I call upon these persons here present

I’ve been trying to compose this post in my head for about a week and it hasn’t gone well so we’ll see how it goes written down. I do have a point really so please be patient.

Wedding range in size from teeny tiny to grand swaths of people, however no matter what the size you need to have two people other than you and your partner to make the marriage legal. Someone has to witness the promises that you have made to each other.

In most traditional services the couple being wed stand with their backs to the guests. Bride on the left and groom on the right. The Bride’s friends and family then sit on the left and Groom’s friends and family are on the right (or vice versa if you are looking from the registrars point of view). This means that when the bride and groom turn to each other and when they are not staring lovingly into each other’s eyes and when the bride sneaks a nervous look behind her all she can see is the groom’s friends and family.

Now when we met with the registrar we had stated that we didn’t care where people sat. When I gave instructions to our usher (nephew) via #1 I again stated we don’t care where people sit let them sit anywhere. I do find that it is a bit of a popularity contest – the groom had more people on his side or the bride had more. However when I started walking down the aisle I noticed that we did indeed have a grooms side and a brides side.

We’d made ‘reserved’ signs to be placed on seats for Cee and her husband (there was a chance they might have been running late), the piper O's brother and my Dad. For some reason the reserved signs for Cee and her husband had been placed in the front two seats on O’s side (where his Mum and Dad really should have been sat). It was no great disaster and it meant that I had a friendly* face to look at as I made my small glimpses at all these people watching us publicly declare that we would love each other forever.

Are you still with me?

*Now friendly is really unfair to O’s side. I love his parent’s to pieces and it was lovely seeing them smile as they welcomed me into their family. I get on very well with his friends and seeing them helped me not to take things too seriously or get over emotional.

HOWEVER these are not MY people, I would have liked to see my friends and family – I want to know if my Mum cried (although perhaps we’d have both been in pieces). I’m sure there is some deep seated tradition about looking forward to the family you are joining and having your family behind you or some such nonsense.

But if you are still to be wed it is worth considering even planting one of your friendly faces within the groom’s side to pull funny faces at you (maybe it is just me).
If you have already been wed did you have a bride and a groom side and is it just me that thinks it is a bit unfair?

AND please have a word with your venue about how they lay out the seats (unless of course your seats are fixed). Our venue laid out rows of 3! Which is great for any single people but most of our guests were part of a couple and therefore had to split up and spread themselves out! An annoying little detail that there was nothing I could do about by the time I was at the top of the aisle.

Because I'm a big tease

This is not our venue, this is Fernie Castle. But I was seriously considering it for the TREE HOUSE!! Sorry I had to shout that bit but how cool is the Tree House. Do you think I can ask for a night there as a wedding present??!!:

Our Venue

So we have chosen our venue, booked a date and the registrar is organised. Not too much more to do right?

Anyway I promised to tell you about the venue. I’d rather not reveal the exact location so I’m going to try and describe it. I thought this would be easier than it is, I’ve spent ages trying to write this and it’s going no where fast.

We are getting married in a castle! It’s a bit of a shabby chic castle – not sure the owners would like to hear it described as shabby but what I’m trying to say is that it isn’t Disney perfect and therefore just right for us. It is a tiny little place with 10 bedrooms built on the side of big hill. We get exclusive use so it will all be ours – handy when both families are travelling over 200 miles. The dining room is beautiful for the ceremony and hopefully the meal. I say hopefully as we are trying to persuade them that we will all squeeze in or we will just have to invite less people. There is a big hall where we will have a kick-ass party with lots of dancing and where the meal will happen if we can’t decide who to cut off the guest list. Although there isn’t a huge amount of land or garden there are plenty of places for photos both inside and out. The management team are sarcastic and down to earth – which also makes it perfect for us. We have managed to forgive them for the date mix up although it is fun to watch them squirm every time we bring it up.

Apologies that this is such a poor description, all I keep thinking is – oh it’s our venue and it is so perfect for us!

Our wedding date

So last weekend before we left for London we contacted our venue and asked to reserve our date 11/09/2010 (remember the angst). They said they didn’t usually do that and required a deposit to secure the date. After I explained we were going to be away they promised that they would phone if anyone else expressed an interest in the date, essentially giving us first refusal and that we should come in on Sunday, when we were back, to pay the deposit. Having not heard anything and checked that all our family would be available we went to pay the deposit. Only to be told by a very shame faced manager that they’d given our date to someone else – another couple had turned up cash in hand and they went with them instead of phoning us. We were stunned (I felt physically sick) and very angry, but what were we to do. We love the venue we didn’t like any other venue the same way. So all we could do was ask what other dates were available. It is funny that in a week we’d become so attached to a date that was arbitrarily assigned to us because that was what the venue had available.


So it turns out we are now getting married at the end of July 2010! Argh so soon, scary soon, so much to arrange. Turns out that, that it would have been my paternal Nana and Granddad’s 65th wedding anniversary, it would have also been O’s Granddad’s birthday so it does have significance for us (#1 got married on my maternal Nana and Granddad’s wedding anniversary so I guess we are carrying on the tradition). Unfortunately also means that one of O’s best friends will not be able to attend. He is in the merchant navy and is only in the UK 4 months a year which unfortunately doesn’t cover July. Give us a week though I’m fairly sure we’ll be as attached to this date as we were the other date. We’ve checked that there is a registrar available to marry us, hopefully there will be a photographer, florist and band etc…..

For the wildly curious, I'd rather not reveal the exact location of our venue but I will describe it as best I can in an upcoming post!

So what do you think?

Hi lovely readers,

I wanted to ask your opinion on something. I think we might have found our wedding venue. It was the third venue we saw on Saturday and we both really loved it. The thing is that the only date they have available when we are looking for is 11 September 2010. Should I be worried about the significance of the date? It bothers me, but only slightly. We're not American and we don't know anyone who was directly effected. What happened was tragic and I don't want to take away from the significance of that event. However should this stop me from having it as my wedding date? What do you think? Am I just being daft?

Thank you
R


edited after first publication

Weekend catch up

So Stobo was ridiculously expensive but the relaxation was worth it. Think we'll need to make a trip to the spa a regular occurrence.

Saturday we bought a huge beautiful handmade rug as an engagement present from O's parents. Covers a lot of our horrible living room carpet until we can save enough to buy new carpets.

Sunday we saw three wedding venues; first was ok but nothing special; second was sooooo expensive we ran away; third place definitely our favourite so far - actually got us quite excited. We are going to see more places but we have a front runner so far.

Hope you had a good one.