Once we had our church chosen, aside from the regular attendance we had to put in and my continual obcession with the flowers, we both kind of forgot about the ceremony. The only thing that niggled at the back of my mind was my walk down the aisle. My Dad died when I was 13 which obviously left me with a vacancy to fill, the job of escorting me down the aisle, except that I didn’t want to fill it. My mum has a very long term partner now who I get on very well with and there are all manner of very close family friends I could have asked, but somehow it didn’t seem right to me to go with someone else. In my own way I knew that he would be with me on the day anyway and I told my Mum I would be going it alone.

Mum wasn’t very pleased about this as I think she was harboring ideas of giving me away herself but I didn’t want her to walk me down the aisle either. I really wanted my mum to have that Mother of the Bride experience of seeing me walk down the aisle herself, as it should be if everything was normal. Once I had explained that to her she was fine with the idea, but she did receive mixed opinions from her friends about it. (Why do people always feel they can comment on such personal decisions when it comes to a wedding?!) As the day got nearer I did start to get quite apprehensive about it, (I’m pretty sure the ‘Dad walking you down the aisle’ thing was designed to stop wobbly knee-ed Brides from collapsing on the way up,) but on the day I didn’t give it a second thought. I guess I always knew deep down that I would do it this way.

So that left me with a ‘soundtrack’ to find! Now call me very silly indeed but I have always loved the Lion King movie, not just because of the gorgeous lions in it (I am a cat lover!) but because the story had always pulled at my heart strings as Simba’s dad dies in the movie. On our first family holiday without Dad we went to Disney Land in an effort to keep our mind off his absence and it was just after the Lion King came out. The parade was all about the Lion King and the Circle of Life was at the time very apt (aside from being a very poor distraction!) so the film/story has remained special to my family ever since. Consequently when the musical came to London we went to see it and I fell in love with the soundtrack, particularly a musical interlude related to the ‘Can you feel the Love tonight’ song. I know it sounds cheesy but it was really just a classical piece and before I even got engaged I used to think it would make a great piece for walking down the aisle to, it had this fantastic crescendo in the middle.

I held on to this idea for months of planning but at the back of my mind I was terrified people would laugh and we had a massive problem in that it was a big orchestral piece. I was fortunate to be marrying into a very musical family with several very talented musicians but we still couldn’t achieve anything on this scale. Pete was adamant that it couldn’t be anything but live music and eventually, The Lion King piece had to be shelved. So I spent months having nothing to walk down the aisle to. And I do mean months. You see, aside from my thoughts on the Lion King piece I just always imagined something from a film rather than the usual churchy classical pieces. I did try and get into ‘Queen of Sheba’ etc but it really just wasn’t me. I sat down several times with various CD’s trying to find something suitable and gave up each and every time, becoming more and more despondent. I was simply not prepared to compromise on this, I had to love it.

Then one day it came to me. (One day only 3 weeks before the wedding!) One of my absolute favourite films of all time, ‘Love, Actually’ had a couple classical pieces on the soundtrack. The first one is called ‘PM’s Love theme’ and was perfect. I had my soundtrack!

Petes very talented Uncle was to play it on the piano with Ben his cousin, a Violinist, accompanying him. Fortunately it wasn’t so hard to choose our exit music, Mendelssohn’s Wedding March was my bit of fairytale romance to the day. Other music for the ceremony included The John Rutter pieces ‘All things Bright and Beautiful’ which was to be sung by the churches very talented choir just prior to my entrance, and ‘For the beauty of the Earth’ which they would sing during the signing of the register. Ben also kindly agreed to entertain our guests with some more music, which we left for him to choose to fill the remaining time while we were in the vestry. In the end he chose Pachabels Canon in D and another piece which I’m ashamed to say I don’t know the name of, which sounded outstanding.

We left it similarly late to choose our readings and again I didn’t want too much in the way of tradition. Not being religious myself I wasn’t keen on most of the usual bible readings and looked through loads, including plenty that were less common. The only one I really identified with was Corinthians but I was loath to choose it as nearly every church wedding I have been to had it as a reading. I mentioned this to our Vicar and he quite rightly pointed out that maybe there was a reason everyone had it for a reading. He said that no matter how many times he heard it, the words never failed to resonate and capture the point of the day perfectly. He was right and we decided to have it.

The second of our readings was suggested to us by Andrew, Petes Uncle and Godfather, who is also a Vicar. I sent a few emails to him in the planning stages as initially we thought he might have some part in the ceremony but he eventually decided to take a back seat to enjoy the day rather than be ‘working’ and in one such email I asked him about a reading he might know. This was a biblical reading I had heard at a wedding some years before and the gist was that marriage was not about the wedding or the big day or even the lust and romance at the beginning of a relationship, but the long haul, the everyday effort and sticking by each other through thick and thin, supporting each other and working through difficult times, no matter what. He came back to me with a poem by Wilferd A. Peterson called ‘The Art of Marriage’ and it was exactly perfect. We asked Pete’s Mum, Jan, to read Corinthians and my Mums best friend Angela, who I had grown up with and was like an Aunt to me kindly read the poem. I should add we had asked 2 people previous to Jan, who each declined due to nerves, but I was in the end really glad to be able to include Pete’s Mum a bit more in the day so it all worked out beautifully.

The big moment of the rehearsal was the Bridesmaids and I practicing our walk down the aisle. They were going ahead of me and it was quite a long piece of music so I wanted them to space out to use the time. I also wanted to enter at a specific moment, as the music reached it’s crescendo and once the bridesmaids were at the top of the aisle. Call me a drama queen but I wanted my moment, my once in a life time entrance, yet I was reluctant to make that obvious during the rehearsal. The girls were nervous and anxious to get it right, and we practiced several times. Pete’s Dad was playing the music in lieu of his Brother and Ben who would be playing it the next day and could only arrive in time for the ceremony, and he kept playing in various tempos to try and suit our walking speed, so I was acutely aware it still wasn’t the most accurate rehearsal! My sister was leading the bridesmaids and kept missing her entry cue so there was a lot of hilarity over whether she would miss it on the day or have to be pushed forward into the room! Each time we walked the timing was out, someone went to early or too late and I was always at the top of the aisle too soon! Added to this the verger kept insisting there should be no gap between myself and the girls or it would look wrong and my mum was getting quite protective over my entrance too and insisting it should be at the crescendo, in quite an embarrassing mum-like way! All in all it wasn’t a great success but I guess deep down I knew on the day no-one would make me go before I was ready, and I knew exactly when that should be; As long as Francesca went on cue, which she eventually nailed, it would be ‘alright on the night’. I was relaxed, finally. Come what may I was getting married tomorrow and all I had to do now was get myself there!

We were only a few feet from the church when the crowds thinned enough to see Pete standing there with his sister and her husband, holding their new baby. She was only 6 weeks old and we hadn’t seen her since she had been born, it was such a happy reunion and lovely to have the whole family there at last. Everyone had made their introductions to Nigel our Vicar and as I had said my own hello’s Pete interrupted me excitedly whispering in my ear ‘Wait ‘till you see the church!’

My heart leapt, – the flowers!! Becky Hay, our florist at Blossom had hinted that she might be setting up the church displays while we were having the rehearsal and I was desperate to see if they would be all we had hoped. I rushed into the church and was gobsmacked by the gorgeous displays before me. In my head I had always imagined saying our vows framed by massive white flower arrangements and there they were. Such an imposing church had little need of lots of flowers so we had opted for 2 large pedestals only but I wanted a modern feel in keeping with the city wedding. I found a picture of some arrangements in urns and Becky had sought big glossy white urns and matching contemporary pedestals out, to hold the arrangements we designed. The urns had a collar of white hydrangea heads and trailing green amaranthus interspersed.

Above the hydrangeas were white stocks for fragrance and in the centre, giving the arrangement the height it deserved, masses of tall white delphinium spikes. They were stunning, even better than I had imagined they would be, lush arrangements yet simple and they complemented the church perfectly. It was all becoming very real! Everyone was very amused by my excitement and after greeting Tom and Dan (our best man and usher) the rehearsal got underway.

We practiced our vows without stumbling and cracked a few jokes, I was worried Nigel would think we weren’t taking things seriously but by now I was totally relaxed and just looking forward to what was to come. It was over so quickly but there are a few things I remember, one being Nigel explaining that I must take the wedding ring from him in my right hand and I must not battle with him when he refuses to give it if I try and take it with my left. He also explained how we must take the right hand of our partner in our own left hand whilst saying the vows. I remember these things clearly because I messed every single one of them up on the day, just not concentrating!

I will briefly add that our venue hunt was intricately linked to finding a church, my now husband was adamant that he wanted to get married in a church, something I was initially quite unsure of as I had turned away from my C of E upbringing following the sad loss of my Dad in my early teens. Although it wasn’t what I really wanted I knew it was hugely important to Pete and his family and looking back I am really happy that we did have a church wedding. Initially I felt it would just be another formality and restraint against the creativity and personality I wanted to infuse the wedding with, but having been to a few weddings over recent years I also felt that sometimes a Civil service lacked something. Despite not being religious I could still identify a real sense of peace in Churches and leaving my fantasies of outdoor nuptials aside, I couldn’t imagine getting married anywhere else.

So each venue we had identified during our long search also had to have a willing local church too. We sat through several Sunday services on this mission and each time we left even Pete was numbed by the elderly congregation. In the church we visited near to Thornton Manor we brought the average age of the congregation down by 50%, I think we were the only ones in there without a hearing aid! Once we had chosen Stock I had another brainwave, as we hadn’t ever been to our local parish church why not keep everything simple for the guests and find a city centre church?

St Ann’s sprang to mind purely because of the location as I had never been inside but one day I wandered in and suddenly the pieces of my wedding planning puzzle started to fell into place. It was beautiful, deceptively big, completely in keeping with Stock and strangely my first impressions were that it wasn’t very ‘church-like’. That might seem like a strange thing to say of a place with an aisle, pews and stained glass windows, but there were no gothic arched windows, and columns lined the aisle supporting the gallery which looked down from above. I loved it straight away and subject to our attendance in order to be able to register on the parishes electoral roll we immediately arranged a meeting with the Vicar who agreed to marry us there.

It was never my intention to have a ‘City wedding’, not growing up, or even when we got engaged. I had always imagined a Garden wedding, which I guess meant a Marquee in the UK. I also grew up with lots of parties and BBQ’s at home and in some beautiful houses with big gardens which would have been perfect for this. So when Pete and I got engaged the first plan was to enquire about Marquees… and that we did.

We booked a week off in the January of 2008, almost 2 months after getting engaged and met several marquee companies from the North West. The house that I now call home is actually a house I have never lived in, as my Mum moved in with her Partner several years ago. It is another lovely house but sits on a rather awkward site with a larger front garden than back and very uneven ground. It became apparent that to have a marquee was not going to a viable option cost wise once we considered building in platforms for the flooring etc.

On to plan B, a marquee in the grounds of a more traditional venue. And here began the problems… Firstly, I will admit I am fussy! Secondly wedding venues are few and far between on Merseyside, it’s certainly not littered with wedding friendly country piles like the South East for example. And thirdly, we were still looking at a huge chunk of our budget before we even got around to feeding anyone! So one by one, we disregarded each and every potential place on our list. Scarisbrick Hall school grounds, Rufford Old Hall, Formby Hall Golf Club (we got treated to a view of conveyor belt weddings here, the manager actually said ‘You give us £10K and we’ll give you a wedding’!) Er, no thanks.

I think this period of time only served to start to really focus our minds on what we really wanted and I started to come back to the outdoor idea which of course every sensible vendor we talked to wouldn’t entertain due to the Great British Weather!

Last on the list, and quite a late find was Thornton Manor on the Wirral. I had found it on a wedding venue site and they professed to having not one but 2 marquees! We promptly booked a viewing and went along one chilly April day. As soon as we pulled up we were sold… sweeping driveway, stunning stately home style house, and massive gardens just outside a really cute little village with a church on the green. We made our mistake as soon as we set foot through the door and were asked if we wanted to just see the marquee sites or the whole house. Yes, we’ll take the whole tour please, and fall hook line and sinker in the process. Each room was grander than the last, ending in the beautiful ‘music room’ where dinner would be held. There was a picture perfect terrace above sweeping lawns, straight out of The Great Gatsby and best of all there was a walkway of lime trees alongside the grandest stable block you have ever seen where they sometimes held outside receptions.

In the end, when we got to the marquee’s it was so hard to visualise and we were put off by the fact that there would potentially be more than one wedding on site on the same day. This was something I was always quite adamant wouldn’t be an option. I became more and more taken with the idea of the outside reception but the only option then was to take the house and my goodness me, that was looking like a LOT of money. We thought about it, coming up with the extra money and having a completely all-out wedding but I guess the fact that we had to think about it said a lot, that and every time we drove past the cute village hall I wondered if it would make a nicer venue with vintage styling and a bit of drapery. My heart wasn’t in it and we had both always agreed that we didn’t think one day was worth so much money. So Thornton Manor was also crossed off the list.

Still I couldn’t get over my fixation with having an outdoor reception and I started to wonder about going abroad, more specifically to Italy, somewhere I absolutely love and could just imagine, a gorgeous vineyard wedding in the rolling hills of Tuscany… I will be brief on this as it is one of my biggest regrets that we didn’t pursue Italy as a venue but it wasn’t to be. We even got as far as several phone calls with Love and Lord, specialists in planning weddings in Italy and I had my heart set on Vignamaggio, the villa which had been the set of the film ‘Much ado about nothing’. Again we would have ended up spending vastly more than we really wanted to but the crunch ended up being key family members who might not have been able to come and we decided it was always going to be more important to us to have everyone there. Well, to be honest, there were people I could have sacrificed for Vignamaggio, but that’s another story

So we were back to the drawing board. And I was BORED. By now I felt that I was never going to get anything I wanted. I lost all hope and continued venue hunting with little appetite for what had by now become a chore. Then one day I had a brainwave and a complete change of tack. What if I made things easier for myself and had the wedding in Manchester, the city we met and fell in love in, spent our university years in and loved enough to stay and make a home together. What if we held the reception in a cool restaurant, had signature cocktails, great food and arty city photography… what if indeed.

There were several restaurants I had in mind that really had the wow factor and I began to investigate them one by one. My first thought was instantly disregarded as I assumed it would cost way too much to get them to close the restaurant for a whole day while we had the wedding there. That thought was Stock, an Italian restaurant housed in the Old Manchester Stock Exchange, a stunning Edwardian building complete with square dining room dominated by the 50 foot domed ceiling. It felt as close to Italy as I could get and we set up a meeting with the manager not daring to hope that this could be it…

The meeting was a breath of fresh air, the restaurant as beautiful as I remembered it, and the planning discussions straightforward. We could choose our food and offer different main course options, no pre-defined menus or set packages. The menu price would simply be the price of the food added up. Then we got down to the nitty gritty. The deal was, whatever night you held your wedding on, your spend had to equal the takings of the restaurant, so for a friday 6 or 7K, 10K on a Saturday. But then we realised Stock didn’t open on a Sunday, so what about that? No takings to equal and we were told a wedding was always worth them opening for. Sunday wasn’t an option we had previously considered as we didn’t want anyone going home early but then we realised that May, our chosen month, had 2 bank holidays, and the second Sunday was free in the diary…

We walked out feeling relieved and excited and resolving to give it serious thought. In reality our minds were made up. We would hold the reception at Stock and have a cool city wedding!

I think it was around this time that I joined a well known wedding forum and decided I needed advice from real brides who were having the same dilemmas so created my forum account, but what would I call myself? Given the above, ‘Contradiction’, what else?

Unloading the car took absolutely ages with all our stuff! Pete’s Mum and Dad, brother and girlfriend had arrived moments before us so there were lots of re-introductions but I found it really difficult to properly talk to anyone as I was so mindful of the time. We transferred mountains of bags and boxes first into the hallway of the hotel and then to each of our rooms. I had treated my girls to a room for the night so we could all stay late and get ready together and I had booked the Veranda suite, a split level room with large lounge and dining area down stairs then a massive upstairs bedroom with bath in the bedroom and shower room off it. Off the lounge area there were 3 French doors which lead out onto the terrace and garden where we would be holding the rehearsal BBQ that night. With all the rain that week the garden looked incredibly lush and green with flowers in full bloom in the borders. It was perfect and exactly what I wanted.

As everyone settled in I stole off to the reception desk with my goody bags for the girls and mum, and asked for them to be placed on the beds ready for when we returned from the rehearsal. I then went back to my room to meet the girls and throw down a quick M&S sandwich before we headed out again. Typically mum didn’t have her eye on the time and was unpacking in a leisurely fashion upstairs and we had to hurry her out to leave for our 2pm nail appointment. As we went to leave I suddenly realised I had lost my key to lock the room! After turning the room upside down looking for it I eventually had to ask reception to lock it for me and we left already 10 minutes later than we intended. I was completely panic stricken now that we wouldn’t make our appointments and as mum drove in her usual snail like fashion my patience was wearing thin. Even worse we hit horrible Saturday traffic in the centre of town and by the time we got anywhere near to Harvey Nic’s it was 2.15! We left Mum parking and ran through the traffic for the appointment!

When we arrived there was a lot of conferring between the various receptionists about what could be done to salvage our appointments, I was booked in for a pedicure and manicure and the girls and mum all for manicures. Eventually it was decided that there was still time to at least paint and file my toes and I was promptly sat in a huge massaging chair, feet in the pedicure sink, massaging remote control in one hand and no sooner than I could say ‘Ahhhh,’ a glass of champagne was placed in the other. Now that is what I call service!

2 of the girls were sat down immediately and the therapists set to work on their French manicures, as the bubbles slipped down everyones fraught nerves started to smooth out and the laughter ensued. Soon Mum joined us with Jess who had taken her to park and I breathed my final sign of relief. After choosing a corally pink, aptly named ‘Gorgeous’, for my toes to blend with my shoes and the bridesmaid dress’s I had my first ever toe file and polish. I have to say, they looked great – I never usually bother with getting them done as I do them myself but it made quite a difference! As soon as they were done I went to join the others and admire their perfect fingers. Soon I was sat down again, glass still in hand having my French manicure done alongside my mum and Jess as Francesca and Laura looked on, also enjoying the bubbles.

To anyone looking for a manicurist in Manchester I would definitely recommend the Champagne Leighton Denny Nail bar in Harvey Nic’s. The attention to detail was amazing and after applying the white tip they used a paint brush dipped in remover to get the tip perfectly straight. My mum agreed it was the best she has ever had too. I unusually for me chose the bright white tips too as I realised they stood out much better from a distance, which is where they will mostly be photographed from and they looked fab in the pictures. 3.15 came and we decided it was time to make our way to the rehearsal, all slightly giddy with excitement and no doubt the bubbles! I purchased a bottle of ‘Gorgeous’ for the girls to paint their toes with that evening and we headed out onto the Shambles and towards St Ann’s square.

It was quite a feat getting through the throngs of shoppers packing Manchester city centre and the square itself was given over to a spring market with rows of plants, crepes, waffles and gifts as is common. It was as busy as I had seen it on any Christmas shopping weekend and I found myself wondering what it would be like the next day as I arrived to be married. I couldn’t believe it would be anything like this, would it? I had mixed feelings, the extrovert inside me thought what a spectacle it would be and how my dress and carefully chosen details deserved an audience, then part of me recoiled from the exposure, the public aspect of it all. You couldn’t pay me enough to be famous and lose all anonymity! (Little did I know I would be writing a wedding blog and plastering my story all over the internet a few months later!)

Arriving home from Stock and our cake run, the sun was starting to poke through newly fluffy clouds. The temperature was rising and I ran inside, buoyed up by the weather to finish packing my bags. I was ready before I thought I would be and impatiently waited for the first of my bridesmaids to arrive. When Jess rang the bell I flew down the stairs hopping with excitement. She was with her boyfriend Dan who promptly went on a walk, to let us catch up. He was to meet us later and help transfer everything to the hotel. We ran about, giddy as I showed her the last bits and pieces I had accumulated without her seeing. We checked everyone had everything and I made last copies of the documents I had taken to Stock, table plans, instructions for set up, a key contacts list for everyone, and my Wedding Planner file just in case I needed it. (Of course, I didn’t open it again!)

Next to arrive was Laura, my last Bridesmaid and her boyfriend Roger. Jess and Laura were responsible for transporting my dress and hoop to the hotel, so Pete wouldn’t see it being transferred or placed in the car. They would also have more room in the car as I was taking Mum and Francesca and all their associated luggage. Laura and Roger headed to Lauras’s house (only one street behind mine) to pick up her stuff and took my dress with them. It was both nerve wracking and exciting seeing them walking down the street with it held high off the ground covered in a duvet cover to protect it and allow the many folds of fabric to spread out and not crease. Finally we gathered on the street in the sun ready to go. I kissed Pete goodbye with excitement as I would next see him at the rehearsal and I lead the way to the hotel.

I was alone in my car then, the last time I was alone before the wedding in fact and I knew it would be so. I pondered the moment as I watched my mum driving behind me and followed by Jess and Dan so she wouldn’t get lost! This was the time I had so looked forward to, the time spent with my best friends, my family, preparing me to be married. I finally felt like the Bride, calm and full of happiness and excitement for the hours ahead. The sun was shining, everyone was here. As we pulled into the hotel I realised everything was turning out just as I imagined.