I am very excited to introduce Amymay Williamson-Carr our blogging bride for 2016! Amymay will be blogging for us over the next 7 months until she gets married sharing her story along they way and hopefully helping you to plan your day too!
So over without any further ado to Amymay!
Our Big Fat Greeklish Wedding…
Boxing Day 2015, atop of the Empire State on a very chilly NYC morning was the place my fiancée chose to get down on one knee & ask me to be his wife! He popped open a grey box & inside was a sparkly promise of our future. This was the cherry on top of our already fantastic holiday & the pinnacle of our relationship so far… now all we had to do was plan our special day!
It was nearly 8 years ago that I finally agreed to meet my husband-to-be. He had cheekily winked at me over a dating app via social media (romantic I know!) & a conversation was ignited. We spoke for a few months prior to our first date & just seemed to have a lot in common. So I took the plunge & arranged a double date with my housemate at the time and her new boyfriend. To cut a long story short, we danced the night away & clicked immediately. I knew that night that he was the one for me, but little did I know what was to come next!
Over the next three years we simply enjoyed one another’s company. Falling further for each other with every dinner, date, cinema & day trip we took. Being together made us both very happy so we decided to book our 1st holiday as a couple… Egypt for 10 days it was! The whole holiday was bliss; it gave us the chance to have those serious relationship goal talks too. Besides our hopes & dreams for the future we spoke in detail about our backgrounds/family traditions & religion. One important subject for Phill was his faith. Phill had always been open about being Greek Orthodox (both of his parent are Greek Cypriot), but we hadn’t discussed the implications this may have on our relationship. I was raised a Christian (which isn’t all too dissimilar to Greek Orthodox!), went to a Catholic School & taught about many other religions. So when the subject was approached, I was more intrigued than scared to find out more!
We spoke about weddings in particular, expectations, requirements, traditions & ideals. Growing up, all I’d dreamed of for my wedding day was to be married in a church surrounded by friends & family to the my prince charming. In these aspects both of our ideals matched, only Phill’s ideals were a little larger… have you ever watched ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’?!
For a further 2 years we spoke about our future whilst planning to move in together to test the waters before making a final commitment. To allow this to happen, I had to meet the parents first (I know what you are thinking… ‘you hadn’t met them already?!)! Being traditional, they only wanted to meet their son’s partner if he was serious in his intent to marry. I completely respected this & so I knew when the time came that it was on! Unfortunately I was met with some prejudices, amongst other things for not being Greek, more importantly for being English. This was a real shame & something I never expected to experience. It did put a lot of strain on our otherwise very happy relationship, but we were already very strong. Still we carried on with our plans to move in with one another. The prejudices have subsided over the years & in their place is now support & love. We have no regrets & as they say the rest is history!
So now you know a little of our background (English girl meet Greek Cypriot boy & falls in love!) we can get down to the really exciting bit… Our Wedding Day!
Once reality hit us on our return from NYC, we knew we had to move fast to secure the suppliers we’d need to make our day every bit as specials as we’d both dreamed it would be as this was going to be a big wedding! The first 3 things that were important to us were:
Music
Food
Venues
We chose to follow our wedded friends’ advice & book the venues first to set a date. As we have opted for a traditional church wedding (Greek Orthodox) our first port of call was a visit to the priest. It sounds scarier than it actually was! We spoke about the ceremony, the meaning of marriage & of course set a date. It was at this point that I confirmed our different faiths could merge under the Orthodox roof. I could either choose to stay Christian C of E or be confirmed into the Christian Greek Orthodox Church. Either way, we were getting married at our local church on the 28th August 2016 at 2pm, it was official. At this point we had 1 year & 8 months to go!
Next on the ‘to do list’ was a reception venue hunting…. It was important for us to incorporate both of our heritages into the whole day, but we knew the venue would be the place where this would be most visual. Requirements were:
Somewhere in the countryside
Not a hotel
Could hold a potential guest list of 400!
A great party venue
Again, practicality ruled with the above so we had to search for a venue to house so many guests… but I wasn’t settling for anything less than perfect! We have attended such beautiful weddings in the past but they always seemed to have such a distance between ceremony & reception venues, meaning lengthy car journeys when all you wanted to do was celebrate with the newlyweds! We decided to set a time radius around our church of 25-30mins max & within that we found Keythorpe Manor. It looked perfect, just enough of a drive out of the city centre to reach the rolling hills of the Leicestershire countryside without it frustrating the wedding guests on hopefully a warm summer’s afternoon. It gave us the English half to our day! We arranged a visit, just Phill & I so we could form our honest opinions of the venue without influence from our families. I am pleased to say the venue was as expected, just beautiful! We fell in love with it & the helpful staff sat down to explain wedding packages/details with us. They pencilled in our date (which thank goodness was available!) & save it for 2 weeks so we could ensure it was the right venue for us without being too hasty.
We revisited the same venue with our parents before deciding to secure our date; a second opinion is sometimes helpful! Most venues request a 25% deposit to secure, so that was the first dint in our wedding budget!
I would personally suggest writing a wish list & researching your potential venues ahead of time to narrow down your options as you could both end up losing enthusiasm & your preferred wedding date by the time you choose the right one. Most importantly, make sure it feels right to both of you. It’s your big day, so ultimately it is your decision.
Another way I found helpful to view potential venues was attending wedding fairs. This way you get to experience the venue filled with people; sometimes you can be overwhelmed with the amount of empty space to fill if it is just you & your partner. I would definitely recommend taking advantage of your Bridal privileges too. It is a good excuse to round up the bridal party & enjoy a glass of something fizzy whilst gaining valuable contacts for other areas of your big day. In fact that is how I found my Wedding Cake!
Remember to stay focused & communicate your ideas with your husband-to-be. It is important for them to remain in the loop (even if they are happy to just let you plan away!). The venue is probably one of the biggest wedding expenses you will tick off that to do list! So try to remain realistic to your budget; there are often hidden extras i.e. hiring a bar/staff, corkage, catering, entertainment, dancefloor & décor when booking the venue of your dreams. We could have easily got carried away, but we read through our contract in detail before signing & clarified everything! I’m sure Keythorpe Manors staff thought I was Bridezilla at one point, but it’s your day so ensure you are happy with all aspects and remember to barter (this is where the fiancée comes in handy!).
