Pippa's blog

May 2009

What can I say, I am now Mrs Reid. I don't feel any different, I just know that I have someone by my side for the rest of my life. It's a wonderful feeling. I will try and tell you all about the wedding and the parties and the honeymoon without gushing, but I can't promise it won't be a bit girly!

Ok so first of all, May started off quite slow and easy, and then it suddenly dawned on me that I had about 1 week to go until our wedding and that there was loads of stuff to finish off. I began having dress fittings (my dress fitted beautifully) and buying random stuff, and shopping for cakes, and good food, and decorating churches, halls and the pub, and as if that weren't enough I had to do the school run with the girls, ship things off to wonderful people on eBay who bought my junk AND fit in Guides.

I took a decision the day before the wedding that after 5pm that day I would consider myself 'off duty'. At 6pm I found myself outside a lovely local hotel that I have wanted to stay in since I was a child, it has a tower and it's very old. They have a revolving door and a red carpet out the front. I felt really underdressed when i turned up in jeans and a t-shirt with my scraggy suitcase and dresses trailing over my arms! The staff were really friendly and soon I began to allow myself to relax. I won't lie I was a bit nervous, it came and went in waves, but I wasn't anywhere near as nervous as I thought I would be, just really excited. Me and my friends spent the evening in my room with a bottle of wine, and watched Sex in the City for hours and hours. I didn't get much sleep but still felt really energetic in the morning.

Getting ready was a chore, I had my hair and make-up done by a friend, and she did a lovely job, however, I was only really interested once I got the dress on, it was so special and I felt really beautiful.

Then we had the wedding, and my mind is a bit of a blur really, apart from feeling really self-conscious and nervous I can only really recall seeing everyone waiting for me, the music starting, and then keeping my eyes on the front of the church and Duncan. I know we must of made our vows, although I don't really remember, although I was very quiet and he made his declarations really loudly! We signed the register, and got our certificate and it all went really well.

So many people were there that we had invited and again, I sort of missed all that until I got the pictures back, I was so distracted by everything going on that I didn't get to say hello to everybody. Getting in and out of the car on the way to the reception wasn't easy, first I has to walk in my dress to the car park, and then somehow, slide into the front seat... my dress was massive and around my ears by the time I was safely in!

We had a lovely day time meal in a local church hall, about 5 minutes away from our church, with lots of family and friends all enjoying music, and food. I was really just dazed by it all.

We went home, got changed (at least I did) and went back out to the pub for our evening reception. Loads more people came to that, and even the ladies from my Guides unit. It was really easy not to drink too much, as I was far too busy looking after people, and being a hostess!

After a quiet weekend we got on a bus to London, stayed overnight with my aunt and then flew to Marrakech. Wow, it was so hot out there! about 37 degrees as an average daily temperature. The culture there was a shock to the system as well. As it was a country where women take a back seat I felt really out of place, and by the end of the week, was acting like a Victorian lady, not speaking unless I had permission and letting Duncan order for me, etc. It was really weird. I also got to improve my French as they speak that, as well as Arabic, Duncan tried to learn a bit of the Arabian language which went down really well, and helped us make some local holiday friends, but I was happiest using my French, and it must have sounded genuine as I often got a reply that I couldn't understand fully! We also used a bit of Spanish and German to help us through. Despite the heat I only came back with a tiny amount of tan, although with it being so hot, I would have gone red if I had tried to sunbathe!

Right, well I'm off to do some housework and plan an evening for Guides, and hopefully life will be back to normal soon, I still have to send out Thank you notes to all the people who sent us gifts and money.