beautiful & similar alternatives in maxi and knee length)
Little bridesmaids’ dresses :: Estella Flower Crochet Dress, Monsoon.

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Venue :: The Barn at Bury Court.

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Food, + day management :: Jacaranda Catering.

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Hair styling (bridal, bridesmaids’, & mother of the bride) :: Cody Hair Design.

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Evening food truck :: via Jacaranda.

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Band :: Smith & Sons.

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Outdoor lighting :: Extendable Festoon Lights (50 metres total.), Cox & Cox.

E X T R A S ::
Fire pit :: Kadai recycled fire bowl
Drinks :: Wine via Majestic, spirits and soft drinks via CostCo- both places chosen for their prices & returns policy for overages.

{All photographs by Sam Docker}

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11.09

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T H E   B A R N   A T   B U R Y   C O U R T ,  F A R N H A M .

The first visit we made to our reception venue, the Barn at Bury Court, was back in May of 2014. All of our other visits- where we met with suppliers and made plans about how our day would look- took place early in Spring this year, and so we’d never actually seen it in all its high Summer glory before.

Right from when we first got engaged, we’d always said that we’d love to have a wedding day that was spent mostly outdoors, and Michelle (our friend, florist, and all-round wedding guru) had advised us that Bury Court would be the place to go, for a English country garden-based day. And she couldn’t have been more right…

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Jason and I arrived at the Barn after a half hour or so journey from the church, gratefully picked up drinks in our way through to the gardens (gin brambles, and elderflower coolers!), and then promptly lost one another amongst our family and friends! In fact, I lost my drink right away too, which became a running theme for the day.

That first half an hour or so in the gardens was spent greeting and catching up with all of our friends and family in turn. I remember hugging cousins and aunts and uncles and siblings and friends, and seeing trays of canapés flying in and out of the kitchens, and wondering at what point in the day it would be acceptable for me to ditch my heels…

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My Mum had advised us to try and seize brief moments just for the two of us throughout the day, whenever it was possible, and so after we’d seen each of our lovely guests in turn, we headed further into the gardens to take a moment or two just with each other.

B E L O W :: We’d put together a little photo treasure hunt for each of the children, with a disposable camera and set of photos for them to take throughout the cocktail reception. They took to their tasks like professionals! When the little girls weren’t busy taking their bridesmaids’ duties seriously and helping me with my train, that is…

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Looking back now, I hardly remember having Sam, our photographer, with us at all during these moments.

Jason and I walked round the gardens slowly, pausing every now and again to look back at our party eating and drinking and laughing together, and we kept turning to one another and saying, ‘We did it! We did it!’

Silly though it sounds, it felt so wonderful to be together again, after having been apart for the previous 48 hours. It’d been the first time in just shy of six years that we’d gone longer than a few hours or so without talking, and despite the fact that all we’d done, since saying goodbye to one another at the ceremony rehearsal on the Wednesday evening, had been centred around getting ready for the wedding, it still felt as though we had so much to catch each other up on!

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A B O V E :: I remember watching as this photo was taken, and wanting to drink in every moment of seeing my new husband as he stood in front of the camera, turning and adjusting the wedding band that looked so strange and new and wonderful on his hand. I kept catching myself staring at the ring on his finger throughout the day- even more than I did my own!

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Both Jason and I had been nervous that the reception in the garden would feel as though it lasted a long time, and that perhaps our guests would begin to feel anxious to be called through to eat, but it went by in the blink of an eye! We had a few photos taken with our families (and failed miserably at being sensible in a single one of them…), I took single sips from at least two more drinks, until at a little after 4.30, our coordinator for the day slipped over to us to say that it was time to come through for the wedding breakfast…

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I N T O   T H E   B A R N . . .

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Jason and I had been able to have a sneak peek of the barn, which had hidden from view behind a big velvet curtain until it was time for the wedding breakfast to be served, but nothing compared to the moment when we walked in as ‘the new Mr and Mrs Chappel’!

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The whole room glowed, thanks to the fairy lights that wrapped around each wooden beam and the candles that Michelle had incorporated into each of her table settings.

‘This can’t be our wedding, surely?!’, I remember thinking to myself!

In fact, so many people through the day told us that it was a beautiful wedding, and I told them, time and again, that the praise had to go to Michelle. The flowers were more perfect than Jason and I had ever imagined they could be- every bit as soft and delicate and loose as we’d asked Michelle to make them, and yet with something special and unique incorporated into each arrangement too.

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During the meal, we sat back and watched as our friends and families got to know each other on their tables, and smiled as we heard the laughter ringing loudly from one corner of the room or another.

We’d asked each of our siblings to ‘host’ a table, and I could barely take my eyes off my sister as she chatted happily and hosted her table of my friends and our cousins so confidently. I’ve never been able to help but see her as my ‘baby sister’, with there being eight years between us, but that changed completely (‘at last!’ so says Cesca!) at the wedding.

As the meal drew to a close, the waves of nerves began to radiate from Jason on one side of me, and Steve on the other. Speeches were coming, you see…

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Really though, they needn’t have worried. All the speeches, from Steve, my Mum, both of Jason’s brothers, and Jason himself, were just brilliant.

I glanced up midway through Jason’s speech, and saw a room full of people with tears in their eyes as he spoke about what a special role my Grandma played in bringing us together. With my own eyes brimming over, we raised our glasses, and 80 voices choked out,

‘To Grandma’.

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With the speeches over, and the band beginning to set up behind the curtain that divided the main hall of the barn from the dance floor, we moved through to the courtyard on the other side of the barn for coffee.

B E L O W :: It might have tested Farnham’s 3G signal to its very limits, but we managed to have a brief but wonderful FaceTime call with my cousin Natalie in Sweden! She’d had a baby just a couple of weeks before the wedding and so wasn’t able to come over, and I think what Sam captured here was the exact moment the call went from ‘ringing’ to ‘connecting’! It’s another of the tiny moments of happiness from the day I never even noticed him photographing at the time, and am so very glad he did.

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T H E   P A R T Y   B E G I N S

Strangely enough, our first dance was one of the parts of the day I felt most nervous about! I think it’s because the song we’d chosen, so many months ago, is one that we’d only ever danced to in quiet moments- always late in the evening, usually midway through a sink-full of washing up- and so it felt so very personal to us.

The song we’d chosen for our dance was Lennon and Maisy’s cover of ‘That’s What’s Up’. I’d stumbled upon it whilst browsing their music one day, and as soon as I’d played it to Jason and really listened to the words, (‘…forever, no matter what, you’ve got my love to lean on darlin’, no matter what’), we knew it was the one.

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We’d beckoned our parents onto the dance floor to join us about two thirds of the way through the song, and as the band continued to play through their set (they were *amazing*!), and the rest of our friends and family began to dance, Jason and I snuck away.

Sam had whispered ‘wheat fields, 15 minutes until sunset- after you’ve danced, let’s go!’ into our ears right before our first dance, and never ones to miss a good bit of golden sunlight, we jumped to it!

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It was that field right there that caused the demise of a good four or so layers of my dress, and my shoes were removed right before we ran into it and never went back on, but truly? I didn’t care.

We stood in the middle of the crop field and breathed in the warm summer air as deep as we could, and it felt like the first time we’d relaxed all day.

In the distance our wedding was taking care of itself (we could hear the bass note of the band playing, and the occasional shout and hoot of laughter), and we were together, in the quiet, surrounded by peaceful fields and with swallows swooping low over our heads.

It was perfect.

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By the time we came back, the evening was in full swing!
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Burgers were beginning to fly from the food truck, marshmallows were being toasted over the fire pit and then sandwiched between biscuits, and inside the barn, the band were playing a set of folk songs (think Mumford & Sons and Vance Joy…) that was so infectious it was hard to decide whether to stay out (and start s’more-ing) or head in to dance!

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ABOVE :: My cousin’s daughter Emi caught my bouquet when I did the ‘bouquet toss’ right at the end of the evening! I went to her Mum and Dad’s wedding when I was 14 (10 years ago! Goodness me!) and so this felt like a funny moment of closing the loop!
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The evening, like the rest of the day, went by far faster than I’d have liked.

As it drew to a close, I remember thinking to myself ‘But Jason and I barely got to dance together!’ and ‘I never got to speak properly with my sister-in-law, or Godmother, or Jason’s Grandmother’! But so many people had warned us that the day would race past at the speed of light, and so we savoured every last moment of it.

Our car pulled up outside, and we ran beneath an archway of arms made by our family and friends on our way out of the barn. We made a final few emotional farewells, then waved goodbye to our wedding day as our car slowly pulled out of the driveway.

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And that was us. Mr and Mrs Chappel, out!

We couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful day, or for a more perfect start to married life. And reliving it here has been such a fun and emotional and wonderful experience…and did I say emotional already?

So thank you, my friends, for letting me walk through our wedding day throughout this week. I’ll be wrapping up this week’s posts with a supplier list on Sunday, so again, do let me know if there’s anything specific you’d like a link for.

<3

{All photographs by Sam Docker}

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09.09

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1 7 . 0 7 . 1 5  ,  1 . 2 0 p m .

Our car pulled up outside the church a little ahead of schedule (can you even believe it? Me, on time? I was as shocked as anyone!), and so Steve and I had a moment to pause before making our way in for the ceremony.

There was a strong wind blowing outside, and I remember seeing Jo and Francesca, my Mum, and Ruby and Sienna (my little bridesmaids) all standing outside the church with their hair and dresses being blown this way and that in the breeze, and feeling my heart ache with love for them all as I watched quietly from the car. It’s one of my most vivid memories from the whole day, I think mostly because it was one of the rare moments of calm that we had.

Jonathan, our vicar, came over to meet me at the car, congratulated me on my excellent time-keeping (I’ve got form, and he knows it ;), then made sure we were ready to begin before walking my Mum to her seat at the front of the church.

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As I made my way from the car up towards the church, the wind picked up so suddenly and with such strength that it lifted my veil up, pulled it out of my hair, and sent it rolling away like a cloud!

I’d not planned on spending the final moments before walking down the aisle watching my godfather chasing down my runaway veil, but I was so glad of having something to distract me from the butterflies that were beating hard in my stomach!

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I waited in the entryway of the church almost dizzy with anticipation, taking the deepest, most calming breaths I could manage. Inside, Jason was nervous too…

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Sienna and Ruby clasped hands just as the first notes of Pachelbel’s Canon began to play, and began their walk down the aisle.

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Jason had always said that he would want to stick to the tradition of the groom not turning around as the bride walks down the aisle, but told me afterwards that Jonathan had advised him, when he’d arrived at the church earlier that morning, not to miss that moment for anything in the world.

So many people had reminded me over and over again that I needed to soak in as much as I possibly could of my walk down the aisle, and looking back now, I think I managed it.

I paused at the very back of the church whilst Jo and Francesca straightened out the train of my dress, and tried to drink in as much of wonderful moment as I could. I remember seeing the tiny face of Darcey, my cousin Emily’s then three week old baby, sleeping in her carseat at the back of the church, and my Mum beaming with pride, and from afar, the tears that were welling in not just Jason’s eyes, but his brother Russell’s too.

I remember feeling like my face wouldn’t be able to contain my smile as I looked at my almost-husband for the very first time on our wedding day, and how the urge to walk as fast as I could to him was almost overwhelming.

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ABOVE :: I’d not managed to spot Julia, Jason’s Mum, or either of my now-sisters-in-law whilst walking up the aisle, and so turned round to find them just before the service began. I remember thinking how beautiful they all looked, and my heart danced again at the idea that we were about to become family.

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We’d asked my cousin Sophie and Jason’s Grandmother if they would do readings during our ceremony, which they both did so beautifully it brought forth yet another wave of tears.

Sophie read ‘I will be here’ by Steve Curtis Chapman, and Umamma (her unusual name is a long story, one I’ll tell you another time…), read from the Song of Soloman.

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Now, I’ll tell you- in the ceremony rehearsal we’d had two days previously, I’d been so excited standing in place at the top of the aisle, I’d struggled to keep myself from bouncing up and down!

‘Don’t do that in the actual ceremony, Rosie’, I’d told myself, ‘Try to act with some decorum.’

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When the time finally came for us to say our vows, though in the moment I felt I was a picture of calm and grace, it turns out I was bouncing on my heels and beaming so brightly that most of our guests’ first words to us afterwards were ‘do you think Rosie was keen to marry you, Jason?’! ;)

In truth though, we both were as excited as one another- Jason’s just better at controlling himself than I am!

The vows themselves tumbled out of our mouths without falter, though Jason won’t mind me telling you that it was him, and not me, who had to swallow a lump and choke back tears on more than one occasion.

And then, just like that, it was over! There’ve never been sweeter words spoken that those of ‘I now pronounce you husband and wife’. <3

A B O V E  :: I can’t remember what had made us laugh, in the photo above, but I think it’s one of my favourites from the whole day.

B E L O W :: And this shot, of the looks on my sister and best friend and Mum and Aunt’s faces as they watched us say our vows, makes me choke up each and every time I look at it.

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The final hymn of our service, sung after we’d been pronounced married and as we went off to sign the register, was the one I’d been most excited about. I’d picked it out even before we organised our flowers or the food or the band or any of those other vital elements of the day.

It came via Little Women, my favourite novel of all time. In the film, the hymn For the Beauty of the Earth is sung at Meg’s wedding, and it’s stuck with me always.

Jo and I used to sing it, only with a different arrangement, in assemblies and during Mass at school when we were in our teens, and so singing it during the service, right after Jason and I been sealed to each other forever and always, was the only time during the ceremony that my throat locked tight and the little wave of tears that had bobbed around my lower lash line throughout spilled over and down my cheeks.

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At the top of the aisle, once the register had signed and my name changed forever, we paused for a moment. The wedding march began to play, Jason took me by the hand, asked ‘Ready B?’ (it was a wonder he managed to say my actual name in the vows! ;), and off we went!

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It felt as though floated on air down the aisle, with cameras clicking and flashing away the whole time.

Our cheeks ached from smiling so hard, and outside, we were met by yet another gust of wind harbouring a grudge against long, gauzy veils!

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A B O V E  :: Another of my favourites from the day. And B E L O W …ready, confetti!

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Beaming and waving and beaming so more, we settled ourselves into the backseat of our car, and slowly pulled away from the church.

I can’t remember what Jason and I said to one another on that journey, only that we sat back in our seats laughing with happiness, and revelled in those first few precious minutes of being husband and wife.

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Onwards, to the reception!

{All photos by the wonderful Sam Docker.}

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08.09

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F R I D A Y   1 7 T H    J U L Y   2 0 1 5  ,  A M .

It’d been hard to sleep, the night before the wedding. I’d kissed goodnight my Mum and sister and Jo (my best friend and Maid of Honour) after an evening of drinking champagne and sharing gifts and telling stories and reminiscing, all by the light of a hundred candles and whilst listening to a colossal storm raging outside. It was as romantic a start to a wedding as I could ever have hoped for.

We woke bright and early that morning, and the ‘getting ready’ process took, as you’d expect, a hundred times longer than we’d planned it to. The house had a peaceful, relaxed vibe to it though, for the most part. Cody, our amazing hairdresser, calmly worked her way through each of us in turn, pinning and curling and braiding until we were transformed, then added in to our hair the tiny sprigs of gypsophilia and tea roses and fragrant eucalyptus that Michelle had dropped off along with our bouquets midway through the morning.

My stomach lurched with nerves every 15 minutes or so, and breakfast was an impossibility. In fact, I think I ran on adrenaline alone for most of the day…

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Whilst my Mum worked her magic doing makeup for Cesca, Jo, and herself, our wonderful photographer Sam managed to slip around almost unnoticed (quite the feat, in a house full of women!) capturing moments with the skill and intuition that make his work so very special.

A B O V E- my darling Grandma and Granddad on their own wedding day, 65 years before my own. Isn’t her bouquet something? <3 And Fizz, who we got as a kitten when I was 10, relaxed happily in the garden and then kitchen, soaking up all the attention that came her way.

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Jason and I had promised that we’d keep our wedding morning ‘gifts’ to something small and sentimental, and at a little before 11 that morning, my soon-to-be brother-in-law Joe arrived bearing a little sealed envelope marked, as Jason has called me for the best part of our relationship, not Rosie but ‘B’.

The card read ‘Adventure is waiting’, and the words inside were so similar those I’d written to Jason inside the gift I sent back for him with Joe (a book of all the little letters I’ve written him during the past few years, with a new one for the morning of the wedding), it was almost silly! If we’d ever doubted for a second if we were meant to be…
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Sam dashed over to see Jason and his brothers, just in time to capture Jason opening up my gift to him. B E L O W – the boys in black and white…

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B A C K   T O  B R I D E – C E N T R A L

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I’d somehow managed to leave putting on my dress so late in the morning that panic had begun to set in, and the moment itself is a blur when I look back on it now.

A blur of ‘goodness me, was it always this snug?’ and ‘please don’t let me fall down these stairs’ and ‘can I wear this every day of my life, do you reckon?’. Even though I must’ve tried on my dress 30 times ever since that very first fitting, this time was something completely different. I can’t quite explain how surreal it felt to be transformed from myself, into a bride.

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Asking my godfather, Steve, if he’d give me away was one of the very first things I did after getting engaged, and it was so incredibly special to have him with me on that morning. He insisted we took a selfie in the car on the way over to the ceremony (and called it a ‘facie’! <3), which, whilst I look so nervous I’m practically green, is a photo I’ll treasure forever!

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The final moments before we left the house were a rush of emotions.

Jo and Francesca helped me put the veil down over my face so that Steve could practise lifting it off again (he was nervous about doing it wrong at the top of the aisle!), and the look on my Mum’s face when she saw me as a bride for the very first time that morning is a mental picture I know will stay with me forever.

My heart felt as though it was leaping higher and higher in my throat, and the minutes seemed to rush past in bursts.

I watched as our little bridesmaids left for the church, followed closely behind by Jo and Francesca and my Mum and Godmother, until there was no one left but myself and Steve.

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He asked, ‘Are you ready, darling?’, reminded me to breathe (because I think, in the joy and nerves and anticipation of the moment, I’d forgotten to), and then, finally, we were ready to leave.

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T O   T H E   C H U R C H . . .

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Up next? The ceremony…

{All photos by Sam Docker.}

p.s. I’ll be sharing posts from our wedding all this week and will be finishing up with a full supplier list, so do let me know if you’ve got any ‘where did X/Y/Z come from?’ questions, and I’ll make sure I include the answer in the round up.

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