Lianne and Ashley’s Big Day

Welcome to my first-ever guest post! The night I announced I had launched my blog, my friends overwhelmed me with their support and kind words.

Not only that, one friend Lianne blew me away when she offered to write the first guest post for my #YourBigDay section, telling the story of her wedding to Ashley, who is affectionately known in the family as Harry. This becomes a lot funnier when you consider his surname is Harris.

I met Lianne about five years ago when I first started hanging about with people in Harlow. A fellow crazy cat lady and wedding fanatic, Lianne is probably best known among her friends for her infamous wedding countdown - never in my life have I seen so many statuses at the most random of milestones!

I’m absolutely thrilled to present to you this engagement and wedding story of a truly loved up couple, I do hope you enjoy!

Lianne and Ashley’s engagement and wedding story

From the moment me and Harry started dating I knew I would marry him. Not even six months into our relationship we had collected keys for our first home together!

We discussed the idea of marriage and although Harry had always said he didn’t want a wife or kids, he told me he wanted to marry me and he knew for that to happen kids was a deal breaker…

In 2013, although we weren’t engaged, we decided to start going to open days at venues to get an idea of the costs, what we would get for our money, and to save for any suppliers/entertainers that we fell in love with. We used to drive to venues looking for “the grand entrance” that we wanted - but funnily enough we decided that we didn’t like the outside of the venue we actually ended up holding our reception in.

Later that year in August, we had both booked a week off for our anniversary. For the Monday we had booked tickets to the theatre, and I’d told all of my work colleagues that I’d returned as an engaged lady. I thought Harry had listened to my many (I thought overly obvious) hints that my ideal proposal was on the steps of a London theatre, coinciding with my huge passion for musicals. However, the show came, the show ended, and the next thing I knew I was on the train home still ringless.

Three days later we’d stayed in Eastbourne for a few days, and he got lost on the way home. I was already tired, hungry and annoyed - then he wanted to stop off at Tesco for food, and for some reason he wouldn’t let me check his phone, which was going crazy the whole way home. He always lets me check his phone, so I couldn’t understand what the problem was.

I could feel my anger brewing. I told him I was staying in the car and he returned with flowers, but it didn’t change anything and I told him that when we got in I was going straight to bed.

When we got back I noticed every light in the house was on - stupid brother had obviously left them on when cat sitting, I thought to myself. As I walked into the house I noticed the coffee table wasn’t where it usually is, then I became aware that the room was completely different…

I looked to my right and Harry was down on one knee - and I started crying my eyes out. I’m not a crier, but all I could think was “OH MY GOD I’M ENGAAAAAAAAGED!”

Harry then explained how his parents had helped him with setting the house up. He told me how they’d tried to get the ring cushion on the cats, but they didn’t want it, so that’s why his mum was trying to contact him while we were driving home. He’d had to purposely take longer to get home and stopped off at Tesco to try to make the proposal as perfect as possible.

Once the idea of being engaged had sunk in, we decided to get married in May 2015; we chose our venue which was Blake’s Golf Club, North Weald.

We knew we wanted a smallish wedding; however, I have a large family. I wanted a traditional wedding, but as me and Harry have many quirks we wanted to include these, too - Harry was a goth as a kid, whilst I love musicals, Dr Who, Disney and more.

Family is at the heart of our relationship, but unfortunately there were two members of our family that could not be there for our special day: our fur babies, Leo and Harley. We wanted to have them involved somehow, so we made them the stars of our Save the Dates:

With small quirks such as an Album Cover table plan, a TARDIS postbox, table decorations similar to the enchanted rose from Beauty and the Beast, and The Final Countdown playing on the organ before I entered the church, the day went without a hitch. All family dramas were put aside for one day - and for a family that’s compared to an episode of Jeremy Kyle, that came as a shock.

Now I am no longer Lianne Islin, I am Mrs Lianne Harris, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. We celebrated in style on our honeymoon; three days in Disneyland Paris and seven days in a 5* all-inclusive honeymoon suite in Rhodes:

Now that the fairytale is over, next comes the happily ever after!

TIPS!

1. We got screwed over when we changed wedding dates as we had already paid a supplier their deposit. They got snotty and horrible with us, and it ended up with us losing our deposit and even considering legal action. They tried to emotionally blackmail us with a sob story of spending another day away from their child. So my advice is to only pay out once the date and venue are both confirmed!
2. Don’t pay stupid amounts of money for a designer dress. Mine was from a pop-up shop that tours local towns and although not cheap, it was about a third of what it would have cost had it been a Justin Alexander or Maggie Sottero.
3. Do what YOU want to do. Ignore the in-laws and grandparents etc. - especially if it is you who is paying for everything! You do not want to look back and want to have changed any aspect of the day, so make sure you are happy with everything.
4. Don’t stress over every little detail. One of my bridesmaids wanted to change outfits after the photos, which I wasn’t too happy about as we’d paid for their whole outfit. After a bit of drama she agreed to wear the dress for the whole day, only for me to spill champagne down another bridesmaid who had no choice but to change outfits! In the end it didn’t even bother me having a bridesmaid on the dance floor in jeans and a t-shirt, so believe when me I say that smaller niggles really won’t matter!