Our Wedding

Well finally I have got around to sorting out some wedding photos to put on here! It's been a busy few weeks...

So yes. Our wedding. It was wonderful.

My siblings and I ^ (all three photos above taken by Anne Greenhalgh)

My mum made all the bridesmaid dresses (and her own dress!) I sparkled all the bridesmaid shoes up with the matching colour glitter to their dress: (photo by Anne Greenhalgh)

Instead of a veil I had a cloak made of tulle which my mum made for me. You can't tell in the photos but the cloak is covered in gems which I spent hours sticking on one by one! I was told it did sparkle a lot in the church so I was pleased. (below photos by Anne Greenhalgh)

The cloak was fastened by a very small silver Tinkerbell pin that I already had.  Glad I managed to incorporate a fairy into my outfit somewhere.

I also made the all bridesmaids matching glitter stars for their hair. Below right is the seating plan also made using glitter stars. Can you guess I love stars? (photo below by Anne Greenhalgh)

Here's Henry and his mum arriving at the church and then Henry waiting at the church with his ushers and best man (who was not a man but a woman!) (photos by Anne Greenhalgh)

Here we all come! I came with my dad in a special wedding car. We actually arrived a bit early at the church through a slight error in time judgement so we drove off to town for 20 minutes and bought some mints at a petrol station because I suddenly really fancied a mint which was funny as I haven't had a mint in absolutely years. (photos below by Anne Greenhalgh)

And now (below) here's the church- before it was filled with people obviously!

My Grandmother is a priest and she actually took the service! It was so so nice to be married by my Grandmother.

It was a very special feeling the first time I saw and smiled at Henry as I walked down the aisle. (photos below by Anne Greenhalgh)

And now outside, afterwards having photos. This one was with my parents. That's my grandmother in the pink hat below- she changed promptly out of her priest robes after the ceremony!

My parents had some photos done on the day too to mimic their wedding photos they had done when they got married as they got married at the same church! (second photo above by Anne Greenhalgh and also photo below)

After the church we had a reception in a marquee. We were very lucky becasue the weather was beautiful and sunny. It was as though the sun came out just for that weekend!

I tried to incorporate as many stars and as much glitter as possible into the theme. I also had all my fairies and goblins hanging up from the ceiling so they looked like they were flying above everyones heads in the marquee. My mum made the bunting.

It was such a beautiful place that the marquee was in. It was just surrounded by countryside. (first photo below by Anne Greenhalgh)

Cutting the cake. It was an amazing cake! Henry's dad made it and it was a fairy castle!

I had changed dresses by this point (into one my mum made me) because I wouldn't have been able to dance in the other dress. Henry and I learned a special first dance with lots of twists and twirls in it that we had lessons for. Our first dance was to walking in the air... but not the original- the remix! It's a lot faster and trancier.

Here below I've zoomed in on a picture so you can see the necklace I was wearing. I made it myself and it's made of swarovski stars. I really really love it- it is so sparkly! I'll have to get a proper picture of it sometime. I made the bridesmaids similar ones to wear too. I wore matching earrings- one was a swarovski crystal star and the other was a moon.

And now a couple more posed shots... (two photos below by Anne Greenhalgh)

and some more snapshots...

My favourite part of the day (apart from saying the vows and the church bit) was the evening part of the wedding when I was just dancing with all my friends and family and having fun. That was when I felt most relaxed. We had a fire pit and fireworks and bacon rolls and late night ice creams. (photos below by David Ellis)

It was such a great and marvellous day and so nice to be surrounded by so many people we love and also to see family that we don't see very often.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Hello from Celestine

Hi everyone. It's Celestine here! Harriet's a little too busy to blog right now as it's the wedding eve eve and she has been busy setting everything up. I said 'Don't panic,' in my most calming of voices. I said 'I will take it upon myself to write a blog post. I know it's a great faff for me what with the keyboard being so big and everything (do you know how much longer it takes to type when you are only 4 inches tall!?) but I will do it for you out of the kindness of my heart. Harriet said 'Celestine writing a blog post is not really top of the to do list right now, don't worry about it' but I insisted. I absolutely insisted.

So yes, whilst everyone has been very busy today setting up the marquee and putting decorations up and finding boxes of fairies and driving here there and everywhere, I have been practicing being a bridesmaid. You can see how well I've been practicing by these photos. Do you like my necklace? I made it especially for the wedding. It's swarovski crystal. It's extremely sparkly.

Though actually... I won't really be a real real bridesmaid at the wedding sniff sniff...

I was very upset to hear this at first. I sobbed for absolutely days. But slowly I came round to understanding the reasons why:

One is that being so much smaller than the other bridesmaids I will not be able to keep up with them as they walk down the aisle. Even if I sprint at my fastest run. (And sprinting would just look silly anyway)

Two is that there would be a high risk of me being stepped on. And that would be even worse than looking silly sprinting down the aisle. A squashed Celestine would not be a nice wedding present for Harriet.

So then I suggested that I could be on top of the wedding cake instead of being a bridesmaid. But then I realised what a boring job that would be and I decided that it would just be better for me to watch the wedding from a nice safe place. So that is what I am going to do.

Harriet says it's ok because I am still a bridesmaid in spirit and I can still have a nice bridesmaids dress to wear in the colour of my choice. I chose pink becasue it suited me best. And then today I wore my bridesmaid dress and picked some flowers from the garden and had some photos taken. It's not as good as being a real bridesmaid but it will have to do.

It's actually quite a tragic story now I think about it all. 

Ah well...

I'm getting a bit tired from all this jumping around the keyboard now so I think I will wrap this up soon.

I might write another blog post sometime though. I've quite enjoyed it. It's been cathartic to talk about my experience of not being a bridesmaid.

I'll leave you with a photo of my lovely dressing table in my (unfinished) castle. You can see my sparkly swarovski wedding necklace sitting in my jewellery box (just before I put it on today). Also, on the left, my gold cornish pisky ornament I got when we went to Cornwall last year.

Bye for now!

Love Celestine 

X

Lately

One week to go until wedding!!! This time next week I will be getting ready to go to the church ahhh!  Lately I have been glittering stars and sticking them on napkins, making tartan clothes for Celestine's trip to Scotland, making hairclips for me and the bridesmaids, making fathers day cards and tiny fimo animals with the kids in my craft club, doing my tax return (how exciting!! ...But actually it is quite exciting becasue I need it done so Henry and I can start looking for a house... finally!) dummy booking for a new book I am working on which is what the character sketches above are for- they need a lot of changes though, swimming at my grandparents pool because it's been nice and sunny lately, driving to London for a housewarming party and accidentally taking the ferry across the Thames in our car becasue we got into the wrong lane- oops! Talking about cars, this week we parked our car at the supermarket, came out and the car next to ours was on fire! So now our car has to be fixed because it got all melted on one side. That wasn't such a highlight of the week... but never mind. Oh also my parents moved home the other night after five years of living in Dubai. We did a welcome home cake with silver balls on it to spell out 'welcome home.' 

It's all change around here that's for sure!

Celestine has been swimming in the pool too. She can manage about one width. Sometimes two if she's feeling particularly energetic! For such a tiny person it must seem very very deep. I think she's very brave to swim in there.

Cornwall Candids or Celestine's Boating Adventures

I recently for some reason (I can't remember why) looked back through lots of the photos I took last year when we went to Cornwall. I discovered a few photos I hadn't posted here before which I rather like. They're kind of candids as they have hands and things in them but I quite like that! 

Oh I love Cornwall so much!!! 

One evening Celestine wanted to go boating down the stream on the beach so my friend Sian and I went down there to take photos of her. That's Sian's hand in the picture, setting the boat into the stream. It's a very nice, quite gentle stream with some rapid-y btits and it goes all the way down to the sea. It's a lot of fun for a tiny person such as Celestine!

Here she is on the same stream in a different (safer!) boat.

On this day we spent all day on the next beach over, sitting in the sunshine and surfing and picnicing. One of our friends dug a hole so deep that when he stood in it it was over his head! Henry did his essay and got a sandy laptop. I remember it being a nice day.

in the evening Henry and I walked back over the cliffs while the others went back in the car...

We stopped for a while at a different beach on the way home and Celestine did some more boating. Here I am putting her and her boat in the stream at the very top of the beach.

Here's a small rock pool (below) which was Celestine's favourite swimming spot. Just perfect for a tiny person. It was her own personal miniature lagoon!

And now here is a fiercer, deeper stream on the next beach over. Celestine had to use her more sturdy boat so as not to capsize- though she almost did anyway. It was a faster, rockier ride with rapids. She looks a little trepadated/suspicious about it (below)

I can't wait to come back here again!!! It's my favourite place ever!

My Hen Party

Saturday afternoon was my hen party. My sister cleverly organised the whole fabulous event. And it was exactly the kind of thing I would have wanted for a hen do. Family and close friends, piña colada's in tea cups, glitter, fairies, cake and games.

The whole thing was held at my grandparents house and I am in awe of how my sister managed to organise the whole thing so well. There were fairies hanging from the ceiling, a tower of cupcakes on the table along with a big marbled chocolate gateaux cake and some cake pops. Her boyfriends mum kindly made all the cakes for us. 

In the evening my sister organised an amazing meal starting with artichoke cups filled with parma ham and quails eggs- I know, fancy! Then we had asparagus and asparagus wrapped in parma ham, cucumber sticks and carrot sticks, cheese fondue with toasted bread, steak fondue and then chocolate fondue with strawberries, marshmallows and pink merengues made by my aunt. There were a lot of fondues involved.

We played some funny games and at the end my bridesmaids gave me a really nice book with nice stuff written in it and photos etc- it's got loads of space left in it so will be the guest book for the wedding too.

Also at the end some of us went swimming in my grandparents pool. It wasn't the best weather but it meant that the pool felt warmer. In fact it was so chilly that there was steam coming off the water! Zoe (my cousin) looked like a mermaid because she had so much blue glitter and gems around her eyes.

Celestine made an appearance in her bridesmaids dress. I have made her one exactly the same as one of the real bridesmaid dresses! She had a tiny teacup of piña colada and nibbled at a cupcake both of which she very much enjoyed.

It was a lovely afternoon and evening and I am very lucky to have a sister to organize such a nice party for me! :) (she's the one in the daisy crown below!)