Share Your Wedding – Mummy In Training

Hello! Welcome to Share Your Wedding, a weekly feature that gives you the chance to re-live your wedding day and may just give soon-to-be–weds some inspiration.

This week we have an invitation to Rachel’s wedding. She blogs over at Mummy in Training and can also be found on Twitter so go say hi!

Hi Rachel! Introduce us to your family.

I’m Rachel, I’m married to G and in October 2012 along came our little man sam. We like the simple things in life and enjoy going to the park together for walks, eating yummy food as a family and playing endless games of cars with Sam.

Let’s set the scene..

How did you meet?

We met in my university town of Aberystwyth in 2005 and then after a brief time apart we met again in Winchester in 2008. We realised then how much we wanted to be together

How long have you known each other?

It will be 10 years on the 26th February!

How did he propose?

It wasn’t a big grand proposal as I had always imagined but to me it was perfect. We were sat in G’s flat having a bit of a heart to heart about our future together as I was living in Winchester then and he was in Birmingham. I was sat in an armchair and out of nowhere he kneeled infront of me (he will hate me for telling you that he was on 2 knees, instead of 1!), took off a ring that I was wearing, placed it on my ring finger and asked me to marry him. It was perfect.

How long were you engaged before you were married?

16 months

Share Your Wedding

When did you get married?

26th February 2010.

How many guests, bridesmaids etc did you have?

We both have large families, so we ended up with a rather big guest list. We had 100 guests to the whole wedding and an extra 30 for the evening. We had 4 bridesmaids, 1 best man, 5 ushers and a page boy!

Tell us about the Venue: Day / Evening

We got married in St Faith & St Lawrence church in Birmingham which is my parents local church and where I was christened. We then went onto The Manor Hotel in Meriden for our reception. The Manor Hotel had one big room for our entire reception with its own bar area which was great for the older members of our family to sit and relax away from all the dancing.

Did your wedding have a certain style?

I guess you would say we went very traditional. We had bunches of white roses everywhere with hints of purple in the rest of the colour scheme. It was quite simple really but that is the way I wanted it.

Tell us about the most important thing, the Dress?

I had an ivory dress with straps, the straps were really important to me as I am very conscious of having my shoulders out – weird I know! It had a little flower detail on the hip and a fairly long train. I adored it and felt like a princess on the day.

Description of your Wedding, as brief or as descriptive as you’d like, flowers, clothes, food, speeches, gifts?

Oh I could talk about this for hours! My colour scheme was shades of purple and white. My bridesmaids wore lilac dresses which were in a shorter but similar style to my dress and the men wore simple black suits with lilac ties to match. I actually had fake flowers which at the time I was never sure about that decision but I love still having my wedding bouquet now! We wanted good traditional grub; we ate soup, lamb with all the trimmings and profiteroles for our wedding breakfast. At the reception the hotel served up bacon and sausage sandwiches with potato wedges – yum! Our wedding cake was traditional again but it had marshmallows all down the side, I was really pleased with how it took traditional and made it a bit fun! The speeches were tear jerkers, especially my Dads and my sister in law did a speech too which was a really nice touch to the day.

What was your favourite part of your Wedding?

I was so nervous before the wedding whilst getting ready, I’m quite a shy person and standing up in front of everyone to say my vows scared me. However, as I stood at the top of the church waiting to walk down the aisle all of my nerves disappeared as I caught a glimpse of my hubby to be. It was an amazing feeling knowing that all our hard work to keep our relationship going whilst we were in different areas of the country had been worth it. Best feeling ever!

What extra touches made it special for you both?

I lost my Aunt a few months before getting married, I was very close to her and I got to wear some of her jewellery on the day. It was lovely feeling a part of her with me.

Did anything not go as planned? Any funny stories?

Surprisingly everything pretty much did go to plan. I had a little stumble when I walked back out to the church after signing the register which was a tad embarrassing. The other funny thing was seeing the ushers and best man run around with walkie talkies. G had all the logistics of our wedding planned down to a tee so to make sure everything was as it should they had walkie talkies (he is very very organised when it comes to big events!) – it was a big talking point!

Would you do anything differently with hindsight?

Not a thing, we loved it. It was exactly how I imagined it would be.

What song did you walk into and what was your first dance song?

I walked into a piece of classical music played on the organ, I’m unsure of the name but it was beautiful and very fitting.

Do you have any advice for the soon to be married?

Listen to people when they tell you to make sure you stop for just a second and take it all in.

Where did you go on honeymoon?

We went to Sorrento in Italy, it was a stunning location. We would love to go back there when Sam is a bit older as there was definitely more to see.

Is there anything else you would like to share about your wedding?

I wore purple shoes! I am a shoe fanatic and I just couldn’t bring myself to wear ‘normal’ wedding shoes so I opted for bright purple heels – they are beautiful.

Wow Rachel that cake is amazing! I love that you met again after a few years and knew you were meant to be together- that is so romantic. Also very jealous that you still have your bouquet! 

Thank you so much Rachel for sharing your wedding with us all!