2014
New year is a time for reflection so I have been having a think about my 2014 experience. It has been an amazing year and will be a pretty hard one to top to be fair.
January
We kickstarted the new year as we meant go on by attending our good friends wedding at Durham Castle, it was a wonderful day and the bride was simply stunning. January was also quite special for me as I reconnected with a good friend … life is too short to loose good friends.
February & March
February was quite quiet, we were continuing with the wedding planning and hitting the gym hard! March was pretty much the same as February, there was a lot of time at the gym as we hit 6 weeks to the wedding. I went for my wedding hair trial with my cousin … only took 102 hair grips hehe mum was also well underway with the alterations to my dress.
April saw full on wedding countdown. We went low/no sugar for the month in preparation and J went into full on beast mode in the gym. We also went to visit our good friends first house which was awesome and celebrated the hubbys last birthday as a bachelor. By mid April I had been for my No7 make up trial and bought some new bits in preparation for the big day. Also unknown to most people during this month we had started the process of buying our first house!!
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| Wedding face. |
At the end of the month we were into the homestretch … the last week of April was all about making favour boxes, printing up the readings, making the seating chart and sorting the ceremony music. At the very end of the month the deed polls arrived and we picked up the boys suites …. things were getting very real!
May was a fairly quiet month ……. not!
The beginning of the month saw the arrival of my bridesmaid from LA, then we kicked of the wedding weekend with the arrival of my second bridesmaid from cumbria and a girls night out out/hen do. It was an amazing night.
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| Bridesmaid C got the band to play my favourite song!! |
The day before the wedding I got my nails done with the girls in the morning, then took all the wedding essentials down to the castle and checked into my room. On the night we had a little gathering at the local pub to celebrate the arrival of Js family. All his family were there and his close friends it was a really good night, the boys started a bet on who would cry first. I headed off to the castle and J had the ushers & partners with him at the flat.
Sunday arrived with breakfast in giant bed at the castle. I put the final touches my speech and relaxed while I waited for the hairdresser. The girls, my mum and cousins arrived from the hairdressers where they had been getting ready and we all stated getting into our dresses. We had some pictures just us in the courtyard then my step dad arrived and it was time to head over to the main castle and get things under way.
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| Breakfast in bed! |
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| Bit of bubbly for the girls at the hairdressers. |
The rest of the day is a blur of friends, family, hugs, kisses, smiles, pictures and pure happiness! I ended the day married to my best friend ready to start our new journey as Mr & Mrs.
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| The new Mr & Mrs (& my handmade bouquet) |
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| Smile everyone! |
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| My beautiful girls |
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| The handsome boys ... auditioning for the Next Catalogue. |
Most of the rest of May is a blur of wedding pictures as I completed the Married May instagram challenge with a picture a day. We did unfortunately have to return to work and the real world but before hand we had a week relaxing together. Oh and got new wedding based tattoos. At the end of the month the wedding pictures arrived and we set to picking our top 80 (out of 400) to go in the main album.
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| 4th May 2014! |
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| Albums!!! |
June & July
June is a bit of a mess of boxes as we started the process of packing up the flat ready to move into the house. We officially completed on the 27th of June but before we could move in we had to make a quick trip south. On the 28th of June we had our second wedding reception in Js village with all his family and friends who couldn’t make the trip up north. We also took the nephew with us as the entertainment and so he could take a look at Surrey University. It was a really good night I got wear my dress again then change into a gorgeous evening dress and J had an awesome velvet jacket on looking very handsome. We even managed to pull off our second first dance with no practice.
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| Slightly hungover nephew found some friends. |
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| Second wedding cake, same husband. |
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| New House!! |
July is a massive house shaped blur. we moved in to our very first home at the beginning of the month and spent the rest of the month decorating and doing DIY … i have never painted or sanded so much in my life.
August
August was mainly more of the same with us settling into the house, getting things all sorted and we celebrated 5 years of being together with quiet meal out. But it was also kinda sad as my good friend moved to South Korea for a year, its an amazing opportunity but its also a hell of a distance and a long time. On a positive note the in laws came up to stay for a week to see the new house and we had a family house warming with all my cousins.
September
September was really chilled, we were back to normal after the wedding and move. We did however welcome a new arrival … after a long wait we made a trip down to Leicester one sunday and picked up … Js kick drum. Living in flats he’s not been able to have hit kit set up but now in the house he had a dedicated music room and with being a detached house he can drum away without annoying the neighbours. September did also bring our first non family house guests as our good friends from Cumbria came to see the new place.
October & November
October was another quiet month well aside from the fact it stared with my nephew being hospitalised the for the week before his 18th birthday with glandular fever. But he made a full recovery and was released in time to have birthday tea (family tradition) and go out for his first legal night out with his mates. J embraced his beard and has been sporting the fuller facial hair look since. He also discovered the Drum Shop and I practically had to take crow bar to him to drag him out of the shop. Js friend who also happens to be our neighbour came round and helped him tile the splash back in the kitchen, which looks awesome. we all managed to get our new dining table finished. J had bought it off ebay then we sanded the top down to the natural wood and painted the legs to match the chairs.
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| Et voilá one complete kitchen splash back. |
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| New dining table all sanded and painted. |
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| Fuzzy husband! |
November started with us going to several fireworks displays around the area and having a lovely meal to celebrate being married for 6 months. then it was mainly the quiet before the storm that is December. I got a few more bits of outstanding DIY done. I covered my dressing table chair, the living room footstool and our dining chairs which really finishes off the various rooms. We caught up with a good friend who was visiting Durham and booked tickets to see Foo Fighters again next year.
December
December as always is a busy month, aside from the run up to Christmas we have family birthdays. My aunts is on the 9th, then mine on the 10th and mums on the 18th. Its a fairly busy 4 weeks of family events starting the week of my birthday then ending with new year. It was a really good month though, I got to decorate the house ready for christmas for the first time and we had family tea’s for mine and mums birthday. Christmas Eve was just the two of us watching films and having gammon dinner with all the works. I also received some amazing news ... my good friend got engaged!! Love a good wedding!
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| Festive living room! |
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| Dining table ready for our feast! |
Christmas Day was a full on family Christmas, I think its the first ever Christmas Day I remember spending with both my brother and sister. We usually did Christmas Day with the sister and co then we go up to see my brother and co on boxing day. This year we had all 10 of us for Christmas Day then Boxing day mums with just the bother and sister in law. Our New Year was a chilled one in the house with the sister and brother over for food and films as J had to work both NYE and NYD.
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| The Family! |
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| Merry Christmas! |
There was one big sadness this December which was that my uncle on my dads side sadly passed away just before Christmas. I haven’t seen that side of family as much as I should have done the last few years so I think now that we are all settled and not moving flats and cities all the time I am going to make it my New Years resolution to make sure we go and see them more.
xXx
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