RSS Feed

Posts Tagged ‘wedding’

  1. We only went and did it, didn’t we?

    October 2, 2012 by Amy Hansford

    Wow, that was a long summer break, eh? A lot has happened.
    For one, Alex and I got married! It was an amazing day. I’ve not felt that chilled out for an age. The dress was gorgeous, the men were too, as was everyone else. Little L and all the kids were incredibly well behaved. Thanks to an announcement at the start of the ceremony, my father and I were able to enjoy our walk down the aisle and see everyone’s faces, not their phones. Fab. Little L was with us having cuddles for the whole thing. We did it all as a family. Not intended, not rehearsed, but just perfect.

    Our friends and family provided brilliant music during the ceremony. My incredible shoes brought both a world of wonder and a world of pain. 1400 shoes on, 1545 shoes off. Thank goodness for my leopard print pumps.
    Pinewood Studios made an amazing venue. It was wonderful for us to be able to give all our friends and family the gift of being able to have a good mooch around the beautiful gardens including secret bits here and there.

    Tons of wedding photos by the incredible Ben and Tim at Milkbottle Photography be here.

    Brlliant food, brilliant company, brilliant speeches. We had a ‘DON’T BLINK’ sign on the only statue in the garden. Mario, Peach and Toad topped our wedding cake. Everyone had a scrumptious brownie favour from The Brownie Company. We did the wedding waddle. We drank*. We sang. We laughed. We cried (but only when no-one was looking). We have a hilarious guest book thanks to brightly coloured pens and Polaroid cameras and wonderfully thoughtful friends and family. We were surrounded by our loved ones for our last dance, ‘Good Guys’ from Bugsy Malone. We waved as we skipped out, followed by our guests singing and waving along. It was like the end of our own perfect movie.

    Or rather, the beginning.

    x

    *I only had a tiny bit of alcohol. I’m not pregnant, don’t worry. I just didn’t want to drink. And I’m so glad. I remember every detail.

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: ,, | 1 Comment

  2. Hanging On the Telephone

    July 15, 2012 by Amy Hansford

    I had a brilliant hen weekend. My amazing maid of honour and co found a fantastic house with a maze of rooms, a great chill out lounge plus a pool and jacuzzi. We relaxed, we had the Amylympics and generally escaped from it all which is what we all needed.

    I did witness a curious occurance, and probably would not have noticed it had my phone had an ounce of signal. Unintentionally, I ended up on a communications blackout as I only had signal on my mobile in a small area of the bedroom. This turned out to be a good thing – it forced me to relax. I found myself holding a cup of tea with both hands and being able to observe and enjoy everyone having fun. I wasn’t checking my emails, Twitter or Facebook every two minutes*. I had no idea what the rest of the world was up to – I was happy in the one we’d all made in Lincoln.

    It also gave me the chance to look around. I saw a room full of friends alternating between sharing the experience of a duvet day and near silence as everyone checked their friends’ Facebook statuses. I saw people take photos of what was happening and upload them as soon as they could. Even on a getaway, people were drawn to share their experiences with the rest of the world rather than with those in the room at the time. There’s nothing wrong with this – it’s the world we live in – I just found it curious.

    Similarly, on the last night when there were only seven of us, we had a karaoke session. Karaoke is something that is very much a social experience. You reciprocate the support your friends give you while singing by supporting them when it is their turn. I found myself singing a tune and looking out to find silent friends checking their smart phones. Again, that’s now the norm and wouldn’t be noticed in the pub, but it was a strange thing.

    I should reitterate, had I had normal reception on my phone, I would have been doing exactly the same.

    So what did this experience teach me?

    I am too reliant on my phone and, specifically, my internet access.
    I’ve started leaving my phone on the table at home rather than having it stuck to me.
    I’ve vowed not to live life through a lens – I will watch gigs and shows and giggles, not record them.
    I appreciate seeing friends and family and keep reminding myself that tweets, messages and emails won’t disappear if I don’t look at them.

    How much do you rely on your phone?

    *Yes, that’s pretty much the frequency I check. I am addicted to my iPhone.

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: ,,,,,,,,, | 2 Comments

  3. Offbeat Bride

    April 8, 2012 by Amy Hansford

    I’ve slowed things down. Generally, life is good. My impressive run of bad luck continues – each day seems to bring its own new surprise – but things are dealwithable. There’ve been a couple of chest twinges but nothing that a cup of tea and some pills haven’t helped. Just don’t tell work – someone somewhere will surely put me over their knee and slap me.

    Anywho, one of the feeds I follow on my Google RSS is Offbeat Bride*, a brilliant blog with ideas and thoughts on weddings.I wanted to rip this entire blog post and put it on here but thought that would be unfair to the author. So instead, click the link below to see

    10 tips for how to handle me now that I’m a bride.

    Brilliant.

    *I also follow Offbeat Home and Offbeat Mama – I just wish I had time to try out everything I see!

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: ,, | No Comments

  4. April update

    April 26, 2011 by Amy Hansford

    A quick round up of this month:

    It’s been a time of getting the hang of this whole parenthood lark, Little L meeting all our friends and family (still have a few of her aunts, cousins, an uncle and great aunts to cover) and us coping with the inevitable overstimulation once this has all occured.

    Momentous occasion last night – Little L slept in the big cot in her nursery for the first time. She was in the pram in our room for the first month. I don’t think she noticed. She actually slept better for not whacking her feet/hands against the side of her container, so it was good Zs all round.

    In other news, I’ve managed to find a local non-grading tap class! It’s only taken two years. Looking forward to starting that next week. I understand it’s a good idea to have something regular to get you out of the house when a babby’s born.

    Also, I’ve signed up with an online wedding forum, mainly to start stealing ideas from other brides to be. It’s fascinating for several reasons. The hatred these women have for so many people involved in their big day; some aren’t engaged yet and are already fantasising; the speed at which people flash (the practice of posting a picture on a themed thread, ie wedding venue, rings, shoes etc); the use of ‘STD’ to mean ‘Save The Date cards. So far we’ve come up with silly ideas that won’t be used, which is more fun actually.

    That’s the ho hum update for you – more interesting tales next time (one hopes…)

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: ,,,,,, | No Comments

  5. Other bloggers: WBOACM

    February 7, 2011 by Amy Hansford

    Thanks to the power of Google Reader, I have lots of other blogs and websites that I keep an eye on, mainly for entertainment value. One such blog is Wedding Blog Of A Clueless Man. With Bridezilla, Don’t Tell the Bride and Four Weddings being big pullers on the telly these days, it’s nice to see things naturally bloom with a wedding rather than have it all thrust at you. Plus he has a great style of writing which makes me laugh. Especially the bottom of this post.

    So, go see.

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: ,,, | No Comments

  6. Tis the season…

    December 27, 2010 by Amy Hansford

    …to catch up with people and eat lovely food.

    Yep, I’ve been rubbish at blogging of late. I have all the usual excuses – pick the one you prefer.

    On Christmas Eve, we chauffered our friends Dee and Richard for their wedding. A Christmassy spectaular, with ‘Sleigh Ride’ as part of the service and balloon model reindeer on all the tables. It was a brilliant day, fantastic to see everyone and special to have been able to contibute a favour rather than a traditional wedding gift.

    Speaking of favours and gifts, every reception attendee was met with a goody bag. Lovely Christmassy bits in them, but I won’t spoil the secrets within.

    Another great bit of fun for the tables was the introduction of a ‘pass the parcel’ only with instructions on who should open the next layer rather than relying on music, i.e. the person with the smallest shoe size, the person with the shortest hair etc. I think our table pretty much trampled over everyone’s attempts at doing the loudest animal noise.

    Also, the wedding contained probably the best first dance I have ever seen. You’ve watched the videos of people dancing down the aisle, people re-enacting Dirty Dancing, people slow dancing only to break into Mc Hammer’s ‘You Can’t Touch This’. Rich and Dee not only acted out clips from at least 30 songs, they’d managed to construct it so as to tell the story of how they met. Brilliant.

    Rich and Dee’s first dance

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: ,,, | No Comments