I woke up to the sound of chatter and laughter from the kitchen. I figured that surely that's a good weather sign? I bloody hope so! With fingers firmly crossed I opened the curtains to find a beautiful blue sky. Thank God! A garden wedding isn't much fun in the pouring rain. Here's hoping it stays this way all day.
The wedding ceremony was at 2:30 and of course there was plenty of finishing touches to be done, people to be picked up & dropped off, things to be collected etc etc, so the time flew by and before we knew it, it was all on!
Livvi and the bridesmaids, Holly & Ellie, looked stunning (and the lads looked pretty sharptoo). It was a short walk across the backyard, through the church yard and into the church. The church itself is a beautiful old stone building, housing a massive mausoleum (the de Grey family), dating back to 1614.
The ceremony followed a pretty traditional format, including the village choir helping with the songs. Steve and Jillian had arranged a surprise for Livvi and Joe and had organised with the choir to sing a rendition of the Maori love song Pokarekare Ana. The choir (and the organist) did an outstanding job, leaving a few people with tears in their eyes!
With the ceremony done it was time to party! Livvi and Joe had done a great job in designing their wedding and were blessed with perfect weather allowing us the opportunity to open up two sides of the massive canvas tent. Out on the grass there were hay bales for people to sit on and chat, a nine-hole "throw" golf course, a foosball table plus a couple of swing ball sets.
The food was prepared by Ollie, a local butcher who cooked up a feast of 2 sorts of lamb, chicken (using my mothers marinade recipe) and a couple of different organic sausages. This was of course supplemented by yummy potato, cous cous, tomato & mozzarella and green salads.
Steve did a fantastic father-of-the-bride speech. There was a sweepstake on how long it would take and coincidently (or not) the bride guessed it right!!!
The best men were amazing in their speech. Dressed in sequinned silver and gold "game show host" suit jackets, the boys dished out ping pong rackets to each table with photos of Livvi and Joe on either side. It was then a game of "who did/said this?" They would say something and the tables had to vote whether it was Livvi or Joe. Hilarious stuff and really well done.
The rest of the evening was about partying which went on into the wee hours, with the last of the guests finally getting to bed around 4:30am.
What a great day and so pleased we were able to make it.
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