Honeymoon Part 1: Roma

* If you just want our recommendations for places to stay, eat and visit in Rome, scroll down to the bottom of the post... I doubt anyone other than Mr. Riley and me will be interested in what we did each day, I just wanted to record it for posterity's sake. Something to show the grandkids, I guess!

We went on our honeymoon the Tuesday after our wedding. I had a bunch of cheques to pay into the bank in the morning, some in Mr. Riley's name, some in my maiden name, some in my new name, but all into one account. Fortunately it was easier than I expected. I guess people get married quite regularly.

We set off for Manchester airport and probably left it a bit too late. I was entirely unworried until we got to Glossop, and then the queue of traffic did make me have a flicker of doubt about whether we would get to the airport on time. Fortunately, that fear was unfounded and we arrived with plenty of time.

Neither Mr. Riley nor I are happy flyers. He gets really worried from a couple of hours before and then all during take-off. I don't worry about it at all until the plane starts moving, and then I'm pretty terrified until we land again. However, this flight was a particularly smooth one. Mr. Riley pointed out the White Cliffs of Dover, and then we were presented with a bottle of champagne, which had been bought for us as a wedding gift. This meant that we were sipping champagne as we flew over Paris... pretty romantic if you ask me!

We arrived in Rome on time, and organised transport to our hotel, the Hotel Artemide on Via Nazionale. It was a scary-arsed drive into the city, with the driver driving with his knees, whilst sending text messages, on the motorway. We got there incident-free however and checked in to our fancy hotel. I must have mentioned whilst booking that we were there on our honeymoon, as they had upgraded us to a 'superior' room and we had a complimentary bottle of wine with a little note from the hotel staff, and best of all the mini-bar was free for the duration of our stay!

We decided to just eat in the hotel's roof top restaurant that evening. I had MASSIVE prawns and Mr. Riley had steak. We were given a free glass of prosecco each and finished with an ice cream to share. We got back to the hotel room, put Avenger's on the TV and both fell asleep in about 6 seconds flat.

More photos and stuff after the jump...

Becoming Mrs. Riley

On the 25th of August, 2012, I became Mrs. Riley, and I couldn't let the opportunity pass to write about my wonderful wedding. After all, no-one else is going to do it.

Mr. Riley and I got engaged on New Year's Eve 2010/11, and quickly got the important things booked. Several years previously, before I had even met Mr. Riley, I went to a leaving party at Wood Lane Countryside Centre and thought to myself "this would be a lovely venue for a wedding". At the time, however, they didn't have a licence to perform marriage ceremonies there. You can imagine my excitement when I discovered that by 2011 this had changed and that we could have our whole day at this beautiful house. We went to visit it and booked there and then. I then got in touch with Sheffield Register Office to pre-book our registrar, and we also asked the very lovely Blanche and Richard from Coco Catering to do our food (I know Blanche through Seven Hills Women's Institute). So, we had a venue, a registrar and a caterer, which meant that we could have a wedding. No further planning happened for at least another year.

During the first couple of months of our engagement I looked at one wedding magazine (I can't remember which one, but if you go and buy any other bridal mag it will no doubt have the same articles, the same adverts and the same ideas) and I went to a grand total of two wedding fayres (one local, and the other at the NEC in Birmingham). What this told me was that 'weddingy' weddings bored me. All the stuff looked the same, all the dresses looked the same, nothing showed any personality at all. I did look at a few wedding blogs to begin with and definitely got inspiration from some of those, but I ended up making the decision to stop looking at blogs too. I had the opposite problem with the them... too many beautiful ideas that we had neither the money nor the style to be able to pull off ourselves! We wanted something that would still feel very much like a wedding, but with lots of our own personalities in there too. Oh, and it needed to be at least half of the national average cost of a wedding.

What a wonderful day it turned out to be. Did everything go entirely to plan? No. Did it matter in the slightest? No. Mr. Riley stayed with one of his Best Men the night before and I woke up at home with the dog and the sound of people stirring. I had planned my perfect wedding breakfast... croissants, smoked salmon, cream cheese and champagne, which I think my mum and aunt were quite tickled by. Champagne at breakfast? Can I not do that every day?? I then had a leisurely bath with a Lush bath bomb while my mum and aunt potted up the Busy Lizzies I had bought from a local garden centre. The rest of my family arrived at about 10.30, along with our photographer (another SHWI friend and writer of Real Ale Women Eat Pie) and there was much giddyness and excitement all round. Oh, and a little bit of sherry!

I had booked The Vintage Salon to come and do mine and my sister's hair and make-up. Their stylist, Kia, arrived bang on time to the sound of an over-excited dog. Fortunately he calmed down reasonably quickly and we could get on with the styling. Kia and I had a quick chat about what I wanted and we chose a style for me that would work with my bespoke Imogen's Imagination fascinator, made by the very talented and equally lovely Sophie Cooke. My sister and I had our hair and make-up done while my younger bridesmaids were getting ready upstairs.

After that it was time to get dressed. The girls in their lovely yellow dresses from Next, my sister in the beautiful, full length, pure silk dress THAT SHE MADE HERSELF the clever thing, and me in my Vivien of Holloway 50s Circle Dress. I felt AMAZING. The Dress had been something of an issue for me. I had realised quite early on that I don't really like wedding dresses. They are so expensive for something that you will only realistically wear once, they're not entirely suitable for garden-based weddings, and they're certainly too long for the arrival that I wanted to make. Those early blog readings had introduced me to Vivien of Holloway and I knew that I would love their dresses. My sister and I took a day trip to London in April to go to the shop, and it is such a beautiful place. The rails are full of stunning dresses, tops and trousers made from wonderful fabrics. The girls are so helpful and look so perfect. I could have bought the whole shop if I had the money! As soon as I tried on my dress I knew what everybody meant when they said that you just know that it's the right one. And for less than £200 I got the dress, the petticoat and a belt to complete the outfit.

More photos and whatnot after the jump...