We're married!

I guess I had better write a wedding report. I don't have official pictures yet but I'll add some of my friends pictures. The official ones will go up when I get them back. Aliye said she's never taken so many pictures of a wedding before! I'm taking that as a good sign. My videographers had a sample video emailed to me before I was awake this morning, so I think that's another good sign!

Guests getting ready at Warwick Arms Hotel

Saturday until the ceremony

We had been up until 1:30am getting table stationery done, then I had to go back to my room, shower and wash my hair. I hardly slept and at 7am my daughter, who'd been sharing with me, and I woke up at the same time, looked at each other and smiled. I got my eldest to ring her dad’s room and ask for the car keys as we had no clothes and to tell him we were going for breakfast so wait for us before going down. He decided to come straight down for breakfast though! At 8:30am I went off to find somewhere to do my nails. One shop said they had time to just do a file and polish if I needed hands and feet and get back to the hotel for 10am. Getting calls all the time people worrying about one thing or another! I kept asking if anyone had sorted out bread and wine but didn’t seem to be getting very far! Asked Mum to do it, next thing I know OH has told her not to because he’ll sort it but he’s in the foyer making table markers and doesn’t really move other than to get dressed!

I got back to the hotel and my hair dresser has already done my niece as Mum asked if she could do her to and she’s doing my eldest. Spent the next three and a-bit hours in that room or moving to my room opposite. About 11am, I asked the photographer to take the ring box to the guys and get some pictures with them to cement in their heads that the rings were tied in that box and asked her to tell FOG to come and see me about 12:15. When he came I took him into my room so I could talk to him without anyone hearing. I showed him the ring box, took the rings out and gave them to him. I told him he needed to take them to someone called Gareth at the Hospital who was going to teach him how to catch an owl. He had the biggest grin on his face! I gave him our candles and Quaich and said to tell people he was just taking those over. He came back and said “All done, just got to go…” and tapped two fingers on his wrist which made me and the tog/ vog laugh because we knew what he was going on about.

At some point it suddenly dawned on me that I’d still not got music sorted out so my sister said to give her a list and she’d download it from YouTube and we could play off my laptop but when we left the first song was still downloading! So we had no entrance/ exit music and only our minister as a musician!

About 1pm I asked my tog to help me put my dress on and asked for my nephew to come and see me. When he arrived I said I needed everyone to leave the room, knelt down next to him and said “Do you know what this is?” he said “Yeah, it’s the ring box” so I said “Look…” and showed him it was empty, he looked about confused so I told him that his job was to hold onto that box and not let anyone have it, if anyone asks for it he’s to say “Aunty Claire said it’s my job to look after it” and only hand it over when I said “stop messing about and give it to him” we had some pictures where we high-fived; pretended to whisper to each other and where we did “shh” at each other. He didn’t let go of that box for about half an hour, passed it briefly to Mum so he could wipe his hands as he was getting hot and had it straight back. We did a bit of slow march practice in the salon, me and my sister hitched up our dresses so the children could see what we were doing.

About 1:15pm I had to tell them to send the guests over because I could see lots of people milling outside my room. About 10 min later Mum came to me and said “Message from the minister, hurry up, we’re late” I said I was waiting for the horse but it turned out that OH had said I didn’t need it to get over there(!) so they had to bring him down quickly and work out where to stop to get me on, was funny because it was the first time I’d mounted in my dress and I ended up with most of it gathered under my legs – later on I always mounted by completely exposing my leg. Mum rang FIL to say that we needed them and my brother’s children outside as everyone was now sat.

 
Rode across to the venue which felt fantastic, although the wind picked up whilst we were going and felt very windy up there! Everyone was waiting outside when we got there which I wasn’t happy about, I asked for people to be moved inside and the people I asked to be waiting outside. Had to explain about three times which order and what they were to do, in the end I lined people up outside the building! Had a little delay as my nephew ran for the toilet. We all entered in silence but it worked out ok anyway.

History of Marriage

Recently I've been researching marriage through history, mostly because I was trying to find what it would have meant in our era to see if there was anything we could borrow, but the more I've got into it the more interesting it's got and the more I've realised I didn't know. We think we know what a wedding is, but did you know that it's only about 5-600 years ago that what we think of now as a wedding started?

Someone pointed out to me awhile ago that The Bible doesn't actually state what makes a wedding. The link below explains what it was at that time. The contract was between the parents, they threw a big party and then the marriage was consummated.

http://www.askelm.com/doctrine/d870301.htm

This one by the same author is real food for thought. Should Christians be making vows? The Bible actually says not to vow so I always wondered how that works with making wedding vows.

http://www.askelm.com/doctrine/d020801.htm

By Medieval times marriage was either done in church or privately between the couple or anything in between, there was no set marriage ceremony and all were legal. Couples were encouraged though to marry in church as unscrupulous men would deny they had a private ceremony (this makes me think of the song Paradise by the Dashboard Light) and there'd be no evidence to support their new wife.

http://medievalscotland.org/history/handfasting.shtml

My uncle sent me an email, not knowing that I'd been having discussions with some friends about what is a wedding. I had thought about emailing him for his opinion so I think he may have taken up telepathy ;)  so I thought I'd share his answer.

STUDY ON MARRIAGE
I've done some study on Marriage and how the various regulations developed over the ages. It seems that before the eleventh century when England was born, marriage was simply an arrangement between two families (usually) for various reasons, and occasionally the opinions of the bride and groom were taken into consideration. This is even true in the Scriptures in many cases. Certainly neither the church nor the state had any say in marriage. I guess if you go back to the beginning with Adam and Eve this was also true - because there was no church or state back then. Also in the case of Abram and Sarah; Isaac and Rebecca; Jacob and Rachel; Samson and Delilah; Boaz and Ruth; Moses and Zipporah; Tobias and Sarah and a number of others the selection of the couple had nothing to do with church (or ecclesiastical leaders) or state, it was the couple and their families. In the twelfth century Benedictine monk Gratian who published his fold of formalised marriage in 1140 with a Canon law textbook called 'Decretum Gratiani'. In this he held that consent of bride and groom were important enough to be considered part of the contract of marriage, and their mere presence at the event was not enough to take it that they consented.

In 1563 the Council of Trent decided that Roman Catholics were to accept that marriage is a 'sacrament' showing that this had to be a 'church issue' not just the issue of the couple involved before God and their families. The Church of England under Arch Bishop Thomas Cranmer produced the Protestant 'wedding vows' in 1549, and this is the basis of the marriage ceremony today as described in the Book of Common Prayer. Of course, now that the church controlled marriage, they also controlled divorce as well, but the church tended to take a back seat to this requiring parliament to rule on divorces.

The state got into the business of controlling marriage in 1753 with the act of 'Clandestine Marriage'. This required couples to get married in a church or chapel by a minister, otherwise the union was void according to law. Of course marriages were not considered 'legal' or 'illegal' just a few centuries earlier, since the state had not taken control of the marriage contract those centuries earlier. It also established the reading of banns of marriage before the event. Most couples preparing for marriage already did this, but the act formalised the requirement for this. The state increased it's control in marriage, so control went from the couples themselves, to the families, to the church, to the state.

Eventually the state realised that this was 'much too important' to leave to the church, so the government established the Marriage Act of 1836 allowing for non-religious civil marriages to be held in register offices. This was followed by a central registry of Births Marriages and Deaths throughout England and Wales, which is why the GRO (General Registry Office) of England and Wales has records going back to when this was established in the spring of 1837, and all prior records are held by individual parishes. This meant that non-conformists (non-Protestants who were not Roman Catholics) and Roman Catholics could now marry without having to do so in places overseen by the Church of England, as long as a person registered by the government, the 'Registrar', was present to ensure it was done 'correctly' and everything was in order.

So we see that the marriage event, if history is to be considered, consists of some combination of a) the consent between the couple involved, often given as a promise before God b) the celebration with friends and family, c) the blessings and overseeing of the church and d) the registration with government authorities. It's come a long way since the original idea of it being simply the consent of a couple before God and their celebration with friends and family.

Most couples complete a) at 'engagement', b) at the reception, c) at the consecrated wedding ceremony and d) when signing the official register with the last three usually all on the same day. Many Christians see the church wedding is seen as a mystical event, the making of promises before God in a sacred setting, endowing the relationship with a special "blessed" quality. However, we see that the promises before God need to be made well before the walk to the altar in the church, for if the consent is not already given before God there's really no point walking into the church thinking "Now shall I marry him or not?" or "Shall I really make this decision to spend the rest of my life with her?" That's far too late to be considering these thoughts. It is essential that this is done before the public event in church, and the church event should be a consecration and a public statement of vows that have already been agreed to. Effectively, the promises should have already been made before God before even booking the venue, they are simply repeated at the wedding consecration ceremony.

Anyway, Ann and I have completed a) the engagement last year, d) the legal ceremony in March of this year, and at some point in the future at a date to be announced we will be completing c) the consecration ceremony of our wedding and b) the celebration reception when all friends and family will be welcome.

It's interesting to note that until the Victorian times 'love' and 'companionship' were not a factor in marriage. With more social mobility, there was a growing "distaste" among the middle classes for thinking of marriage as "a family-arranged event for exchanging a daughter into a family for gain". This is according to Jennifer Phegley, author of Courtship and Marriage in Victorian England. Of course they had the fine example of the Love Story of Victoria and Albert, and that was intense, obvious and public. According to Victoria's letters and diaries she was very much in love with her heart throb, Albert.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17351133

It's a fascinating topic, I could have posted lots more but I think the links cover most of it. Please come and chat with me about it.

Two weeks to go!

I can't believe we've passed the two week mark! It's pretty scary because at the moment I think two months would be a bit easier on my stress levels!

Last week we went for my final fitting, my dress isn't quite complete but it was nice to get it on at last. I decided that I wouldn't wear my shapewear this time and they've had to take the dress in! Woohoo!!! They've got the two older girls done and I've left a dress so they can do something for the baby as they were having problems finding a small enough model.

We've got our clothes and reception paid off now, then all the little bills started coming in(!) I'm sure they add up to more than the other two...

Right now I'm getting ready to be picked up by the ushers as we're going to do a walk through so they know their jobs as we're going to be really relying on them on the day. Mark also wants me to measure the tables again as he doesn't believe me about how big they are...

I'm about to start work on another post about weddings through history, I've been doing some interesting reading that I thought I'd share!

Crafty work day

On Sunday we're off to Wales again for fittings and starting on the girls dresses! I'm going to buy some fabric from the Costume Company to make favour bags with. I still have a few bits I need to get made too so I'm planning on a crafty work day. If you're up to joining me, let me know. It's not about how crafty you are, I need the company too and if nothing else you can be on tea duty lol

Bridesmaids Dresses Done!

So glad, it's about time! Due to technical difficulties we couldn't get my sister in the week we were unable to get the bridesmaids in whilst we were away, unfortunately we've still not managed to get one of them in but my sister has been so we've designed the dress and the other one only needs to be measured when she can get in.

My daughters will be done in Easter which is great because that's when Mum, my sister and I are having our next fittings.

All I can tell you is it's loosely based on my dress, but different colours and the girls will have a slightly different design...

Men in Tights...

I get asked this so much I thought I'd share one of my favourite songs from the brilliant film "Robin Hood, Men in Tights" I remember when I was younger, my sister, her friend and I would "dance" along to this, my sister as the smallest would get thrown over (with lots of cushions pulled from our parents sofa of course!)

Question for you, what character is a myth - Robin Hood or Arthur?

Maybe surprisingly it's Robin Hood and just as myth like as Robin himself, is the idea that any man will be wearing tights to our wedding.

The basis of the man's outfit is black trousers and a black or white shirt (like a pirate shirt). I was going to show you a picture but The Costume Company are updating their website at the moment. It's not dressing up.

There is then a variety of tabards to choose from and some leather pieces (collar, arm braces and a belt with a pouch for your phone). If you're not up for too much dressing up then you really don't need to.

If you're feeling a little braver then there are other options for you...

(again, I'd show you more pictures but with the work on the website there's not as much there)

Be warned if you did fancy going for this one, Isobel is terrified of beards so you won't be in anyone's good books!

There are some short trouser options (I could only find this one at the moment) but they're paired with football socks.

For ladies it's a similar story, you can choose your clothes depending on how you feel.

Either the full dress

 I don't know if you can tell from the pictures, that's satin backed dupion. All the dresses are made in good quality fabric, it's not the cheap polyester type thing you get from a fancy dress shop.

I was going to say "depending on how brave you feel" but I think with the women's outfits it's rather subjective. Some women will feel more comfortable in a full dress like this and some in the other option below. If full dresses aren't your think, maybe you'd feel more comfortable in a knee length or long skirt with a blouse and waistcoat...

 The ladies at The Costume Company are used to dressing all sizes of people, hiding the bits you don't like and showing off the bits you do. They have all sizes and heights, although if you are an unusual size it may be worth calling to let them know to bring something for you.

There is even clothes for the children.

I'll add something for the girls when they've added them to their site.

We would ask you that whatever reservations you have now that you wait until the wedding before you decide. Most people who have been unsure have changed their minds when they've seen what's available and you may feel differently when you're all in it together and it's not about whether you dress up or not.

It's been an interesting week

I'm away in Wales for the week, the first few days we've had all our wedding party visit for their fittings.

So far I've seen my dad in his outfit as they've already made it for someone else; designed Mum's outfit; seen Mark's Mum in her outfit as she fell for something they had in the shop and it could have been made for her; Mark's Dad chose the same outfit and colours as Mark without knowing (Mark's Mum is in the same colour too) which is cool, we were leaving it up to him but Mark wanted him to match; Mark's sons looked gorgeous in the outfits they tried on his eldest looked very regal, I'm not sure there's going to be any heads to turn but I'm sure he would if there were; Mark and the other men had a play with swords and dressing up which was a lot of fun and very entertaining! The ladies have convinced them to leave the crests to them (to my relief!); I've designed my dress with a little help from Mark!

All that's left now is to designed the bridesmaids on Saturday, I'm hoping they talk to each other soon and let me know what they're doing! That and enjoy a holiday in Wales!

I have got lots of pictures but it's all top secret at the moment ;)