Wedding Wednesday: Our Story

Hello my loves,

I'm finally back and seeing as it's Wednesday, I thought I'd kick this blog back off with a cheeky Wedding Wednesday post. As I'm sure you've spotted, the domain has officially changed to my new name (!!) and I'm over the moon with how it looks!

We had the most perfect day & I'm looking forward to sharing more posts surrounding the day with you in the coming weeks.

So, as it's the first post since the actual wedding, I thought it might be worth me starting at the beginning - with our story, our engagement and the lead up to our wedding.

Luke & I have been together for just over 7 years now and believe it or not, we actually met whilst working at our local supermarket together on the checkouts! He was 16 & I was 17 (toy boy) & so, as we were too young to go for drinks or anything fancy, we just went into Nottingham to do a spot of shopping. He got a Ralph Lauren polo shirt (ew, so 2011..) and I think I got myself a new outfit from Primark (still v.classy, loving my Primarni) and it went from there.

After about a month of back to back Blackberry messaging (BB pins, remember those?), he finally asked me out.

We had been together just over 3 years when we finally decided it was time to buy our own place & so we put down the deposit on our lovely little home that couldn't be more perfect. It was definitely interesting moving in to our own home - Luke hung mirrors at his own height (I could only see my forehead)and set oven gloves on fire accidentally, but I wouldn't change a thing.

In 2016, we celebrated our 5 year anniversary where Luke whisked me away on a surprise trip to Verona, Italy and on the final night of our trip, he proposed on a rooftop overlooking the whole of Verona. I couldn't have imagined anything more perfect.

It's been a long two years of planning this wedding, but I can honestly say that I've enjoyed every second of it - I think I should've been a wedding planner in another life - who knew I was so thorough and obsessed?

So there we are, a complete whistle-stop, non-soppy post about our story. I hope you enjoyed this (and the v.v. cringey photos of us both!)

Speak soon, I promise!

xxxxx

Next time - Wedding Wednesday: The Hen Do. 

Wedding: 3 month countdown& ring shopping

Happy New Year!

Oh my god, I can finally say that I get married THIS YEAR. 

I'm absolutely overwhelmed by this and, for the first time since the wedding planning begun, I'm actually starting to get anxious about the wedding. Not anxious to get married (I can't think of anything else I'd rather do), just anxious that I'm forgetting something, or that the payments are getting closer, or that my dress won't fit... Silly things, I know! 

This weekend has marked such a special moment; Luke & I have purchased our wedding rings! I'm so, so happy and excited- it's just so pretty. I must've taken it out of the box, tried it on, put it back in the box, tied it up, unwrapped it, taken it out of the box, tried it on just to tie it all back up about 8 times. It's stunning! I went with a budget in mind, but I didn't want that to be the deciding factor, so I asked to try on all of the ones that I liked & then asked for the price after I'd found the one that I wanted. I was over the moon to find that the ring was half the price of the original one that I had my eye on! 

I got mine from Goldsmiths - Nottingham as this is where Luke purchased my engagement ring from and I wanted something to match. If you're from Nottingham, I would 100% recommend getting your ring from there - the service is second-to-none and they can't do enough for you (you can even have a glass of wine or beer!). 

Luke didn't end up getting his ring from there because, truthfully, he'd seen very similar rings for half the price in another shop and so he decided to go elsewhere which is good and has saved us around £100. 

I don't have a massive amount more to do if I'm completely honest as I've been plan-zilla the past 10 months, so I was thinking that I could maybe do a series of blog posts to talk about some of the big bits of the day and how I've managed the budget, suppliers and planned everything to a T. Let me know if this is something that you'd be interested in! 

Next up, get the suits! Honestly, I gave Luke one job & it's the only thing out of my control. I've given him the deadline of the end of January or I'm going to choose them and just order them in to the shop for him. That's fair, right? 

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

xxxx

The Perfect Autumnal Day

How Instagrammable are these pictures?

I've wanted to go pumpkin picking for as long as I can remember, but I had no idea where on earth you find these places; that was until I saw a couple of people posting on Insta about this gorgeous pumpkin-filled space that is just the epitome of "Autumn". 

Maxey's Farm Shop (website here Instagram here) is home to this beautiful spot and they grow their pumpkins each year and then offer the public free entry to the pumpkin patch where you can scan the field for your perfect pumpkin and then you go and pick it yourself. 

When you first get there, you are directed where to park and then you can grab a wheel barrow and go into the patch through the sign-posted entrance. To the left of the patch is a cute little 'scary walk' through the woods that only takes a couple of minutes and then you finally get to walk into the sea of pumpkins. The view is honestly quite breathtaking - it's somewhat magical seeing hundreds of pumpkins set out in front of you.

At this point, the search begins to find your perfect pumpkins. 

I really wanted to find a couple of cute baby pumpkins that I can put around the house as decorations, whereas my sister wanted to find the biggest one possible. They had every pumpkin that you could possibly imagine and near the end in small crates were 'ghost' pumpkins (the white ones) and very, very ugly pumpkins (very Halloween-y). 

Once you've picked your chosen pumpkins, you go towards the entrance where there's a small sheltered area and that's where you pay. The prices are absolutely fair; ranging from £2 for small pumpkin to £3.50 for the XXL ones.

I have to admit that I definitely wasn't dressed accordingly, but then for anyone that knows me, that won't come as a surprise. Also, make sure that you have cash, otherwise you have to visit the Farm Shop and spend £5 to get some cash back, but the queue was so long and it took around 20 minutes to go down.

Once we had finished there, we went down the road to Newfield Dairy ice cream parlour (website here) which is a small cafe with handmade goodies where we warmed up with a tasty ultimate hot chocolate & then went on to a pub more local to home and ended the day with some proper homemade food. 

A Saturday well spent in my opinion. Have you ever been pumpkin picking?

xxxx