A long awaited wedding
Sunday, October 12th, 2008Well, actually, the couple in question have only been planning their wedding for 6 months, but I’ve been waiting for them to get married for about 7 years!!! We have known Julian for ages, and Maria since Josiah was a tiny baby (think she introduced herself to me by coming and asking for a cuddle with him, he was quite cute in those days), and long thought they’d be great together - they took a little longer to come round to the idea 
We had a fantastic but very busy day. I got up early to fit in a quick trip to Pets at Home (ran out of woodshavings) so that I could clean out the guinea pigs before everything else, then it was time to get ready.
We all scrubbed up pretty nicely today I think, although Steve had to get instructions on tying his tie, and then look at the Moss Bros website to make sure he’d got it right! Hoping that one of the family photos that the official photographer took will come out nicely, but I took this one as the kids were practising their piece for the evening.
I had the honour of being chauffeur so we had ribbons on the car … dropped Steve & kids at the church then got to drive around town being stared at! Maria also had her photo taken by some random Japanese tourists who’d arrived at the Georgian Tearooms just as she was leaving so that was amusing! Really enjoyed the driving bit, even if I was a bit disorganised and had to get fuel between the wedding and the reception - but even that was funny as at Sainsbury’s petrol station we bumped into someone who vaguely knew Maria and had to come and say hello!
Can’t really do the day justice in one short blog post, but suffice to say it was beautiful in every way possible. Everyone looked gorgeous, Maria especially was simply glowing. The service itself was meaningful and reflected the God-centredness and thoughtfulness that personifies Julian and Maria together.
The reception - both the coffee and cake bit after the service, and the meal later at the Tumbling Weir - was lovely, all the food was great, and the general atmosphere was one of family celebration, just as it should be. Maria had thought to put together goody bags for all the kids, so my three were thrilled to find those on their chairs, and the colouring etc. kept them happy for ages, so it worked! (2yo Josh’s playdoh amused everyone on our table, too!)
The speeches deserve a mention, as Julian’s speech was far and away the most moving I have ever heard, public declarations of love like that don’t come around all that often - definitely had me blubbing!!
Also worthy of mention was that Rich, the best man, made it to the wedding at all - he’d spent the previous week in and out of hospital, and Steve had to hold him up at various points until we found him a stick to walk with, but he made it and everyone was really pleased about that (we sent him home early though!).
The evening part of the reception was really fun, as there wasn’t a band or disco - instead all the guests had been invited to perform if they wanted to. So there was an eclectic mix of items from poetry to all different sorts of music, including a last minute blues jam including Julian himself which was amazing (I must also admit to being pleased with the hymn that snuck in here, as we didn’t have any proper hymns during the service!).
Anna, Abbie & Joe wanted to do something and had prepared a little trio version of Eleanor Rigby together - which went really well except that the girls only repeated the verse twice instead of three times, which Josiah got a bit upset about (watch the very end of the vid!) but at least he stopped as well!!
Got home late and knackered, dumped everything and went to bed. Then woke up at 4.30am for the Grand Prix 
