Our Wedding Day

Finally, I’ve added a full page about Our Wedding Day.

This was the best day of my life. It was such a brilliant day, and all went without too much of a hitch.

We’re Married

Gemma and I are now married.

We are now officially Mr & Mrs Jones.

More info to follow………….

One Week Today…

I’ll be a happily married man.
I’ve been thinking a lot more about the event next week and I’m getting really excited.
Well, why wouldn’t I?
I’m marrying the girl of my dreams, my soul mate. What more can I say?
Nothing apart from:

” I love her so much.”

Update on the Wedding Preparations

Just thought I’d post a small update on how the wedding preparations are going.

Its now only 9 days till our big day. Its come around fast, and I can’t wait!

Hotel

The invoice from the hotel arrived yesterday, which has actually come in under our budget, not a huge amount, but its still under, which is a good thing. This is definitely the biggest expense that we will incur, as its not cheap trying to feed 75 guests.

Suits

I got a phone call yesterday to inform me that all of the suits had come in and were ready for collection today. So now, all of the suits will need to be tried on to make sure everything fits and any changes made. Hopefully there won’t be any!

Speech

Last night I had a good rehearsal of my speech. I set up our video camera and did my speech to it. It was a big help as I could play the tape back and pick up on things that didn’t sound right etc. I was quite surprised at how long my speech was, it lasted just about ten minutes, and that was pretty much the same on all takes. (I think there were 5 takes last night)

Anyway I was pleasantly surprised how it went, although how it goes on the actual day remains to be seen. I’m pretty happy with the content of the speech, I just need to work on the presentation a little bit more before next Saturday.

Hopefully I won’t have to make too many speeches in my life. But I do know I’ll probably have to do one when Ellie gets married, but thankfully that’s a few years off yet

More Wedding Preparations

Final preparations are coming along now for the wedding.

Yesterday, we had meetings with our photographer and the registrar who is performing the ceremony.

This meant an early start so that we could get to Shrewsbury for 11am, as it is just over 1.5 hrs from Wigan to Shrewsbury. Even though the roads were pretty busy we managed to get there on time.

We had a good meeting with the photographer going through what sort of shots we’d like on the day, and just general chat about arrangements. Everything seems good for the day.

After getting carried away with chatting, we realised that we were short on time as we needed to be back in Wrexham so that Gemma could get her hair done. So, after some fairly quick driving I managed to drop Gemma off at the hairdressers only a couple of minutes late.

Ellie and I then headed to Nana Jen and Grandad’s house to wait while Gemma had her hair done. We’d expected to be there for a few hours, after it took about 4 hours the last time Gemma had her hair done. So I was a bit surprised when I got a phone call to pick her up after a couple of hours.

I picked Gemma up and took her back to my parent’s house, where we stayed for a couple of hours before we needed to go and meet the registrar.

Our appointment with the registrar was at closing time at the Register Office, which nearly proved to be a problem, because just as we were trying to walk through the front door, the cleaner was in the process of locking the door! Anyway, once through the door, we waited for a few minutes while the Registrar finished off a few things.

She must have been very flustered during the day, as everytime she tried to get through a door he found it to be locked and would need to go back and get a key for the door . It was quite funny to watch. Once we managed to sit down we went through the wedding forms and documents and also the procedure for the wedding and anything that we would need to do.

It was good to meet the Registrar before the day, as it helped us both to relax about it. The Registrar was a relaxed type of person, who didn’t seem too hung up on being formal, which is just what Gemma and I like. We’re not people who like everything stuffy and formal. We just want the day to be relaxed and to go smoothly. Simple is good!

After meeting with the Registrar we headed to Gemma’s parents for a couple of hours. This enabled us to avoid the rush hour traffic, and gave us chance to have something to eat.

It turned out to be a long day, and we got home at around 9.30pm. But after meeting with people, it gave us more confidence that everything should run smoothly on the day.

I can’t wait

One Month to Go

There’s now just one month to go to our big day. It’s come around quick, but most of the organising is done, which is good.

I can’t wait to marry Gemma. She is the love of my life!

Wedding Speech Progress

I’ve finished the first draft of my wedding speech. I’m not sure how long it will be as I’ve not had a proper run through yet. I’ve had the idea of recording myself on the video camera and watching the playback to see how my speech works.

I’m really pleased with how the first draft reads, but come the presentation and working on my delivery it may need a bit of a re-write.

Hope that on the day, it gets a few laughs, and maybe a few happy tears - maybe even from me

What a busy day……..

Sunday, usually a day for generally lounging around and quite often doing nothing.

Not yesterday!

Suit Fittings

My best man, Sam and his fiancee Bronwen came up so that we could get our suits fitted for the wedding as this was the only day he had free for the next few weekends.

So, me, Gemma, Ellie, Sam and Bronwen headed into town to the suit hire shop.

It was all pretty straightforward, although we had to wait a short while, because of a party of 8 having their fitting before us. And that wasn’t the only delay. The shop manager wouldn’t let us into the fitting rooms until she’d fumigated them, as the father of the groom (at least I think it was) of the party before us had a distinct lack of personal hygiene, and she had to give the fitting rooms a good dosing of air freshener. It was not nice!

Anyway, like I said it all went pretty straightforward, trying on the suits and trousers to find the right size. I had to try on a couple of jackets to find one that was comfortable, and ended up getting a size 46″ chest, just so that it wasn’t tight across my shoulders. I wouldn’t say that I’m fat, but I do have pretty broad shoulders, so anything smaller would just have been pinching all day at the wedding.

Gem and I had decided that the best style of jacket to go for was the Tailcoat, as this made me look a lot slimmer, especially my “dumpy” legs, as Gem calls them , with striped trousers, rather than plain ones. We’ve also decided on a gold / silver coloured waistcoat for myself and Sam, with our Dads and little Dafydd wearing silver waistcoats.

Lunch

After the suit fittings, Sam very kindly offered to take us all out for lunch. We all thoroughly enjoyed our meals, especially Ellie who had her usual “sausage”, and scoffed it all. She just loves sausages.

Sam ordered Gammon steak, which looked good, and it was a pretty thick piece of gammon. Bronwen ordered the Steak and Mushroom pie, just like I did, but we were told that there was only one left, so being the gentleman, I let Bronwen have it and I went with the Meat and Potato pie which was pretty good, but I think I would have enjoyed the Steak and Mushroom more . Gemma went with the lighter option of a Cajun Chicken wrap, which again looked nice.

Hospital Visit

After lunch, we said our goodbyes to Sam and Bronwen, and headed to the hospital to visit Gemma’s Mam. Gemma’s Mam has had very severe asthma since she was very young and handles it very well. At the moment she is having treatment to try and reduce the amount of steroids that she needs to take. She seemed pretty well in herself and hopes to be out on Monday. But we just need to wait and see.

Get well soon Mandy.

Sarah’s 21st Birthday Party

After visiting Mandy, we headed to my cousin Sarah’s 21st birthday party.

Sarah had great delight in showing everyone her “trophies” from the day before. She had gone Paintballing with her friends, and had been “shot” numerous times . Gem and I had been invited, but had been unable to go as Gem didn’t finish work in time. Maybe next time!

It was a good party, good food and plenty of entertainment, provided by Ellie and Dafydd. They spent most of the party playing with and bursting balloons. There weren’t many left by the time we left the party. The two little ones managed to keep going until we left the party, which was about 9pm.

We eventually got home just before 10pm, Ellie managing to stay awake until we were almost home. She kept herself amused by looking at all the cars and lorries and also by playing with her “Thomas the Tank Engine” Top Trumps cards that Taido had given to her that day.

It was a long and busy day for all of us and we were in bed pretty much soon after getting home. We were so glad to get home!