Wedding | The Party!

13 Sept 2019

St Albans Wedding: The Party!

Welcome to the wedding posts! Aka a great excuse to share a load of photos and reflect back on our wedding day which was on Saturday 1 June 2019. All professional photos in these posts are taken by our bloomin’ lovely wedding photographer Hannah Mia. The rest are by friends and family.

Read about the morning of here, the ceremony here, the walk to the pub here and the reception here

Also Hannah wrote her own blog post about the day here which includes more photos! 

Our gorgeous cake was made by my bridesmaid Claire, and her wife Becca. We were so touched when Claire offered to do this for us and they did an absolutely amazing job. The bottom tier was chocolate orange, the middle was lemon drizzle and the top was traditional fruit cake. I picked out the topper and ribbons; keeping it relatively simple and rustic – like the pub! 

Everyone crammed into the small area to watch us slice through the cake – the bottom layer was huge so it actually took quite a lot of effort – and feed each other a mouthful.  

Cake was dessert for everyone so Gary chopped as much as possible into slices and then everyone tucked in. I think Gary and I had about half a slice each and then when we went back for more later, the whole thing was gone! So clearly it went down a treat! Luckily, I’d tried the chocolate orange which was the one I was looking forward to the most. 

St Albans Wedding: The Party!
St Albans Wedding: The Party!
St Albans Wedding: The Party!

And then it was time for the party! Our incredible band was Katie Plus Juan – check them out here. The pub landlord recommended them to us and by the time our wedding came around, we’d seen them live several times and loved – thanks Christo! These guys put on such a good party and I would highly recommend them. 

Our first dance was Eight Days A Week by The Beatles – yes we were all about upbeat Beatles songs in the place of the traditional on our wedding day. We spent a lot of time trying to resist having a first dance before realising that it was going to be virtually impossible to avoid. So by time we’d accepted we were going to do one, no thought had gone into it. Which was probably for the best. Neither of us are ‘dancers’ so it was just upbeat and silly and basically how we dance around the kitchen when we’re tipsy and alone. The bridesmaids didn’t leave us on our own for too long and I did feel a warm rush when they all suddenly appeared with their partners. 

St Albans Wedding: The Party!
St Albans Wedding: The Party!
St Albans Wedding: The Party!
St Albans Wedding: The Party!
St Albans Wedding: The Party!
St Albans Wedding: The Party!
St Albans Wedding: The Party!

At some point, I remember realising that I hadn’t been for a wee since getting into my dress that morning and Liz and Claire chaperoning me to the bathroom. It literally required the two of them to hold my dress so I could wee and this called for a lot of giggling. I remember Claire shouting that she could ‘see the light’ when they finally got through all the layers of the dress, as well as ‘the bride’s just having her first piss of the day’ whenever someone came in because as if we could get the cubicle door closed. 

We kept dancing. When the band took a break, Katie said that they would be back for the party set soon and Becca called out ‘this isn’t the party set?!” To which Katie responded ‘girl, you ain’t seen nothing yet’. 

My only memory of leaving the dancefloor was at this point, and we went and sat outside. It had got dark and the garden was lit by multi-coloured lights. The kids – all girls – were playing a hand-clapping came and it was a proper balmy summer’s night – just as we’d hoped. 

St Albans Wedding: The Party!

Otherwise, we were on the dancefloor. I think Gary was a lot better at saying goodbye to people when they were drifting off – thanks Gary – but he was pulling out his worst best moves along with the rest of us. There was a lot of epic moves, drunken love and laughter. I remember at one point feeling over hot – the sweat was real guys – and a bunch of my friends grabbing my dress and using it as a giant fan. Even my dad got up to dance and managed to perfectly time it with the grease medley coming on which I will not be letting him forget! Shoes were kicked off, kids were running around and – later on – ties were round heads. It felt like a proper party, a proper wedding. Everything got kind of blurry and omg it was so hot, but so much fun. 

St Albans Wedding: The Party!
St Albans Wedding: The Party!
St Albans Wedding: The Party!
St Albans Wedding: The Party!
St Albans Wedding: The Party!
St Albans Wedding: The Party!
St Albans Wedding: The Party!
St Albans Wedding: The Party!

All good things have to come to an end I suppose – to be fair, we were knackered – and we were there right until the end. We had no intention of leaving early and we were the last to leave the pub, along with my parents and bridesmaids. We had the canvas, card box, gifts and, quite frankly, a hilarious amount of cheese to be taken back so everyone grabbed something and we started walking up the hill and through the cathedral grounds to our flat. I’ll never forget the slightly ghostly image of the bridesmaids walking through the graveyard with their dresses hitched up and shoes dangling from their wrists. Nor that of Ele and a huge wheel of cheese under her arm. 

St Albans Wedding: The Party!
St Albans Wedding: The Party!
St Albans Wedding: The Party!
St Albans Wedding: The Party!
St Albans Wedding: The Party!
St Albans Wedding: The Party!

Once we’d made it back to the flat to drop everything off, we then realised we had to get back down the spiral staircase. Gary was attempting to hold the dress train whilst I came down the stairs and the photos of him trying not to fall over make me chuckle every time. 

After we’d said goodbye to everyone, we then walked through town to get back to our Airbnb. We accidentally timed this around pub kick-out time and we got a lot of very drunk people shouting out ‘congratulations’ to us plus two different cars winding down their windows to cheer as they drove past. What better way to end a night eh?  

St Albans Wedding: The Party!
St Albans Wedding: The Party!
St Albans Wedding: The Party!
St Albans Wedding: The Party!
St Albans Wedding: The Party!
St Albans Wedding: The Party!
St Albans Wedding: The Party!
St Albans Wedding: The Party!





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