Perfect Day

Saturday 16th April 2011

It was a day of perfect celebration spent with perfect family and perfect friends.

Peaceful

I took some photos yesterday of our daily walk to the Offas Dyke path, into England (Shropshire) and back to Wales. It's about a four mile circuit and Lizzie loves it, as long as there are no sheep in the field she can go off the lead. She's grown so much, still a puppy and naughty but so gorgeous, we're all really enjoying her. Nicci's here this weekend and looked after the shop for us so we could go off and enjoy the sunshine, she was still suffering from her late night party on friday to come with us!!!

We all had a lovely evening meal when we got back and popped over to the Dragon for a drink with friends, nice end to a lovely day.

"Peace of mind makes the body healthy, but jealousy is like a cancer"- Bible

Wedding Fever...

I know i wasn't going to post again before the wedding but i'm so excited and i'm sorry if i bore you all! As stressful it's been, i've been relaxing and putting the finishing touches to everything. I'm just finishing off the Order of Service booklet which, hopefully, is going to be rather special, can't say anymore and my "To Do" list is getting shorter by the minute. My next job is to write the guests names on the placecards which are all made up and look beautiful. I just thought i'd post a few weddingy images to go with my mood, these are some of the colours i'm using.

Olive Green

Fuschia Pink Purple Cream Shoes to die for...I'm feeling rather nervous now it's all getting closer, we have over forty friends and relatives arriving on the Friday before, as wellas those who're local, so we'll have an open house here at The Armoury, lots of friends popping in to say hello, and all Gav's family are arriving as well as my lovely sister and her family. We're then having a big get together at the Dragon Hotel in the evening with everyone, we've ordered a buffet meal, but it will be interspersed with a rehearsal and then loads of us girls going over to the Town Hall to put covers and bows on the chairs, the caterers will be there too setting out the tables and putting cloths on them, so it should be fun, everyone's involved. Wedding Cupcakes

Wedding Cupcakes, a must at this wedding, because they'll look amazing. We have the most gorgeous cake stands in the shop, they look fab on them, we've ordered them and pick them up the day before, six different flavours, i need to put the wrappers on them and put ribbon around them....well... there'll be loads of people around on the friday so we can all have a go!

Cheesecake!

Cheesecake, isn't it fab? Our caterer is going to do one for Gav...can't remember which cheeses now as gav decided that with her, but it will be three tiers and gorgeous.

Wedding Cake

The wedding cake is all fruit cake, hence the sponge cup cakes. We're going to need a bigger cake table methinks!!!!!

The last few days have been really overwhelming, we've had loads of people turning up with gifts, cards and good wishes, and so much help has been offered, which gav and i needed as it's been quite a struggle getting everything done. We've now got someone to run the shop for us whilst we're away so thats a relief.

Apart from cleaning i think the rest of the time now can be spent winding down and meeting up with friends, i'm having a hen party on Tuesday in the Checkers, not sure what it'll entail as it's been arranged by others, but it'll be fun and i'm looking forward to it.

So, this is the last post before the big day now, i'll post all the piccies as soon as i can and afterwards, when all the guests have gone and our life resumes some normality, i have tons of ideas for my artwork, which i can't wait to get on with and share with everyone.

"What a happy and holy fashion it is that those who love one another shoud rest on the same pillow"

- Nathaniel Hawthorne

Lovely evening with Jo and Annie last night. Darling Jo, bless her, came over last week and kindly took all my wedding bow sashes back with her where she carefully ironed them ready to tie. Then i went over to hers last night to tie them on the chairs and had a lovely surprise as Annie was there too, which was just as well because she came in handy to hold the knots in place whilst we tied them...he he he!!! Seriously we were a great team and got them all tied in record time and now their looking gorgeous all over Jo's spare bed, safe and sound ready for the day. I can't thank them enough for their help, Annie has done all our wedding clothing alterations for us, they're two of the most kindest and loveliest people I know and i love them to bits - Thank you both

I needed to find some things to do to help me start relaxing and wind down a little before the wedding, so yesterday i made these lovely rose rings.....they were so easy and fun to make and i'd even sold one by the end of the day.Other than that "wading through treacle" is how i'd describe events here these last few days. As if weddings aren't stressful enough to organise we had the misfortune to have to have had the most apathetic person to deal with as regards the booking and organising of the reception venue. With less than four weeks to go i simply asked her last Monday what time our team of caterers could get into the kitchen on the day, to which she calmly replied that they "couldn't" at least not until "after 12 noon because there was a coffee morning there"!!! strewth...we're getting married at twelve and the reception is due to start at 1.30pm - Instant panic.

Anyway, we eventually managed to sort it out and the coffee morning was cancelled, but this was only after a meeting with the town mayor and the threat of complete anarchy in Montgomery with the possible hiring of bouncers to keep people out of the town hall and a protest march down broad street in my wedding dress Ha! It all took it's toll though, the ridiculous woman was incapable of admitting to her mistake of double booking the venue which ended up with words and bad feelings between us and the coffee morning people. I felt drained and upset by it all as well as wasting two days of precious time trying to sort it.

Mind you, my living room is sparkly clean now as a result, i tackled it in such a temper....he! he! he!

I made these cards in the shop today, they're watercolours, i just need to embellish them with some gold inks and can't wait to see them in the shop. and...here's one i made earlier (not)...the wedding cake!! Gav and i put it together yesterday, which wasn't fun, it's a bit wobbly! but we're working on that, we marked all the layers with the dowelling rods and put the pillars in place and managed to just save it from Lizzie by a hairs breadth...phew!!!!!. Obviously it has to have the flowers on it yet and i have some nice pearl headed pins to go around the ribbons. It's all sealed up in boxes for the moment ready to re-assemble, we're so pleased with it, it's going to be fab. I think we've just about reached the point where we can start relaxing and let all the excitement and loveliness take over now. There are a few last minute things to put into place, not to mention the cleaning, but i'm sure it will get done in time, i'm trying not to worry about it anymore. We're all (Nicci, Gavin and me) having a day out in Chester on Monday for some last minute weddingy things, perfume, make-up, underwear etc and then i'm due to have my first hair appointment next wednesday.

I won't have time to post anymore before the wedding but i promise you all lots of lovely photos after the event. Thanks so much to all of you who have emailed with your wonderful good wishes for both the day and with your congratulations and lovely comments on my published article in CPS, it's been overwhelming. I had planned a celebratory evening here at Indigo Moon for the CPS publication but, unfortunately, have run out of time, so am planning an exhibition sometime in May, when i'm, hopefully not so hectic.

"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow and never stop questioning"

- Albert Einstein - (adapted)

...the plumbers never finished on Wednesday, after they said they would...they were off for two days last Monday and Tuesday with food poisoning. When they got back to it on Wednesday they were set with a few other problems, like wrong adhesive for the floor tiles and the fact that the bath didn't fit into the waste pipes! They disappeared rather quickly on Friday afternoon once they realised that they couldn't finish until Monday! They have to build a plinth for the bath and fit it and sort out a few other things,hopefull they'll finish by the end of Monday and will take all their rubbish...i'll be so relieved....but despite all that the en suite looks fab.

Anyway, thought you might like to have a walk around "Indigo Moon" with me, it's looking rather lovely at the moment:

Button Brooches I made last week...all thats left

They look nice in the dish on the counter

and...this parcel arrived...from the states

25 copies of Cloth Paper Scissors with my feature in

for the exhibition/open evening we're planning at the end of the month

and....(shameful) this is what my work room/studio looks like at the moment

full of boxes and everything we needed to move out of the way of the plumbers, this is one of my jobs for next week...to bring some semblance of order to the place.

I can't believe how close the wedding is now, it's quite scary. We got the cake last week (Gav's in charge of that, i've not got a good reputation with cakes!). All the chair covers have arrived, the bows arrived yesterday and i'm trying to decide whether to tie them all beforehand or leave them until the Friday night before!! We have so many friends travelling here on the Friday (from Leeds to Portsmouth) we're having an open house through the afternoon and a get together in the evening so we can say hello to them properly. It's all very very exciting.
We have a final meeting with the caterer on Tuesday to tie up all the loose ends and then it'll be all systems go, with initial hair appointments, crash diets and most of all, a massive effort to clean the house up so it's ready for visitors.

I bought a very pretty, delicate shrug/bolero last week to go with my dress, it's a lovely cream lace and looks so nice on my shoulders with long bell sleeves. I wanted Nicci to have one in black to go with her dress and got her to try mine on to check for size....at which point she burst into song and an Abba impression, saying all she needed was the platform shoes!!! there's no hope.

MEGAN

My Gorgeous, Talented, Clever Niece

Happy 11th Birthday Beautiful Girl

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