Tuesday

England Wedding



On the morning of our English wedding, my beautiful bridesmaids (Marie, Leona and Laura) came to get ready with me, along with Chelsea and Marie's mum Grace, who had very sweetly made a whole load of cupcakes for the reception. 

As always, time seemed to be slipping away from me but, somehow, we managed to get ready perfectly on time and meet our guests at the pub where we had our meal. The food- a calamari starter followed by chicken roast dinner- went down really well and, after we'd all eaten, we headed down Winchester High Street to the Guildhall.

While I was getting ready, Rich and Matt had decorated the venue completely by themselves and they did such a good job. They'd hung bunting flags between the arches, sprinkled confetti on the tables and created adorable centrepieces. I could not have been prouder of them! Unfortunately, in all the hubbub, I didn't get a photo of the room before everybody came along, but this phone photo gives you a little idea of what it looked like. I had a minor meltdown over the chairs, which were supposed to be white, but once everyone was sitting down, we didn't even notice. 

While everyone arrived, Rich, Matt and Laura disappeared into a side room with my brother Jamie, who has a food and catering background, to make up our mini pavlova wedding cake. It was delicious! 

After a little while, we headed to the cathedral to take some more formal photos. 

This is one of my favourite photos because of the photobombers behind us. 





After taking the photos, we headed back to the venue for our first dance to The Beatles' When I'm Sixty Four.

Most people stayed sitting down and chatting. My family are pretty spread out so they don't often see each other and I think they appreciated the opportunity to catch up, rather than burning up the dance floor. It was ok though- My girls more than filled the floor with their funky moves!
It was really difficult talking to everybody. I have a huge, complicated family so I was whizzing around trying to speak to everyone, which I didn't quite manage.
There was a very posh, snooty wedding reception taking place in the huge hall upstairs. For a while I'd been wondering whether I would one day regret not having a full-on, traditional wedding. With the guests from upstairs walking past our room and looking down their noses while we blared Baby Got Back, I was hit with the realisation that our wedding was absolutely perfect. It may be tacky to talk about money, but our wedding reception cost under £2000, including room hire, catering for 40 and decorations. When we were packing up, I realised that, had I spent £30,000, the day would have been the same length of time and I would still end up going back home with my husband the next day. I can't imagine how anti-climactic it would have felt the next day if I had spent my entire life savings. 
Everybody seemed to enjoy themselves. At least, they were too polite to tell us if they didn't! Afterwards, Laura and Matt stayed behind to help us clear up and we headed to our hotels. We met up the next morning, as well as Jamie and his girlfriend Lauren, to hang out in Winchester before heading home in the evening. It was so amazing to celebrate our wedding with all our family and friends in one place.

22 comments :

  1. both of your weddings look absolutely beautiful! and the fact your first dance was to 'When I'm Sixty Four' is just amazing because I am the biggest Beatles fan, the perfect choice! I'm so pleased you got two perfect days xxx

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    1. It's one of our favourite songs! Thank you :)

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  2. I love your first dance song! Your wedding seemed so very personal and that's way more important than a ridiculously overpriced traditional wedding, with all the trimmings you 'should' have, this has all the essentials plus personality. Also, you look gorgeous in all the photos, congratulations again! :) xxx

    http://blog.doodleheart.co.uk

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    1. Thank you! I'm so glad we didn't end up buying chair covers or anything like that!

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  3. Love, love, love this post! Your photos are amazing and you look incredible! ^__^

    Jemma xx

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  4. I love the idea of you lying on the floor trying to take a picture of our dresses! I am very happy with this post because I feature in 6 of the photos and as the day was clearly all about us being reunited, I feel like it's the perfect representation of that. That was what the day was about wasn't it?? Some guy named Rich was there but he was just there as a bit of hair-swishing entertainment, right?
    It was such a perfect day! Your dress was gorgeous, you looked fan-fucking-tastic and I had a right laugh! Xx

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    1. Yeah, I was shuffling in the wardrobe on my back.

      "Hair-swishing entertainment" haha! Clearly, it was a day to celebrate the love between Becky & Leona. Two souls reunited.

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  5. Looks like an absolutely beautiful day, the paper flowers are incredible! Ah I'm feeling all happy and gooey after reading this. I hope you had the most wonderful time. x

    Charlotte / coloursandcarousels

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  6. I love your weddings! I loved having a small (cheap) wedding too (on 13 August as well!!) - like you say, the important bit is the marriage, not the wedding!!
    Anna x

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    1. Anniversary twins! You're absolutely right- The wedding isn't important. The marriage is.

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  7. I love this so so much :'D you've made me realise I don't have to have a traditional wedding and it doesn't have to be a big scary event. It's a long way into the future for me but it's something that the thought of terrifies me! But this doesn't look scary at all it looks so so perfect :') congrats girl, you are looking beaut, love the dress so much xxx

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    1. The thought of a big, traditional wedding scared me too so this was the perfect solution. Thank you so much!

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  8. The money isn't everything, it's overrated. It should always be about the fun and about what you want as a couple not what you think the others might want to see.

    Perfect!

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  9. This looks like an amazing wedding, screw the snooty snobs!
    Hayley
    Water Painted Dreams xo

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    1. The children in our wedding went a bit nuts and ended up crashing their wedding with balloons and bowls of popcorn. Whoops!

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  10. Sounds like you had a lovely time! I don't understand people who spend thousands and thousands on their wedding - as you said, it's one day and you'll still have your husband no matter what you spend!

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  11. Why do you always use the WORST photos of me???? Xox

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