A wonderful wedding......

Sunday 6 December and one of my oldest friends (she's not old but we have been friends for almost ever) celebrated the wedding of her first son and we were invited to celebrate with them. About 12 years ago we all celebrated the wedding of her second son and I haven't met up with her family and mutual friends since then (although we do keep up with some news on facebook).

Hubby and I left home at noon looking like this

And drove to Maida Vale in London and managed to park (at about 2:30pm) on the road right near the oldest surviving synagogue in the UK, Bevis Marks, where the wedding ceremony was taking place at 3pm. Men and women sit separately and as I was saying my hellos to the few people I know I was hoping Hubby was ok as he knows a lot less people here than I do.

The Bima (raised central platform) had its columns packed with white flowers and the chuppah (canopy) was white lace

which looked beautiful against all the dark wood, unfortunately I was three rows back and behind a pillar so a very restricted view. I've saved all the photos that have popped up on facebook as I was never in the right position to get good photos myself (love social media).

From there we drove to Park Lane for the reception, and gave two of friendH's Israeli relations a lift too. As The Four Seasons Hotel is right near the Winter Wonderland now open over Christmas the whole area was really busy so Hubby dropped the three of us outside the hotel and went off to find somewhere to park the car.

I was greeted in the foyer by the groom who after a big hug introduced me to his bride "this is my mum's best friend, Aunty Beryl, and we all love her" how wonderful is that! His bride kissed me and said "I'm so pleased you are now my Aunty Beryl", made me smile.

Up to the first reception area on the first floor where filled champagne glasses were laid out, each one had a card disc with our names and table number. I just started sipping when Hubby arrived having parked in the Hilton underground car park nearby. We moved into another large reception room and stood chatting with more old friends for drinks and some exceptional hors d’œuvre.

Into the ballroom and we found our places at large round tables of 12.

The menu to come was

We started with dancing and speeches, and there was lots more of that between each course. Dessert was proceeded by an amazing violinist who was followed by staff holding each dessert with its own firework

truly spectacular!

We knew six of our table companions (the groom's family) and it was really interesting getting to know the other four. My new shoes had been quite comfortable all day, however my feet are prone to swelling so just before dessert (thankfully the car was close enough) Hubby got my flat shoes for me to do a swap under the table ahhhhh!

Then aware of our long drive home we said our goodbyes to those we could find (very crowded) about 11pm-ish and had a lovely drive through the West End and South Bank (due to road works diversion) looking at all the pretty Christmas lights and got home at 1am. We'd had a wonderful day. Muzel Tov to the Bride and Groom.
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Family wedding yaay!......

Doesn't everyone love a good wedding, especially when it's family and we all get together to celebrate  😊

Friday 19th June my nieceV married D and now they are Mr&MrsJ-H.

After a late night Thursday (not in bed till 1am tut tut) hubby and I were up early scrubbed, poshed-up and hit the road by 8:45am.

We arrived at our hotel and while hubby found the car park I eventually found our room, in a very old building with a labyrinth of corridors on three floors, bumping into various members of the wedding party in various states of getting readyness.

SisterS had chosen the most flattering and classy mother-of-the-bride outfit

When sonK and his fiancé were ready and friendD then with Hubby and I we drove in one car to the venue, a purpose rebuilt for functions converted barn. It was lovely meeting up with all my extended family (far too big a family to add all the photos sorry guys).

And of course Son, Daughter and our precious grandchildren

The ushers then moved us from the bar area to the barn to be seated for the ceremony and brother-in-lawK looked very proud (and slightly nervous) as he walked his beautiful daughter (nieceV) down the aisle. Very proud mum too waiting with the groom and his two best men. It was a lovely service and the barn had been decorated with jars filled with wild flowers tied up everywhere.

We all then moved out to the lawn and were given handfuls of rose petal confetti to throw over the newly married couple as they walked between our long guard of honour line.

Someone had come up to O just before the ceremony and asked if he would give the bride a horseshoe as she thought it would be luckier coming from a young boy (and cuter) and he agreed so we did that and hopefully the official photographer captured it because I didn't think to take a photo myself doh!

Out on the grass there were games for the children

And a steel band playing

There were drinks served and canapés and the sun was shining the whole time.
When they had rearranged the barn we were asked in to take our seats for dinner. We had the little jars of our homemade chutney as wedding favours (remember chutney fest?)

Also on the tables were cards for the "speeches sweepstake" each table could decide whether to gamble or just play for fun. I guessed that all the speeches would last about 45 minutes and you know what, I was almost spot on!

Dinner was the most amazing spread of salads, bbq meats and hog roast and the vegetarians had barbequed halloumi with skewered vegetables followed by mixed berry pavlova mmmmmmm

Of course there was the cutting of the cake

And while they were changing the barn from dinner formation into party setting we were out on the grass or in the other barn areas where tea and coffee was available and a table full of sweety jars.

There was also a large pin board and a polaroid camera with instructions, and this was the end result

The party got underway with a great band and the bride and groom's first dance

Later in the evening when it changed to disco there was a lot of diy dj-ing with the newlyweds going first and sisterS going second.

And so at the end of our lovely day (not everyone called it the end when we did, heard they went till 2am!) we went back to our hotel (actually hubby drove as he'd had very little to drink even though I practiced driving his car before hand in readyness).

Up for breakfast Saturday morning were various members of the wedding party were all looking very bleary eyed but happy.
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Fairy tale wedding......

My best-friendM's daughter has just got married. She has always been a very girly girl (I've known her since she was about five years old) so none of us were surprised that she had a truly fairy tale wedding where she looked like the fairy princess  ☺

The wedding itself was held in Italy on the romantic Amalfi Coast, for immediate family and bridesmaids, best man etc and we've seen the photos showing it all as wonderful as they all said it was.

Bride and Groom were away for 10 days and I cat-sat for them going round to feed him and have a chat, every morning and putting his evening meal in a clever dish with a timer that keeps the food fresh until the lid pops open 12 hours later. I even got him to dress up on their wedding day, but it seems food was more important than posing for a good photo.

I was quite pleased with the card I made them.

And yesterday was the UK celebration party. I drove there with Hubby and picked up friendH and friendDJ.

The evening was another magical event where the venue had draped fabric ceiling and purple lighting to match the table decorations and balloons. There were hearts confetti and sayings about love scattered over the tables with candles and tubes of bubbles too. There was champagne brought round for the toast to the happy couple, a very full buffet table and a table full of pick-n-mix sweets to help yourself to including little sweety bags.  The wedding cake was four tier and surrounded by cupcakes too.  I gave my friend a hand cutting up the bottom tier and handing it around (we both got very sticky).

It was lovely meeting up with all of BfriendM's extended family including children, grandchildren, sisters, nieces, nephews, partners and babies. I even got the chance to say another thank you to one of my nurses from nearly two years ago who this time was a bridesmaid.

It turned out that of our usual crowd it was the women staying sober to drive home so it was no surprise that these four stuck together right near the bar in a musketeer fashion of all-for-one-and-one-for-all drinking session.

The bar is holding them upright!

Tomorrow the very happy newlyweds are off on their honeymoon and I'm back on cat feeding duty for the next 16 days. 

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