It feels like a while since I posted the last installment of our wedding, and I feel rather ashamed that I’m taking so long and dragging it out – you all must be bored of hearing about it by now.  If readers, you’d like it shorter and snappier, please tell me.

One of the loveliest parts of our wedding, is that my parents house (where we had afternoon tea and the reception would be held) is at the end of the church path.  This meant, everyone could walk, myself included – no fancy vintage cars frothy with ribbons or stretch limos for me.

Thankfully the weather had been dry the week before our wedding, so my dad had mown a path from the back of their garden across the corner of the field and to the church path.

A while back I did a short post about how my dad had put in a new gate at the end of their garden especially for the wedding, as we couldn’t imagine my granny or me in my wedding dress hopping over the fence like we normally do.

It was so fun to see all Mark’s photos of our family and friends heading off to the church as obviously I’d missed out on all the bit.

I’m pretty sure Mark must be a magician of some kind because I swear I don’t remember him ever leaving the house to go and photograph everyone walking down.  It’s beyond me how he managed to take all those lovely photos of us getting ready and people walking to the church.

What I should mention before going any further was that it was the boy’s job to get the church end ready for the wedding.  So Nick, his bestman Alex, and my brother Freddie hung out metres of bunting, looped through my stash of shepherds crooks, all along the church path.

This was an idea I’d had from the beginning – I wanted to make people feel like they were arriving at a celebration.  They also prepared a special surprise for after the ceremony, but I’ll leave that for another day.  There is also all the gorgeous church flowers to share with you, like the stunning milk churns filled with cow parsley below.

Now this is the bit I know very little about, but at the church Nick, his best man, mom and stepdad waited outside the church to greet everyone as they arrived.  My little brother Freddie was in charge of handing out the order of service booklets and showing people where to sit.

Rather embarrassingly, I was 20 minutes late, which is pretty poor when you can walk from my parent’s house to the church in a couple of minutes.  I’d told Nick and our lovely vicar I would be five minutes late, I was not going to arrive on time, it was the brides prerogative to be a bit late.  We blame it on the lack of a clock in the room we were getting ready in, and a heavy troublesome veil.  Thankfully Tina our hairdresser got it to stay in my hair and we had to quickly make our way down to the church.

This was one of the moments I was most looking forward to, walking down that church path with my family, the same path I had walked hundreds of times throughout my childhood, whether it was on a dark winter’s night to perform in the school play (held in the church) or to help my mom make Easter gardens with the younger children in spring.  I knew it would be a lovely moment.

I love this photo of my dad, but I slightly wish I wasn’t smiling so goofily.  Oh well, there’s too many other things to remember on your wedding day to always remember to look perfect in your photos.

These are two of my favourite photos – my little sister and mom walking ahead, with the church in the background and those gorgeous yellow buttercups in the field.

And this one looking down the path to the church entrance, with a small gathering of people waiting – my two little flower girls Emily and Isla, the vicar (who I think looks decidedly unimpressed, probably at my lateness!), my dear friend May, and my Auntie Heather almost out of shot.  It was so nice to walk down towards them, my lasting memory is May’s lovely smile as she watched us walk towards them.

Meanwhile, in the church, Nick had gone from this – looking pretty cheerful, with just a bit of teasing from his best man…

To this – if looks could kill…ooops.

Images: Mark Tattersall Photography

Coming next – I need your help with what comes next.  Would you rather I…

a) share the details of how we decorated the church and photos of our handmade order of services, or
b) follow on to the church ceremony

Please help me out by leaving a comment with your thoughts.