Part de deux

Here are some more photo's of the wedding as promised. I love this one of daughter and her Nan, my Mum.

Bride and her Nan

Here's the happy couple cutting the cake. The roses on the cake were fresh as were all the flower arrangements. You can just see the tall vase on the table behind them. We chose that arrangement because it meant the people sitting at the table could all see each other round the long stemmed vase.

The room set for the wedding breakfast (70 guests)

The next photo is special. It's of me and my little girl. Aaaaah. (That's not flies buzzing round my head, that's the fascinator!)

Me and my little girl

"Me and my little girl" fits the next photo too. 'im indoors was beside himself with pride.

A very proud 'im indoors

These are not the official photo's, we are still waiting for those. These were all taken by friends who kindly passed them on to me. They did a very good job don't you think? I was dashing around all day so I was very grateful to everybody who managed to catch the photo's that I didn't have time to take for myself.

The meal was wonderful.

Starters: Mozzarella cheese with tomatoes and olives.

Main course: Chicken breast, beautifully cooked in a delicious meditteranean sauce, served with potato rosti and seasonal vegetables.

Dessert: Chocolate tart served with raspberry sauce.

All beautifully presented and served by very attentive waiters.

Noodle 2 slept though it all in her pushchair. She woke up for the speeches though!

Noodle 1 found one of the "single use" cameras and was walking round the tables taking pictures. Can't wait to see those! She didn't eat much of her dinner, much to busy for that. She made up for it later though.

Then came the speeches. 'im indoors had been very nervous about this but was determined not to let his daughter down and boy, he was marvellous!! He said lovely things about his daughter and new son-in-law. He said how proud he and I were of our daughter and also complemented me which was really lovely. By the time he finished there was not a dry eye in the room and he received a standing ovation! Everybody said it was the best Father of the Bride speech they had ever heard. Spoken from the heart with real feeling.

The Bridegroom was next, when he stood up he said, "how am I supposed to follow that?" Which made everybody laugh. His speech was lovely too. He presented me and his mother with a beautiful bunch of flowers each and said lovely things about us. The page boys received a gift of a radio controlled car each and the bridesmaids received gold necklaces.

The Best Man, the Bridegrooms brother, had prepared a long speech but decided to cut it really short and just say how proud he was of his big brother and how much he looked up to him. He was overcome with emotion as he spoke and had to pause. So sweet!

When the cake had been cut we all made our way out of the dining room and headed for the bar. The would be a space of a few hours now before the evening guests started to arrive. In the meantime the dining room was transformed into a ballroom and the DJ arrived to set up his decks for the evening revelries. I took Noodle 2 back to our room for some quiet time.

A further 40 guests arrived for the evening. There was dancing 'til the wee smalls and a good time was had by all. Noodle 2 slept through it all in her pushchair.

Noodle 1's Mummy came to fetch her at around 7. It had been a long day for her and she was exhausted. She had a lovely day though.

The next morning we had to be out of the hotel by 11. It was quite an operation. The manager of the hotel showed me to a room where they had collected together all the flowers, vases and pedestals. We had to leave the two pedestal arrangements behind. They were just too big to fit into any room we had at home. There was to be a wedding reception at the hotel that afternoon so we said they could use them for that if they liked. I don't know if they did. Maybe they were just binned which would have been an awful shame but what could we do with all those blooms. As it was I had the bunch that the Bridegroom had given me plus the vase of flowers that had graced the registrar's table, plus 3 of the 9 arrangements from the tall table vases.

We left the now empty vases and pedestals at the hotel to be collected that afternoon and proceeded to get ourselves and mother back home.

It had been an emotional, frantic, busy, exhausting, wonderful weekend. I will never forget it.