The wedding day!

I'll start by saying it was absolutely the best day of my life. Someone was watching over us as the early morning rain (I was awake at 0530!) gave way to glorious sunshine for our 1300 wedding ceremony. I won't bore you with all the details - for my own benefit I wrote about 20 pages of literally everything that happened on the day - but I will cover some of the main elements and in particular mention some of the surprises that we had up our sleeves. 

The getting ready period went by in a flash. My brilliant and superbly efficient hair and make-up artist Heidi made my four bridesmaids and me look absolutely gorgeous and kept perfectly to time. We had some lovely photos taken in the garden and the bouquets arrived looking utterly gorgeous and deliciously feminine, just as I had hoped. Massive thanks to Nicole Gamlin for her inspired creations!

Many people asked what my traditional items were:

Something old and something blue - my heirloom sapphire and diamond ring inherited from my pseudo godmother, Alison 

Something borrowed - mums pink pearl necklace

Something new - the dress and everything else!

My incredibly tacky singing tartan garter also had blue in it! 

The cars all arrived on time with only one needing to ring for directions to the house. We set of at 12 even though the journey to the church wasn't going to take an hour - in the end my driver was able to have a cigarette stop in a country lane so that I arrived on time rather than ridiculously early. 

I didn't suffer from nerves on the morning. I kept expecting them to kick in but it wasn't until the doors of the church opened and the piper (Steve Duffy) started up (the first surprise for our guests) with highland cathedral, that I was overwhelmed by emotion. Seeing school and uni friends smiling at me from the pews and my beloved granny sitting at the back with her friends from tredington had the tears welling up and I said to dad 'I'm going to go'. What I meant was that the tears were going to come but he took it to mean that we should start walking. Cue a small tussle as I collected myself before we started the walk down the aisle. I broke off to give granny a hug before focussing on James for the rest of the way. I thought he looked amazingly handsome. 

The ceremony itself was gorgeous. The readers were superb, the vicar was amusing and the vows were lovely. My flute teacher, and friend, Julie, played beautifully while we signed the register and then it was official - I was Mrs Reid! 

We had some photos at the church before the car journey to Wyck hill house for the reception. When we arrived we had some more photos and were met with our requested welcome drinks for ourselves and the guests - mocktails of Virgin sunrise and whisky. 

Then James and I had another grand entrance down the stunning staircase at Wyck, again accompanied by the piper. Photos followed and took us through to the start of the wedding breakfast. James and I nipped into the Lord rissington suite for a sneak peek before everyone filed in and the room looked amazing. In trying to escape in order to prepare for yet another grand entrance we ended up having a very informal receiving line after all! 

The meal began with a grace said by my uncle and then a very dramatic rendition of an address to the haggis by one of our ushers. Most people hadn't seen this before and ours really was a shining example of how it should be done. Well done Hugh! 

Then it was down to the main event. Our breakfast menu was a starter of haggis neaps and tatties with a balmoral sauce. Main was a slow cooked blade of beef with mashed potato and a red onion jus and dessert was a delicious sticky toffee pudding with ice cream. Credit has to go to the Wyck hill kitchen for the quality of the food - quite simply superb! 

The speeches followed the meal although James and I did creep out beforehand to enjoy both the moment and the view of the rolling hills that our venue afforded us. Dad kicked off the speeches with some background to the decision to marry in tredington and a moving tribute to my strong bond with my late grandad. He proceeded to thank the race horse who came good and helped him fund the wedding and spoke about me as a daughter. He ended with some advice to James. 

You can imagine the laugh that got!

James' speech was next. He was very amusing and thanked the many people who had contributed to the day - in particular saying lovely things about me, both sets of parents, and the wedding party, especially best man Ross. He told a slightly doctored version of how we were set up by my bridesmaid Klara and then handed on the baton to Ross. 

Ross's speech was one of my highlights. He managed to allude to James' nefarious past without divulging too many of the gory details. He talked hilariously of their shared past and made sure James was embarrassed in the present by letting all the guests know his mum had ironed him three shirts for the day - in case he dribbled! 

After the speeches we cut the cake and our bespoke cake topper by Julie patchouli was revealed. The cake, by cake sweet cake of kidlington had layers of vanilla sponge, white chocolate and chocolate orange. The piece I tasted was delicious!

Afterwards we all cleared the room and spread out into the bar, the outside areas, the library and the hallways while the dance floor was prepared. I meanwhile snuck upstairs to change. Yes that's right - I had a second dress up my sleeve. The off the peg monsoon gown was modified by the addition of a purple ribbon belt. Falling to the knee and lace covered it allowed me more freedom of movement than my original dress meaning that when the time came for our first dance - a choreographed rumba to Rita Coolige's All Time High (the words inscribed within our wedding rings) I could do the dips and the ganchos and even walk backwards as required! After that we ceilidh'd the rest of the night away to the accompaniment of the Quiet Men. 

There was an evening buffet which I certainly didn't have any space for. This was served in the Adams suite where the centrepiece was a cupcake tower made by my incredibly talented cousin Louise. Her children, Zachary and Darcey were the youngest members of the wedding party and both were fantastically well behaved throughout the whole day with darcey in particular looking and acting like an angel for the entire day. 

My overriding memory of the day will be the sheer happiness that I felt and that seemed to be shared by everyone around me. I shed tears at the end of the night when our song 500 miles by the proclaimers morphed into a compilation of scottish melodies followed by auld Lang syne simply because I didn't want the day to ever end. It was simply perfect in every single way. I know I'm biased but it's the best wedding I've ever been to and I loved every moment. It wouldn't have been the same without all our fabulous guests who threw themselves into the scottish twists with gusto or to all the people whose love and support over the years has made us into who we are, both as individuals and now as a couple. I cannot thank those people enough. 

I would also like to thank Amy, Ben and the rest of the team at Wyck for being so brilliant and for putting up with a burst of control freak behaviour in the final run up to the wedding. My bridesmaids, emz, Klara, tabitha and Darcey were both wonderful and beautiful. James' team of Ross, Ian, Hugh, Poynter, Fraser and Zachary all did a fantastic job. Biggest thanks of all has to go to my parents who have been the best parents in the world and always loved me unconditionally and also very generously funded the wedding. Last but not least I want to thank my husband (that word still sounds weird!) for being the amazing person he is and for being foolish enough to love me and want to spend the rest of his life with me. 

Surely for the last paragraph I should have been accepting an Oscar??  

It'll be a few weeks before we get the video, discretely filmed on the day by David grange, back but next week we see the professional photos taken by the amazingly talented and incredibly charismatic Helen rushton but for now here's a sneak peek of our wedding look and of course Sam!