A Midwinter Steampunk Wedding...

Well, my ticker tells me it's been 37 days since I got married. It feels longer. A lot has happened since then, but that's for later.

One of the things I looked forward to about planning my wedding was getting the photos and doing my report. Reading other wedding reports and looking at some amazing wedding photos just got the excitement going, so I hope I can return the favour for other brides to be.

So, this is our day and how we got there. I'll try to give some tips what matters and what doesn't. But just remember, you cannot control every indivdual in a large group of people and there is no such thing as 'perfection' there is only 'not letting your guests know that wasn't really supposed to happen'

So....
a long, long time ago when I was a little girl, I used to spend my holidays with my Grandparents in a tiny quarry village in North Wales. There wasn't much to do there except wave to the steam train that passed their front door every day. One day, mum took me for a ride on the train and I waved to Grandma and Grandad as we passed their garden gate. That was in 1982 I believe.

Fast forward, 2007. I got a summer job as I was a mature student at Bangor University. I was finally studying for my degree in History and Archaeology after years of working dead end jobs. My summer job was to pull the buffet troley up and down the carriages of the steam tarin. Not the same one I had been on as a child, but it's sister railway, the same company ran it. So many people work and volunteer there it was hard to keep track of eveyone I met, but one day...on facebook...(cringe), I got a friend request from a Chris ****. 'Who is he?' I asked my sister. 'He works on the railway, you have met him, just add him.' she replied. (She worked on the railway too..)

Fast forward again to 2009...summer. I was no longer working on the railway, I spent that summer digging in the floor of an Iron Age roundhouse. But Chris commented on my photos of the dig, I commented on his statuses (statusi ?), we poked each other we laughed. During these early flirty conversations I told him it had been 27 years since I had been for a ride on the railway, the FFestiniog railway, the one that Chris worked on. Seeing an opportuinty he invited me for a ride on the train. That was October, 2009.

On December 21st 2009, I got the shock of my life when the stick I just peed on screamed 'PREGNANT' at me.

I was 33. How could I explain to anyone that I had accidentally got up the duff with a guy I'd only just met. Oh the shame...
...but everyone was delighted. Shocked, but overjoyed, especially the parents who just thought 'Finally, a grandchild!' Chris was so happy. We'd been together for 10 weeks and we had a lot of relationship to pack into the next few months.

We had lots of meals out, trips to the cinema, visits to his parents in Gloucester (we both live in North Wales) a trip to the Tyrol in Austria, one of my favourtie places, where we rode yet more steam trains and I had the not so great idea of going ice caving. At 12,000ft. With a 7 month bump...

Ok, that was me in Salzburg, not ice caving.

I had just finished my final exams when we went to Austria. I'd sat my finals and handed in my dissertation all with my bump in tow. Do you know how hard it is to concentrate on a 3 hour exam when another human is turnign sommersaults inside you? I just had to write down all I could remember and hope for the best.
I didn't do brilliantly, but I did pass and that was all anyone cared about by then.

6 weeks after my last exam and 4 days before his due date, our son came into the world, less than a year after our first date.



Our little man, Morgan

Ooh yay! I have been sooo looking forward to your report after hearing all about your planning. Loving this so far, my god you certainly did pack a whole courtship into a few months!
Can't wait for more pics xxx

So by then Chris and I were engaged.
I forgot that bit. In happened in the March...
Chris is a bit old fashioned and had always wanted to be married before having children. I have been married before and wasn't too bothered about the idea. Some people questioned if we would get married before the baby was born but that to me just seemed stupid. We hadn't been together long, I was just hoping we could make it work together as parents.

But Chris began to mention it more often and then one day I found myself looking at rings. It may be baby brain (it never goes) but I can't remember how it came to be that we were in the shop buying my engagement ring to keep ready for the time Chris thought was right.
I'm not a huge fan of yellow gold. I like white gold. BUt I found a ring in Clogau Gold. I always wanted a Clogau Gold ring, the gold comes from the mountains from near where we live, so it seemd right.
I chose band that had white gold on the bottom and blended into rose gold love spoons (another Welsh theme) on the top and had a white topaz stone. In Wales it's considered good luck for the bride to have her birthstone in her engagement ring, so it suited me, a November baby. Besides, it almost looks like diamond (if you just glance at it), but at a fraction of the cost
So, one day, Chris had said that before we went to his parents we would go to Hay on Wye first. we're both book lovers and I had never been before. He booked a b&b there, then as we were leaving he said 'Don't let me forget the ring'. I paused and just looked at him. 'Oh,' he said 'I thought you knew that's why we were going'. Er.....no.

Romantic, huh?

Thanks Cajo!

The actual proposal occured in the bar of the b&b which actually turned out to be a pub.
Chris had drunk, and drunk and then just to make sure he drank some more. Then he took a deep breath and muttered the immortal words 'So, will you marry me then'. Of course I said yes.
Then he went to the toilet for a really long time....

and he'd left the ring in the room.

Mindblowing. But that's Chris, no nonsense, practical, get to the pont and forget the important feature!

YES!!!!!!!! Can't wait to hear the rest!!

Wedding planning didn't happen straight away. Our families were in baby mode and so we waited until Morgan had arrived and we had begun to settle in to parenthood and get over the shock of actually having a real life child.

We did look at a couple of venues. We liked one but Chris' parents thought it was too remote. It was up on the moors behind Conwy. We decided in the end we didn't want a marquee which is what they were offering. At that point we were thinking of an August wedding in 2011.

Eventually, by the time we did actually start planning, the date was moved and moved again to December 2011. This was because we had fallen in love with a cottage near to my mum's house and in the same village where I had grown up since 1984. It had land, views, a driveway and was Grade 2 listed and full of charcter. A small quarryman's cottage.

This Chris and Morgan outside the day we got the keys...



it needs work...
We had our offer accepted in October 2010. We got the keys in September 2011. It took us 11 months, 2 mortgage comapnies and a lot of jumping through hoops. But finally, it was ours!

It currently doesn't have it's roof on and we need to rebuild the extention round the back and....well, let's just say, we'll be busy for a few months yet.

Janaury, 2011. Planning commences.
We went to view a venue and loved it. We provisionaly booked it there and then. Plas Maenan.
It's in the Conwy valley set back from the road on a rocky outcrop with views down the valley to the hills beyond.

My dress I bought off ebay, I fell in love with it at first sight. But it soon became a nightmare and the relationship quickly deteriorated. Did I wear it? You'll have to wait and see...

Ok, I'm already addicted to this report. More Please