Our wedding 5 May 2012
Me and Chris
Chris and I got married on the 5th May 2012! It was a fab day followed by an amazing honeymoon in Thailand. Now we’ve been back a couple of weeks it all seems like a lifetime ago, but last week we got the photos back from the photographer so I thought it would be a good time to do a post.
Coming out of the registry office
Us and our families
Neither of us wanted a big, traditional style wedding so we opted for a registry office service for close family only followed by a party straight after the service for family and friends. The service was at 12pm in Milldam House in Old Portsmouth and the party was from 12.30pm until 6pm at the Kings Street Tavern in Southsea (http://www.thekingstreettavern.co.uk), which is a gorgeous old fashioned pub run by Chris’s friend Sam. Luckily Sam closed the pub all afternoon for us as he is normally open on Saturday lunchtimes, this meant all our friends could turn up and get settled in prior to us turning up.
King Street Tavern in Southsea
I wore a beautiful Orla Kiely ‘Big Bird’ dress, Monsoon angora shrug and John Lewis navy suede heels and Chris wore a heritage slim fit brown Top Man suit and vintage brown Churcher shoes. We had bespoke wedding rings made by Atelier in Ryde, Isle of Wight (http://www.atelierjewellers.co.uk) in silver with a bark effect and ‘Sarah & Chris 05.05.12′ engraved on the inside of the rings. Harriet from Atelier was really fab and managed to know and create exactly what we wanted, so I was really excited to finally be able to wear the ring! I also wore some silver hoop earrings that my Mum bought me, and my Judy Reeves necklace made by my friend Elin (http://www.elinhorgan.com). I also had my hair put into a partial beehive by Lauren at Hair Ott in Portsmouth (http://www.hairott.co.uk), which I loved and want to have done again very soon!
We wanted the day to be as relaxed and enjoyable as possible, without the stress and fuss associated with a traditional style wedding, so there was no dress code, food-wise we asked for canapes and Bucks Fizz at the start of the party followed by an ‘afternoon tea’ style buffet and cupcakes in lieu of a big wedding cake (I was being a bit selfish here really as I have a gluten free diet so having cupcakes was easier as I could then have my own one!), and stuck some money behind the bar to get everyone on their merry way. We still had cake toppers though as on Etsy I found a seller called Kathy who works under the name ‘Knottingwood’ (http://www.etsy.com/shop/knottingwood) who custom makes peg dolls to look like the bride and groom (and extended family if you wish!) and did a fab job in making very accurate peg doll versions of me, Chris and Judy. I’ve now put them on display in the wall unit in our living room.
Knottingwood peg dolls
The canapes were gorgeous mini roast beef & horseradish yorkshire puddings, smoked salmon and crème fraiche blinis and chocolate dipped strawberries, olives, breadsticks, crisps and dips and there were little bags of sweets laid out on the bar for the kids. The buffet was also great – we had sandwiches, quiche, salads, a cheese and a meat platter, crisps, dips etc. Sam and his team at the King Street Tavern did a fantastic job of making sure everyone was well provided for. I didn’t actually eat that much of the food as by the mid-afternoon all the stress of sorting everything out in the run up to the wedding suddenly hit me and I had to go and sit on the sofa in the back garden for a while with a diet coke and crisps to relax and get some energy back! Meanwhile Chris managed to carry on drinking and eating, lucky him!
In the back garden of the King Street Tavern
We didn’t have wedding flowers, instead I bought loads of orange, yellow and white roses from the market in Portsmouth and purple, red, pink and white anemones from a local greengrocer. The day before the wedding me and my Mum ran down to the pub when it was closed mid-afternoon and stuck them all in lots of different size vases that I had bought from Ikea (we spent about 20 minutes cutting the stems and sticking approx. 40 bunches of flowers in the vases), and asked the pub staff to arrange them as they saw fit. On the day they looked fantastic and really enhanced the old fashioned splendour of the pub, I was really pleased that something we’d spent so little time and money on ended up looking so good!
My cute little nephew Flynn with my Auntie and cousins
It was a great afternoon and lots of our family and friends said that they had a lovely time as it was so relaxed and fun, just like going down the pub but with all your family and friends – such a strange but amazing feeling to know and love everyone there! Also it was really lovely to have our dog Judy be able to come to the wedding. She had a great time playing with all the kids and getting loads of scraps off the buffet.
Judy Reeves in her special wedding neckerchief
The next day my Dad drove us to Heathrow for our overnight flight to Bangkok. Neither of us had been to the Far East before so were very excited, I was still feeling a bit rank from the day before but thankfully managed to make myself feel better before getting on the plane. We were really lucky to get seats at the back of the plane where there are only two seats in the row, and were really close to all the snacks / bar so it was most enjoyable… it definitely didn’t feel like a 11 1/2 hour flight! We had four days at the Shangri-La hotel in Bangkok (http://www.shangri-la.com/bangkok/shangrila) which is on the Chao Phraya River and is stunning. The staff are so nice and accommodating, and after dinner on the first night we returned to the room and found a card and a chocolate sculpture waiting for us as a gift from the hotel to celebrate our honeymoon. How lovely! After Bangkok we spent 7 nights at the Hyatt Regency in Hua Hin (http://huahin.regency.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels-huahin-regency/) which was like paradise, it was right on a huge golden sandy beach and set in the most lush grounds with hundreds of birds and a frog chorus at midnight!
Unfortunately now we have come back down to earth with a big bump, I need to get myself back on the sewing and web projects, lots to do (including a huge backlog of posts for this blog about all my finds over the past 10 months!) and so little time…
Not once have I ever seen it in a state. I reckon Portsmouth City Council have got a hand in this.