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...
Shortly before two o'clock we all headed over to Stannington. Everyone except my dad, Miss. Bainbridge and me went straight to the venue. We, on the other hand, headed to where we had stashed our means of transport. Never let it be said that I didn't want to arrive in style!!

The ceremony itself was exactly what I wanted. The venue looked lovely without much decoration. I had made my own bouquet and one for my sister using ribbon and buttons (my fascinator matched), and popped to the wholesale market the day before to get 80 gerberas, the only flower I really like, for £8. My younger bridesmaid's bouquets were 3 gerberas each tied with orange ribbon, and the remaining flowers were in small bottles lined up on the windowsills. With our invitations I had sent out a template for each guest to make a bunting triangle, and was astounded to get 65 back. This was an idea that I stole from one of the wedding blogs, and I am so glad that I did. I embroidered everybody's names onto their triangles and we now have the perfect keepsake from our day.

We set the tone by having my brother escort my mum to her seat to the Archers theme tune, followed by my bridesmaids. I came in with my dad to Gonna Fly Now. You know, the Rocky theme tune. The ceremony was  lovely. Our officiant, Joanna, was heartfelt and funny. We had written our own vows and I almost managed to get through mine without crying. My voice did break, but I kept the tears in my eyes. Later, a bunch of my guests told me that I had sent a wave of tears down the congregation at that point! We had spent a long time trying to choose readings that meant something special to us both, and not just from '101 poems that can be read at your wedding'. One of Mr. Riley's Best Men pulled off a perfect Peter Cook tribute with his rendition of the 'Mawwiage' speech from Princess Bride, and another good friend introduced our sci-fi geekery to the proceedings with the 'Love Keeps Her in the Air' speech from the end of the film Serenity. We marked the end of the ceremony by playing 'Signed, Sealed, Delivered'.

We then had the speeches pretty much straight away. As my dad got up to make his speech, there was a timely roll of thunder, before he reminded Mr. Riley of just how stubborn I can be. I don't think this was news to any of our guests. Mr. Riley had been nervous about making his speech, but I was so proud of him. It was funny in all the right places, his comedy timing was brilliant, and he even referenced Highlander. Everyone loved the double act of the Best Men's speech, complete with slide show. Just the right amount of embarrassing for the groom.

After the speeches, we had planned to have the drinks reception in the garden, however the rain meant that we had to stay indoors. With a bit of help from the guests to move all the chairs out the way, we quickly had the space for some mingling and milling. The food was lovely and the canapes from Coco Catering were delicious. We had Haggis Pakora with Catherine's Choice Hot Sweet Chilli Sauce, Pog Lane chicken skewers, cocktail Spinach & Ricotta and potato cakes and Yee Kwan ice cream mini milkshakes.

We had arranged for Matt and Annabel, Vintage 78 Gramophone DJs, to come over from Manchester and they provided the perfect soundtrack to our afternoon. Coco Catering served us up our Wedding Barbecue at around 5.30. Again we had planned to eat this outdoors on picnic blankets, but due to the weather we had to improvise. With a little bit of teamwork, the tables were quickly moved around and, following the suggestion from a colleague at work we used the picnic blankets as table cloths, which made the room feel really colourful and quirky. The service from the caterers was brilliant, and all through the planning of this wedding I knew that I could rely on Blanche and Richard and their team to come up with the goods. They are so professional, and their food is so perfect. On reflection, I actually think the weather helped to make the day. It was so lovely being inside and I suspect much more sociable than it would have been if we had been outside.

We had a feast of spicy prawn skewers, which were deeee-licious, lemon & thyme butter chicken, sausages, burgers, grilled veg with squeaky cheese and served with beautiful, fresh salads. It was a real treat.

For dessert we had wedding cake served with strawberries and cream. I had made the wedding cake myself, despite people warning me that I'd probably have enough to do the week before the wedding. My reasoning had been that I am more impressed by really nice-tasting cake than I am by really fancy-looking cake. I also wanted it fairly plainly decorated, just with some bunting triangles round each tier, and when I realised that I could just make those from material and pin them round rather than having to try and mess around with making them out of icing my mind was was made up. Following the recipes from BBC Good Food for their wedding cake, I made the top tier (fruit cake) in advance, and a couple of days before the wedding I put on my pinnie, rolled up my sleeves and made the bottom two tiers (chocolate and lemon). On the Thursday evening I coloured the sugarpaste, rolled out the icing and covered the cakes. I attached the ribbons and bunting triangles when I assembled the cake at the venue, and was really proud of the finished result. Not least because it looked quite cute, but also because it tasted so damn good! The lemon was my favourite, but was closely followed by the chocolate. I only tried trimmings from the fruit cake, but was reliably informed that it was also pretty tasty. I have to say though, that unless you are a mad keen baker like me, it is probably a bit much to make your own cake. Also, if you have plans to decorate it in any way that can't be done quickly, I'd recommend asking someone else to do it.

The very wonderful  Catherine's Choice had made us some amazing favours for our guests, with labels that matched our stationery (which had been designed by my dad in the first place). We also borrowed a polaroid camera and asked our guests to take photos of themselves, sign them and peg them up. By the time we remembered we had it, everyone had had a few glasses of wine so some of the pictures are brilliant.

The afternoon went by so very quickly, and before we knew it we were welcoming our evening guests. One of my conditions for agreeing to marry Mr. Riley was that he had to learn how to dance, as I didn't want our first dance to be us swaying awkwardly for 3 minutes. Shortly after we got engaged we signed up for Ballroom and Latin American dance classes at City Limits, where we started learning waltz, quickstep, fox trot, tango, rhumba, samba, jive and cha cha. What we realised was that learning 8 different styles of dance meant that we weren't really able to learn one style well. Our favourite was jive, but with a class including some older dancers, jive rarely featured. One week our teacher was off for some reason, and I had noticed that a Lindy Hop class had started so suggested to Mr. Riley that we tried that instead. He hated it. I was disappointed, because I loved it, but I knew there was no point trying to get him to change his mind, so on the way home in the car I kept quiet. Then he said something like "but the music's so much better". My ears perked up at this, and I mumbled something in agreement. Later still, he mentioned something about how much more likely you would be to dance Lindy Hop when out for an evening than tango. Again, I gave a non-commital 'uh-huh'. Finally, Mr. Riley said how much cooler it is than waltz, and at that point I thought I might have a chance here. So I suggested that we get in touch with the teacher, the fantastic Mike Tate, and ask if we could have a private lesson to catch up with the rest of the class. Mr. Riley agreed and we have never looked back.

Choosing the song for our first dance was quite difficult. At one point I think we had about 7 songs on the shortlist, which we eventually whittled down to two before finally choosing 'Baby Can Dance' by Carsie Blanton. So months of lessons of learning different Lindy and Charleston steps came to a head at 7.30 when we got started. Those 3 minutes went by so quickly and in a bit of a daze, and the first thing Mr Riley said to me when we got into the middle of the room was "I can't remember any of it", but despite a few mistakes, we pulled it off.

The evening was great. I was only off the dance floor to say goodbye to people as they were leaving or to cool down a bit! Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to eat much of the amazing pork pie and cheese buffet, but we'd arranged to take the leftovers for a family post-wedding get together the next afternoon, so I can say with great assurance that the pies were AMAZING!

 And so came the end of my wonderful wedding. By the end of the night I was dead on my feet, and ready to leave with my new husband. We had decided to treat ourselves and stay at the Leopold Hotel in Sheffield, and when we got there I was pretty excited to see we had been upgraded to a room with a staircase in it. A STAIRCASE! Wow, that was exciting!!! The next morning we realised that neither of us had house keys with us and had to be rescued by my parents. Perhaps not the best start to married life.

The 25th of August 2012 went by in a bit of a blur for both Mr. Riley and me. What I do know is that it was a happy blur. All that planning, all the phone calls, the imagination, the hard work and at the end of it we threw a pretty amazing party. We were given countless pieces of advice whilst we were deciding what kind of wedding to have, but the two we paid attention to were 'Remember that it's your day' and 'Try and find 5 minutes during the evening to sit down together and take it all in'. These are now the only two pieces of advice that I would give to anyone else planning a wedding.

My husband and I now have the important bit to look forward to, the marriage, and I can't wait to see what's going to happen next.

I would just like to say a massive thank you to everyone who was involved in making our day so memorable. There are times in your life when the generosity, kindness and just plain awesomeness of your friends shines through, and this has been one of them. Furthermore, we both feel so lucky to have found such talented dress makers, milliners, dance teachers, caterers, gramophone DJs, stylists, etc etc etc. We will never forget our wedding day and each person who was there or who helped in even the smallest way has contributed to making it so special.

Without taking away from anything anyone else has done for us, there are a few special mentions that we would like to make. My dad for designing our stationery and patiently putting up with me being extremely picky about getting exactly the right shade of yellow, bringing the tandem and playing the piano. Paulinus Patrick Charles Limbs Two T-Shirts McMillen III, for the trips to Makro, the amazing favours and all the other help in between. My sister and nieces for being such beautiful bridesmaids. Mike, for giving dance lessons that Mr. Riley could actually enjoy. Bainbridge, for the photography. Last and not least, to everyone who sent us bunting.

With all our hearts, we thank you.