The pig wot got married - getting ready

Our wedding day dawned. Finally! After years of wondering whether it would ever happen, months of anticipation, weeks of stress, it was here.

Having gone to bed a little stressed and tired, I woke up calm, refreshed and excited. I remained that way, even as our flat began to look like this.



My parents were there already, my mum fetched Liz soon after she woke up, Hannah and Steve arrived next, then Debs, Menard and Sophia and finally our photographer, Dave and his wife Nicky. It was a pretty full and chaotic place to be. People spread themselves and their belongings around our living room and began to get ready. Steve had marking to do and set himself with a pile of books in the corner. The girls fussed around with dresses, hair and makeup and the men entertained the baby.

In the middle of the chaos, I sat on my chair by the window and calmly went through the process of doing my hair and make-up.



I remember other people's last minute panics, but I was calm. The caterer couldn't work out how to open the gate to the venue. I think Liz talked her through it. One bridesmaid's dress, which had been altered at the last minute, needed emergency repairs, which I did, in my dressing gown. Other people had my phones, my keys. All I needed to do was put on my dress and show up at the church. Eventually, it was time.



Liz laced me in. I was ready!

Photos by Dave Routledge.

The pig wot got married - the lead up

It's all beginning to feel like a dream, but I want to record my memories of our wedding day and the lead up to it while I still remember it. We'll start with the few days beforehand.

The weeks leading up to our wedding were made even more stressful by my having a fight with a green bin and giving myself concussion with about a month to go. I spent a week with horrible headaches doing very little and a further week with less pain, but feeling very tired. I couldn't ride my bike, as when I did, I made myself sea sick. This is not ideal when you're preparing a wedding. Fortunately, I had help. The big things were done. My hen night turned into a mellow afternoon and evening of silly games and a take away and friends pitched in to help make decorations. Rob ended up having lots of time off, in theory to work on his dissertation, but in practice, to look after me. I don't remember much of the last week, apart from lots of naps and early nights and a few last minute panics.

My mum arrived on Thursday and starting baking the top three chocolate tiers of our wedding cake. This was pretty last minute! I think it was still being iced on the morning of our wedding and the final decorations didn't get added until the reception. The knitted elements of our decorations weren't quite finished either - the knitting was done, but running things through the washing machine only happened on Thursday morning and I spent Thursday afternoon smoothing out little scrunched up felted hearts. In the evening, we picked up glasses from Sainsbury's and I had a last minute rehearsal of the songs I planned to sing at the reception.

Friday, was mostly spent decorating the hall for our reception. Liz and I spent most of the day draping pillars with purple and white fabric and making table decorations. Our fabulous caterers turned up in the afternoon to lay tables, as did Rob. That afternoon is a blur of vases, sticks, fish tank gravel and little knitted hearts. I was really pleased with the results. The hall sparkled with glasses and colour and looked smarter than I've ever seen Brickfields (which is essentially a large shed) looking. Various essentials were delegated at the last minute: Alex made maps and directions from the church to the reception; HB prepared the cards for printing by my dad; Liz's fiance Andrew helped my dad get the orders of service into a printable state.

Friday night was our rehearsal. I was feeling pretty tired and unreal by this point. It was good to get everyone (bar my sisters and the best man) together to practice what we were going to do for real the next day. My dad arrived, together with orders or service and name cards. We delivered bubbles and noisemakers to the church and hung up our aisle decorations. We practiced walking and down the aisle and saying our vows. The rain was pouring down outside and I feared the worst for the next day's weather.

The night ended with lots of people back at our flat for fish and chips and champagne. That felt sane and special and informal and relaxed all at once. I was a bit dazed though, with things still to do. I spent most of the evening fiddling with name cards to produce a table plan. Wonderful Liz took my piles of cards, wrote all the names on a large piece of card, decorated it and made table numbers and suddenly we had a table plan. I think I got sent to bed about 1am. I was still feeling stressed at that point and wondered if I would sleep, but I think I dropped off pretty quickly.