Whatever the weather

One thing you can never count on in Britain is the weather, so for our wedding we've decided to plan for rain.

In November, the likelihood is the weather is not going to be brilliant, so we've decided that if we plan for rain then we'll be fine if it does bucket it down, and if it doesn't then that's an added bonus!

The pictures after the service will be taken in the church, and the reception is going to be in the church centre, which is connected to the church by an indoor link, meaning no one will have to go outside.

It would be nice if we could have a few pictures taken outside, and I would absolutely love it if it was snowing! I think that's unlikely - Novembers in the Midlands tend to be wet and grey - but even if it is soggy and overcast, we're prepared for the worst.

To love, cherish and obey

I, N , take you, N , to be my husband,
to have and to hold from this day forward;
for better, for worse,
for richer, for poorer,
in sickness and in health,
to love, cherish and obey
till death us do part;
according to God's holy law.
In the presence of God I make this vow.

 
I plan on promising to 'love, cherish and obey' darling beardy man. This may come as a surprise to people who know me, who know that I'm rarely short of an opinion and always happy to vocalise it or to disagree with other people. It all comes down to what you understand by 'obey' though.

In the context of marriage I don't believe that 'obey' means I should always do exactly what and only what my husband says. I believe there is a place in marriage for differences of opinion, and that there's nothing wrong with a couple disagreeing with each other over some things.

Where I believe the obeying issue comes in (and I have talked about this with darling beardy man) is if there's something which we need to make a decision on but we can't agree. In that case, I would go with his decision as he is the head of the household.

I imagine that in most cases we'll be able to agree on something, or the issue won't be one that requires us to agree (for example, what shall we eat for tea? I want chicken and you want pork? We'll cook both.) But in the cases where we do need to make a decision, if we can't make one then he will make that call.

Counting down

A friend told me yesterday "you know tomorrow it's 10 weeks to go". It was scary and exciting to hear that, but then when I looked at the calendar today I realised he was wrong - it's not 10 weeks to go, it's actually 9!

A bit of history

My dad organised the car to take me to the wedding through a work friend whose family owns a wedding car hire business.

When it came to booking the exact vehicle he discovered that the company still owned the same car my mom travelled to her wedding in, so I'll be travelling to the same church my parents married in, in the same car that they had. It's a very nice thought that it's a bit of family history repeating itself.

The car is called Rupert (I have no idea why!) and is a 1934 vintage blue and white Rolls-Royce 20/25 limousine – "a car of character and distinction which carries up to six passengers also has a sunshine roof." The car hire business has been around even longer, having been set up as a family business in 1927.

AB Taylor Wedding Services
49 Wolverhampton Road South, Birmingham, B32 2AY
t: 0121 434 4340
e: taylorweddings@btconnect.com
w: www.abtaylor.co.uk

A terrifying moment

I had a really scary moment on Wednesday (11th August) when I was at work.

I was in a training session waiting for it to start and brought my hand up from under the desk. As I was doing that I caught my ring on the metal bar under the desk. The bar hit one part of the claw setting and the aquamarine flew out of the ring and under the desk.

I was completely surprised by how emotional I got when I looked down and realised the stone was gone. I shoved my chair back and disappeared under the desk - to the surprise of the lecturer - and found myself crying as I was grovelling on the floor looking for the stone.

The lecturer was very nice and came to help me search, and after a couple of minutes I found it, safe and un-chipped, lying on the carpet under the desk. I put the stone back into the setting and squished the claw in as tight as possible, but I spent the rest of the day nervously fingering the setting to reassure myself that it was still secure.

I would never have thought that something as relatively unimportant as knocking a stone out - which was quickly recovered - would have made me so upset.

Walking up the aisle

The last time I walked up the aisle of Aston Parish Church was just over three years ago for my brother's wedding, when I was a bridesmaid.

A few things were different to the way they will be on 23rd November - they were married in May rather than November, and they had their reception at a different location. But we have pinched a few ideas from their wedding which worked well.

Firstly, we're planning to do our photos inside the church, using the chancel windows as the background. That way it doesn't matter if it rains because we'll be inside, and no one will be getting too cold or wet hanging around outside.

If the weather is good, we've still got the option of going outside for a few pictures, but we won't have to worry if it is tipping it down with rain.

We're also planning to have cake and a drink available at the back of the church for people to eat straight after the service and while the pictures are being done. A nice thing about this means that we'll get the chance to see people who aren't coming to the reception before we disappear.

How the parents cope

My parents have two very different approaches to the organisation of the wedding.

My Mom is very much a list-maker, and she has dozens of pieces of paper filled with lists, dates, contact details, things to do and questions to ask. My Dad joked last week that the whole upstairs of their house was pull of pieces of paper!

Dad, on the other hand, seems to be very laid back about it all and is happy to take a back seat unless we particularly ask him to do something for us.

I think I fall somewhere in the middle of the two. I do have lists, but certainly not as many as Mom. It would be impossible to take a back seat in the organisation, but I don't think I'm worrying about things as much as Mom is - although lovely beardy man may disagree!

What not to wear

Lovely beardy man has been threatening to wear a boiler suit for the wedding - his reasoning being that since I said he has to wear a new suit, he could use a new boiler suit anyway. We've bougt him a waistcoat now, but he's still threatening to just wear it under the boiler suit!

In return I've told him my dress is a beautiful, huge, pink blancmange of a dress, complete with fairy lights around the bottom. I was bored last night so I Googled 'pink wedding dresses' just to see what would come up. The results were... interesting... :-)

OhMyGoodnessI'mGettingMarried!

I've had two moments so far when it's actually hit me that I'm getting married.

The first was a couple of weeks ago when we got the letter from the church to confirm our booking for the wedding day. It was very exciting to actually see it all in print, and it was a bit of an 'oh my goodness' moment to realise that yes, this is actually happening!

The second moment was yesterday when we had our banns read for the first time. Because we're getting married in a Church of England church we have to have the banns read at the church we're getting married in as well as in the parishes we live in. Since we live in different parishes and we're getting married in Birmingham, this means three lots of banns.

Banns have to be read at some point in the three months before the wedding, and have to be read on three consecutive Sundays. Essentially, they're the "if anyone knows of any reason why this couple may not marry" bit which takes place during the actual ceremony, but repeated several times.

We had to give lots of information to the vicars - full names, addresses, age at time of wedding, status (widowed/bachelor/spinster) and where we're getting married - so that they could fill in the forms, and even more information to Aston, because they have to fill in the marriage certificate.

Finally, after meeting the vicars and filling in the forms, our first reading of the banns took place at Holy Trinity Church in Oswestry yesterday. Although beardy man and I both go to the Baptist church, the banns have to be read in the CofE church, and I live in the parish of Holy Trinity.

The service started half an hour before the one at our church, so we decided to go along and listen to the banns being read. Paul, the vicar, welcomed us when we arrived, and there were quite a few people there that we knew from various places, so it was quite a nice welcoming church to be at. The service had a couple of hymns and readings before the notices, and then it was the banns. It was very strange to hear our names being read out in front of so many people, and it made me feel like it was actually official now - we're getting married! They prayed for us and another couple having their banns read at the same time, which was really nice, and then we snuck out to go to our church service.

While we were walking back I got a bit teary, which is really silly, but I got very emotional at the thought of us actually getting married! (Emotional in a good way, of course!)

Oh, and no one objected when the banns were read :-)