Our Perfect Little Wedding Day.

My official photos are back and I have finally stopped crying (with happiness obvs) long enough to share a little more about our perfect little wedding day with the world. I did share an initial post on how we planned our Wedding on a tiny budget, but now I want to just share how the day itself wend down and all of these beautiful photos... LOOK AT THEM!
Firstly of course I have to do a GREAT BIG SHOUT OUT to our fantastic photographer Hannah from Lifeline Photography, please go check out her website and give her some love as she is just amazing. She fit in so beautifully with our laid back day and knew exactly the type of shots we wanted. If you are looking for a slightly quirky and bloody talented wedding photographer, pop her at the top of your list, OK?

The day began for me by hopping on the Metro to the hairdressers for a 9am appointment, I was meeting my Sister and my Auntie there to get our hair blow dried. I got a text from my hairdresser the day before saying that he's had some bad news and that he needed to move our appointment an hour earlier than planned, but he was such a trouper and even though I offered to cancel he insisted and did his usual amazing job at taming my mane. I highly recommend Nick at East Terrace to anyone local to Newcastle.
Once our hair was done, we headed home to pick up Zoe and then onto my Auntie's rental cottage to get ready. I did consider just getting ready at home, but getting ready somewhere else did feel more special. So, while I was getting my glad rags on, Paul and my best friends headed to the reception venue for 12pm to start decorating. They did an incredible job, I was so grateful they were able to take the box of random odds and ends I had collected and turn the room into just the most perfect venue for us.


Our wedding was scheduled for 2:15pm, so I drove straight there for around 1:50pm and Paul arrived shortly after. We greeted all the guests in the foyer and got lots of hugs and compliments, which is always nice. Then we were called in to chat to the registrar, just to confirm all our details and vows etc... There was a minor panic as we hadn't realised we were supposed to bring our vows with us, having given them to the registry office the week before, but it was quickly sorted and on with the show!






We decided fairly early on that we didn't want to do the whole me walking down the aisle and being 'given away' thing. I mean its not a very feminist sentiment. We decided we really wanted Zoe to be a big part of our day as this wasn't just us becoming Husband and Wife, it was us as a family coming together. So we walked in together, each holding Zoe's hand, I feel like she was a bit overwhelmed with the attention but I glad she was a big part of the ceremony.
The ceremony itself was so lovely, I felt quite nervous to start with, and did tear up a few times but overall it was so lovely to stand there in front of everyone we love the most and say those vows. We didn't feel that any of the vow options the registrar gave us were quite right so we wrote our own version which was;

I vow to love you, encourage you, trust you, and respect you. I promise to laugh with you, cry with you, and grow with you. As a family, we will create a home filled with laughter, love and compassion. I promise to work with you knowing that together we will build a life far better than either of us could imagine alone. I promise to support your dreams and to respect our differences, and to love you and be by your side always.

It felt nice saying words that were meaningful to us and that included us as a family including Zoe rather than the usual 'richer for poorer, til death parts us' stuff.
We had two readings during the ceremony, the first was a Poem written by my Mum which was read by my Sister, which was so wonderful. I felt so happy I got to include her in the day in some small way. The second was a Bob Marley quote/poem/lyric read by one of Paul's best friends entitled; he's not perfect.











Following the ceremony we had the usual group and family photos, and then sent the guests off to the reception venue while we took some more photos. I could not be happier with how these turned out, considering it was raining on and off quite heavily, we made it work and got some amazing shots of the three of us, and with friends and family.
Following our little photoshoot me and Paul headed to our hotel to check in and drop off our bags (and drink some complimentary champagne) before heading to the reception venue.
We gave them a little heads up we were on our way and a lovely prosecco toast was waiting for us on arrival.






The rest of a night went in a blur of hugs and chats and dancing and prosecco, I had such a lovely night but in true 'me' style we did draw things to a close around 10:30pm and headed for our very fancy hotel room. I couldn't have imagined a more perfect day.



finally I just wanted to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who came, who offered advice and support, especially our families. We couldn't have done it without you.