I am ridiculously delighted to say that our ‘reassurance scan’ a few days before the wedding went perfectly, as did the wedding. We really couldn’t have asked for a better day, it was just perfect.
I woke up on the morning of our wedding at the hotel with my bridesmaids to the sound of rain. Serious, serious rain. It continued to absolutely chuck it down all morning. Now, we booked a wedding in October so I wasn’t exactly counting on an outdoor ceremony but we were, in our heart of hearts, hoping that it might be nice enough to have drinks on the terrace overlooking a beautiful valley after the ceremony. It would have been fine if we couldn’t do that, but….its what I had pictured.
But the rain continued as my hair and make up was done, and as I stuffed myself with hot cross buns to ward off the nausea (must be the best fed bride ever!) Then just as I was ready to put on my dress, the rain stopped, the clouds cleared and sun started shining!! I arrived at the ceremony venue in beautiful sunshine and had some photos outside before going in.
The ceremony was beautiful, just so full of joy and emotion. The only sadness was that my step-dad was unfortunately unable to come as he was in hospital. I was so upset he couldn’t be there as he has been so wonderful to us all over the years, but it was much more important that he was getting better (and glad to say he’s now out of hospital and on the mend).
By some miracle the sun was still shining afterwards so we all headed out to the terrace to enjoy the beautiful view over the forest. Once everyone had a glass of bubbly in hand we gathered them all together, DH and I stood on the steps of the beautiful old Georgian house we got married in and told our family and friends that there would be another addition to the family arriving in April. It was the most special moment….looking out at all the people we love and watching their faces turn from disbelief to joy. There were shrieks, there were whoops, there were a lot of tears! One of DH’s best men (he had three…don’t ask!) absolutely lost his shit! This guy is normally such an unemotional man, I’ve known him since I was 12 and I’ve never seen him so much as well up but he had tears streaming down his face. I will remember that moment for the rest of my life. It was absolutely perfect. The only downside was getting stubble rash from hugging so many people so much ….too many men have beards these days!!
The day carried on like a dream, everything just worked. For once in our lives, everything just worked. We had the pictures taken outside and finished just as it started to rain. We then moved onto the reception venue which looked so beautiful, just what I had pictured.
The speeches lead to another round of tears from everyone – it was a seriously emotional wedding – and ended in the best men getting all the guests to join in a singalong to ‘Love lift us up to where we belong’. Now, I’m not normally one for forced public singing, and when it started my first thought was “lordy what the hell is this cringe inducing nonsense” but….it was brilliant. Everyone got into the spirit of it and it was really cheesy but in a good way.
The evening went by in a blur of dancing and laughing and chatting. I was very proud of myself to last on the dance floor until 11.30 but was pretty exhausted by the end of it.
After the wedding we went away for a few days to Bath which was lovely, we ate (a lot), walked around, went to a spa and generally spoilt ourselves. The day after we got home we had the ‘booking in’ midwife appointment and the official 12 week NHS scan where we saw the little bub’s mouth moving.
It truly was a fairy tale. From start to finish and I’m still pinching myself. I still can’t quite believe that I’ll get my happy ever after but I’m trying very hard to believe.