My Big Fat Wedding Day

On November 23 2013, I married Neil Stevens. It was the loveliest day I could have hoped for, so I figured I would share it with you and tell you about some of the fabulous people that helped to make it perfect!

We started planning roughly 12 – 15 months before the wedding. We looked at a few venues, some of which were unnecessarily expensive and eventually settled on the Future Inn in Plymouth. When we booked, they had only just been given a license for civil ceremonies, so it was all a bit new to them. Luckily we had Ellie – a magnificent wedding co-ordinator from the Future Inn who was always on hand to reply to my emails and my many queries! They were incredibly accommodating on the day and couldn’t do enough to help us!

One of my first questions for Ellie was could I have confetti (a lot of venues have restrictions on confetti – so always remember to check with your venue). I was thrilled to find out I could have as much confetti as I wanted! So I set about making my own. I didn’t have a theme as such for the day, I wanted to do my own table decorations, eventually I decided our love of literature was the way forward. I made my confetti using heart shaped hole punches and set about creating a tonne of my own confetti made from a haul of Poldark books from a YMCA charity shop!

I made little pouches for my confetti out of more pages of Poldark and a few Hamish Macbeth books! I ordered some personalised stickers from eBay to secure them. I was so proud of them! Later in the evening, I noticed the hotel staff still hoovering up our confetti – it was even in the dining room the next morning. I wonder if they have reconsidered their confetti policy since!

I made my own table decorations too, out of cardboard numbers that I covered in more pages of more books. My husband decorated the tables on the morning of the wedding. I was very proud of the job he did!

We decided on cupcakes for our wedding cake, with a Lego cake topper. We used Cupcake Cotty who was marvellous and produced exactly what we wanted. She picked out the perfect greens and yellows and they were really tasty!

I decided on button bouquets – I wanted something to keep and that my bridesmaid could have as a keepsake and something that was unusual and different. I found Bride As A Button and Rebecca was fantastic, she kept me updated during the making process, they arrived in the most beautiful boxes. I had 5 smaller “posies” made for the bridesmaids and a larger one for myself – all in my wedding colours – green and yellow. Mine was quite heavy, so it had the added benefit that I could bash someone round the head with it if needed!

I was overjoyed with the bouquets, so I also ordered a button hole for Neil to match my bouquet. I also ordered a vast number of single stem buttons, which I turned into button holes for the guests (doubling up as another wedding favour!) and used the rest as intended – for table decorations.

My hair was done my hairdresser – Maria, who did a beautiful job and put up with me changing my mind about ten times and she managed my ridiculously thick hair fantastically. I used the flowers my mum had in her hair when she got married as my something borrowed.

Our makeup was done by the beautiful Angela Bailey and the bridesmaids had their hair done by Charmaine Gulley – both incredibly talented and lovely from Harmony Hair and Beauty

My beautiful mum and Godmother paid for my beautiful wedding dress – it came from Amica Bridal where the staff were very helpful and really kind to me. I had a bit of a moment at my final fitting, my dress was so beautiful and I felt so undeserving of it. They were so reassuring and kind, The seamstress who had to take my dress up by approximately 10 foot as I am so short did a great job – my dress had 13 layers to be taken up! The bridesmaids dresses came from various places. I wanted them to be comfortable so I got them to pick whatever they wanted basically as long as it was green! I spent many a sleepless night panicking that I had done the wrong thing and that they would clash horribly with each other, but I was really pleased with the end result. My bridesmaids all looked beautiful!

I did much of our wedding on a budget, the only thing I splashed out on was the cars, they were beautiful and I am so glad I decided to treat myself to the cars – I had two, one for me and my dad and the other for the bridesmaids and my mum! They came from Louannon Cars where we had great service. The driver of the bridesmaids coped very well with my mad mother who lost her reading before we even got to the end of the street – much panic ensued and we had to call the groom who is incredibly organised and had copies at the hotel! The driver of mine and dads car chatted the whole way and made me relax a little (my dad said nothing – he is a man of few words!)

The Groom’s uncle did a reading during the ceremony – A Lovely Love Story by Edward Monkton. My mum did a reading from Great Expectations. They fit perfectly with the day. I wanted people to smile and remember our day. Whilst the guests waited for the ceremony to start, we played in wedding themed songs – such as Lets Get Married by the Proclaimers. I walked down the aisle to At Last – Etta James. (bit cliché I know!). We walked out as husband and wife to I Was Made to Love Her by Stevie Wonder. I made my own mix tape that was played during the wedding breakfast of some of our favourite tunes.

I made my own sweetie buffet – sourcing sweets and jars from eBay, Amazon and my mum. It was a hit and there wasn’t much left over!

As my bouquet made of buttons could definitely have given someone a concussion, I made my own lightweight bouquet to throw. My chief bridesmaid caught it.

The Groom and Groomsmen had hired suits from Burtons Menswear.

I made my own gift bags for the bridesmaids and best man to thank them for being well behaved and beautiful on the day!

So, in a nutshell, that was our wedding.

I’d love to hear about your wedding day, or are you planning a wedding?I’ll end with an excerpt of my amazing husbands speech, can you guess where its from?!

To paraphrase a very wise man; When we first met I think that my soul knew something that my body and my mind didn’t know yet. It knew that our hands were meant to hold each other… fearlessly and forever. It’s never really felt like I’ve been getting to know you, it’s always felt like I was remembering you from something. As if in every lifetime that you and I have ever lived, we’ve chosen to come back and find each other and fall in love all over again. Over and over. For all eternity. And I just feel so lucky that I found you so soon in this lifetime, because all I want to do, all I’ve ever wanted to do, is spend my life loving you.

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