25 Years

Today in my parents' silver wedding anniversary. Twenty five years of marriage! Congratulations Mum and Dad!

{The card we will be giving them today.}

Celebrations

We've been kept occupied the last week with celebrations. T's PhD graduation on Thursday, at which my bag made its debut. We went to a lovely restaurant afterwards and spent the afternoon feeling full, sleepy and happy at his parents' home.

{Marching trumpeters on loan from the Queen for the graduation ceremonies.}
One of the girls I used to live with stayed the weekend which was wonderful, and we spent Saturday at Lulu's wedding, celebrating as she and her lovely new husband got married. The sun shone. Everyone smiled. We played with balloons and caught up with old friends. It was a very happy day.

{Clockwise from top left: Wedding feet, tables, bridesmaid's bouquet, cup of tea, name cards, roses in the courtyard.}

RSVP

We got two wedding invitations in the post last week and so I spent some time on Friday making RSVP cards. I decided to make little cards and used some with apertures that Mum had passed on to me months ago. I trimmed them down a little so they would fit in some small square envelopes (which happened to be left over from the RSVP cards and envelopes we sent out with our invitations!).

I tried to match each one to the wedding invitation and theme. With one that was easy, I know plenty about the wedding, it has a green theme, the invitations had hearts on. Easy peasy.

{Doubling up the hearts adds a bit more interest.}
The other one was slightly harder. It was just a thick sheet of paper with the words printed on. Very simple and classy, giving nothing away before the big day. So I came up with a simple design to use on both, and for the second one just used neutral colours and wedding papers.

{The hearts are punched from a wedding favour box I saved from one of the weddings we went to in December. I love the black and gold together.}

Wedding Cards

Now that our trio of winter weddings are over, I thought I'd share the wedding cards we gave them. I think people put so much of their own personality and how they want their wedding to feel into the invitation so it's great to use that as inspiration for the card if you're making one.

This is the first (invitation above, the card I made below):


I took the colours and the relaxed swirls of the invitation for my design too. The font they'd chosen was quite simple and modern so I echoed that in their initials.

The second wedding invitation stated that the ceremony would be followed by "dinner and ball". It was formal and traditional in the colours and fonts but they'd made it unusual by having four triangular "petals" that opened on the front (invitation to the left, card to the right):


Again, I used very simple, traditional colours, keeping the creativity in the textures and patterns. I used ribbon roses to make it extra special.

The third wedding, just gone. The bride and groom had clearly chosen red and gold as their wedding colours (invitation to left, card to right):


Again, I took similar colours and included their initials in a swirly, handwriting, similar to that on the invitation.

I would love this to be my job!

The Last Wedding

This weekend saw us going to our fifth and final wedding of the year, and it was a wedding high. Although we only really know half the couple, it was such a special and fun day.


The food was amazing - after the church they served hot mulled wine (great for wrapping chilly fingers around) and mince pies fresh from the oven. For dinner, we'd decided to go for one of each option on the menu between us as it looked so good. Which meant that by sharing, we got to try starters of duck and salmon, mains of pork and guinea fowl (like chicken, but with a meatier, richer flavour), and for dessert white chocolate torte and the creamiest lemon cheesecake ever.

Aside from the food, seeing how happy and relaxed the bride and groom were, and how thankful to God - made it a totally wonderful day.

November...

...started and ended with a wedding.

...was rainy.

...meant time spent with friends.

...brought adventures - like this one.

...got me excited about Christmas and shopping and buying gifts.

...saw me wearing my new boots almost every day.

...introduced me to new ideas and plans for the future.


November was GOOD. So I'm off to enjoy the last few hours of it with T. See you all in December.

Starry Sky-ed Marquee

A few words to describe the wedding at the weekend...

~ beautiful ~ sparkling ~ pink ~ quiet ~
~ holy ~ moving ~ emotional ~ funny ~ unique ~ heartfelt ~
~ blue ~ well-organised ~ joyful ~ thankful ~ sunny ~ light ~
~ loud ~ story-ful* ~ musical ~


*not a real word but I think weddings should totally be about the stories - the past, the journey, the stories that are to come.

Proverbs, Photos, Plans

Proverbs 4:20-23

My child, pay attention to what I say;
listen closely to my words.
Do not let them out of your sight,
keep them within your heart;
for they are life to those who find them
and health to a man's whole body.
Above all else, guard your heart,
for it is the wellspring of life.

Photos

Day 8:


Day 9:


Day 10:


Day 11:


Plans

Weekend away. Romantic. A Georgian House. Him and me. A mini-book.

Weddings in the future. RSVP-ed this morning. Cards to be made.

Next week - visit from a friend. Besom. Teacher training course meeting. Other meetings.

Paper-iversary

One year ago today I married my best friend. It was a day of family and friends. Of love and laughter. Of photos, flowers, food. It was blue and golden. There was tea and cake. There were old cars, black suits and beautiful dresses. We praised and prayed. We made promises and gave rings.

One year on we have enjoyed so much time, so many visits with family and friends. Love and laughter have been cornerstones of this marriage. Photos, flowers and meals have adorned everyday life. Blue and golden will always remind me of that day, as will afternoon tea, old cars, suits and dresses. We have prayed and praised God every day - this relationship has grown from his love, his care and his knowledge of us. We work each day to keep the promises those rings symbolise.

It has gone fast, and yet feels like a year. It has been full of adventure and excitement, yet we revel in the ordinariness of sharing our lives. That it can be magical and feel right. This is home.

All Over the Place

This weekend has been a bit mad. We were supposed to go to a "pub quiz" at church on Friday night but had to miss it after I spent the afternoon being ill. That was a bit rubbish as we'd been looking forward to it. Also we found out that our team were doing brilliantly until the Dingbats round which T rocks. I'm terrible at them - any answers from you guys for these...?

Anyway, they came third out of eight teams in the end which is pretty good. On Saturday we went to the wedding of two people T went to school with. It was lovely and considering I barely knew anyone I enjoyed it more than I expected. Although I loved planning our wedding and the actual day was even more perfect than I'd imagined, I wouldn't want to repeat it. On the other hand I'd love it if we could have another "honeymoon" - a two week holiday for just us would be wonderful. This week/month/year is feeling very full - we're rushing around a lot seeing people and doing things, and while that is lovely I'm feeling pretty worn out this last week! A holiday would be nice...so I'm looking forward to a couple of family weekends we have planned and then the Easter holidays.

On Sunday it was beautifully sunny when we woke up, grey when we dashed out of church (after hugs and a quick chat with last weekend's newlyweds) and pouring with rain as we went off to see some university friends who are now married and living about an hour away. We haven't seen them since before Christmas and it was our first visit to their new house so it was lovely if a bit short as one of them had a concert to go to. On the way back we dropped in on T's parents for a delicious roast dinner. We also played a new game called San Juan (which was a Christmas present for T from his aunt and uncle) - it's quite like Puerto Rico but simpler to set up as its just a card game.

So that explains where I have been and how I managed to go a whole week without filling you in on my life (for those of you who were wondering!). As a general update on today, I have been at playgroup-work in the morning (one of the kids made me laugh but I'll tell you about that tomorrow) and Besom-work this afternoon (eek, the van has broken down, lots of prayer needed!). Tonight we will be having plaice for dinner which I have never cooked before (this recipe looks good to me) and the church prayer meeting is this evening.

And by the way I was tempted to make a terrible place/plaice joke in the title of this blog but I resisted. You're welcome.

Uh-Oh-Spaghetti-O

I spent this morning playing with blue spaghetti. The kids adored this activity - cutting it, making piles of it and generally throwing it everywhere. It was great fun. One girl repeatedly put her face in it, came up for air and giggled hysterically which was hilarious to watch. If you're going to try this at home though put down newspaper. Or even better - do it outside. It really did go everywhere and took two of us ages to clear up.

The wedding this weekend was beautiful. It was so relaxed and happy, and the cakes were delicious, although sadly I didn't take any pictures of them. I didn't take many photos at all - I was too busy eating cake. Here are a few I did take that don't show faces.

And here is the card I made them...

A weekend with the folks...

We had a lovely time visiting my parents (and sisters) this weekend. It was pretty overcast all the time so we stayed inside, playing games and eating goodies. We introduced them all to our new favourite game, Puerto Rico. This game was an instant hit with both sides of our family and we played it three times this weekend.

We also ate lots of yummy food and watched the rugby. It was just a really good weekend of catching up and spending time together. Mum and I spent Saturday afternoon playing with her extensive craft collection and making cards. She really does have a huge amount of stuff and (bonus!) she gave me a whole box of card, paper, decorations and ribbon to take home. This is the card I made, for a couple whose wedding we're going to in three weeks.