So, it's been a whole two weeks since I became Mrs Ellis, {insert huge cheesy grin} I know everyone says their wedding day was one of the best days of their lives and I'm not going to say anything different because it truly was... It was perfect.
We had talked about getting married and planned to do it, every year for about 4 years, so I had 4 years of Pinsperation in my board. It was April this year that we just decided to go for it. It was always going to be a DIY wedding, we simply don't have thousands of pounds and to be honest, even if we did, I personally wouldn't be able to justify spending X amount on a wedding!
I have always, always wanted to have an outdoor wedding ceremony and unfortunately in England, due to some very silly laws, you cannot get legally wed in the complete outdoors. So we had to find a way, a little bit of googling, we found it. We needed to get legally married in a registry office, there was no other way around that, but we found a very lovely Man named Colin Nolan - The Celebrant, he would be the one to give us our dream ceremony.
We managed to get the registry office booked the day before our outdoor wedding, and we always agreed that it would be as simple as possible, with a couple of close family members & friends, nothing wedding-y, no rings, just simply signing of the papers.
Well... I seriously don't know what happened to me, I was absolutely fine, until one minute before we were to walk into the registry office, I turned into a complete blubbering mess. I couldn't control my emotions, I think I cried the whole way through. I seriously shocked myself at how emotional I was, we always told ourselves that this wouldn't be anything special but I think knowing that this was the real day that I was to marry Mr E, this would be the day of our anniversaries, I was happy, very happy.
The first of many, many tissues. I cried so much, I made him cry too.
We got through it though and afterwards went for a quick pint and a game of pool at the pub.
We had so much still to do for the next day, anyone who knows me, knows I am probably the least organised person on the planet, and that is not a good thing when it comes to weddings. I don't think I realised just how much I had to do.
Since we were on such a tight budget, a posh reception venue just wasn't going to happen, we needed to stretch the pennies. We hired out a village hall to use, we were able to decorate how we wanted, but that meant WE had to decorate. With the help of most of our lovely family, that is how we spent just about the whole of our 'legal marriage day/night'.
Ceremony day... Our ceremony was at 4pm in the beautiful 'Castle Gardens', since it is open to the
public we didn't need to get permission to use, although I did speak with the people that look after it,
they said it was a beautiful idea.
Obviously, thanks to my fantastic organisational skills, I was setting up the last pieces of decor right until the last minute. I had literally hung the background from the trees as guests were arriving. Luckily I'd done my hair and make up, so I just needed to get home, throw my dress on, and get back up there. The plan was to take the bridesmaids up first and come back for me and my boys, but the time meant that 6 of us had to squeeze into my brothers tiny Peugeot 206 all at the same time.
I had always envisioned my step dad walking me down the aisle, or at least him on his mobility scooter with me on the back. But he unfortunately passed away last October, so that was to never happen. The only people that I felt happy with, and I know he'd be proud of to take his place were my sons. So they held my hands and walked me to their daddy, with my brother and my two sisters with us. We walked to the song 'Marry Me' by Train.
I managed to find this beautiful lace dress, for very cheap, from EBay. My babies in their vans and converse, and very cute, sandy coloured outfits.
Now was the time to stand up in front of all our close family and friends, tell our story, and read our vows that we had written for each other. It was beautiful.
We got bombarded with our homemade paper doily confetti cones, which were filled with wild flowers that we had all picked a couple of days before.
Aw, so happy.
Doesn't Mr E look smart. A couple members of his family didn't approve of his converse, but I thought he looked perfect.
All of our very close family members.
Reception time.. time to get drunk, dance and celebrate, and maybe fall asleep in the back room on the floor. Whoops, yes that happened, I must have been sooo tired, I honestly wasn't THAT drunk 😕
We had talked about entertainment, and originally wanted a band, but due to restrictions in music tastes we decided against it. We really didn't want to have a cheesy DJ though, so after another visit to Google we found something AWESOME!
We hired out a Juke box from Sound Leisure LTD and it took centre stage at our venue. At either side are our first initials, which I made from some scrap ply board, 4 sets of battery operated fairy lights, some ping pong balls and a little lick on Annie Sloan - old white paint. I really was amazed with how it looked.
The venue all set up.
Our centrepieces were glass jars, lots of glass jars. On each table there were 3 jars that were filled with shop bought baby's breath, a pink carnation, and a few sprigs of lavender from our garden. Then there were another 8 jars filled with a little sand and long burning tea lights. We also had a glass jar that held a selection of props for guests to have fun with.
Food.. Thankfully having a chef as my brother-in-law definitely has it's perks, he provided an amazingly delicious buffet for us as our wedding present, so we didn't pay a penny for our food. We had a table filled with lots of different types of cakes aswel.
Now I know people would have expected me to make my own wedding cake since that is what I do for a hobby, but I never wanted anything extravagant, I just wanted something that fit us and the venue, plus I really didn't have the time.
This was our wedding cake. It was a shop bought Victoria sponge cake {my favourite} with a simple banner which I made, in 2 minutes, with a piece of black card, a couple of wooden skewers, a white pen and a bit of hot glue. It was finished off nicely with a handful of fresh strawberries.
We hired out a bouncy castle and an inflatable slide for all the little kiddies, {plus a few adults} so they were entertained most of the night. Our photographer, who took some very beautiful shots is a friend of the family, so we got a great discount on that. We got our rings from a shop called Loved and cherished on Etsy, mine was inscribed with the words 'love you...' And Mr E's had 'love you more' inside his.
All in all I think we spent £2000, which is not very much at all for a dream wedding. If I could do it all over again, even with a bigger budget, I wouldn't do anything differently. It was everything I ever dreamed my wedding would be, and more.
x
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