In my previous blog about our wedding, I talked about the run-up to our pandemic wedding, including the massive delay from May, several weeks of shielding, local lockdowns in the area we had planned to hold our reception, and a local lockdown for our own area the night before.
Getting ready
And the drama doesn’t end there. Four days before the wedding, my maid of honour called me to say she’d been exposed to someone with a positive Covid test. She wasn’t able to come any more, which was heartbreaking.
Luckily, another of my bridesmaids, Katherine, was very quick to say “hell yes” when I asked her if she would be able to come. She travelled up to help me get ready.
The night before, I tried on my dress (the one I’d had for eighteen months by this point). It didn’t fit, and I felt like crying. But she, and my maid of honour over Skype, assured me that you’re often skinnier the following morning.
And it was a wedding day miracle. The morning of my wedding, the dress fit like a dream.
No makeup artist, no hair dresser, just a few YouTube videos. No photographer capturing those essential wedding morning shots, but we got them all the same.
I even got a couple of group video calls in with my Bride Control Team, even though they couldn’t be there in person.
Getting to the registry office
I allowed myself three hours to get ready, and I needed every minute of them. My dad arrived outside in a car decked in ribbons, and we set off to the registry office about 10 minutes behind schedule.
Meanwhile, everyone else had arrived and were waiting anxiously for our arrival.
Unfortunately… there were a lot of roadworks. My mum was ringing me, and I was anxious that we weren’t going to get to do our much-anticipated “first look” – we weren’t getting an aisle, so we wanted to make sure we caught Tim’s first sight of me in my dress.
Luckily, we arrived at the Town Hall with just a few minutes to spare.
And the first look went off without a hitch.
By this point our registrar was wondering where we were, so we headed inside to get started!
The ceremony
Tim and I went in first to get the legalities out of the way – confirm who we are, how we spell our names, make sure we’re still us, that we still want to go ahead, that sort of thing.
Then the rest of our guests filed in behind us to their carefully spaced out seats. My parents, Tim’s parents, my brother, his sister, best man Rob and bridesmaid Katherine all found their seats (the 11th guest we were allowed was our photographer). Katherine had her camera ready to share our wedding through Zoom with all our guests.
Tim didn’t even have a chance to put his phone on silent before we were off with the vows! We went for the less floofy version – less pre-scripted sentiment, more time to gaze at each other lovingly.
We chose my brother and Tim’s dad to be our witnesses, and the signing of the register was probably the longest part of the ceremony. Luckily neither of them insisted on reading through all the information in detail!
A few moments from the ceremony stuck out in my memory. The moment I stumbled over the world “solemnly”; the giggle when we peered around during “speak now or forever hold your peace”; Tim struggling to get the ring on my finger and me being determined to get his on perfectly. It’s the little imperfect moments that just solidified how real it all was.
And then, before we knew it, we were being announced to the world as Mr and Mrs Campbell-Ladley and walking outside.
But wait, there’s more! There are like a million photos in this already, so the final part will talk about the immediate aftermath of the ceremony and the reception at Otley Golf Club!