Busy Few months... pt 3

First off... I've surpassed 2000 blog views now... thank you to everyone who has read my ramblings! I didn't honestly think that all my crud would be interesting to ... well anyone! :D

So, obviously I'm now a married lady! 9th June was the magical day that I thought would never happen... both through the groom's reluctance to actually propose, and also through ill health! When we set the date back in January, I was on oxygen 24/7 and wasn't even on the transplant list so I assumed my day would be ruled by my medication and rest periods. Little did any of us know that the plans being made for a small/light dress, factoring in rest time for me between key things and trying to source/make something pretty to 'hide' my oxygen canister and tubing weren't going to be needed.

After my transplant, (as already explained) I changed my dress due to being able to wear a different style (and also heavier, fuller dress), but I was also able to actually plan a full day, including a proper first dance and not needing the consider rest periods. The day before my wedding, Mum and I went to stay in a B&B a few minutes away from my venue. We had my make-up/nails lady come meet us there for a bit of a girly afternoon sat in the pub lounge. We both had our nails done and discussed the plan for the following day with regard to make-up. After Cat had done our nails, mum and I went for a walk around Burnham-on-Crouch. It's a lovely little coastal town and the sun was shining so we had a really nice wander pre dinner to chill out. We returned to the B&B for a very leisurely and pleasant dinner. We were both fairly tired having had quite a full on weekend (the Saturday for me was about getting everything together- picking up the dresses, sorting out bags for taking away, including medications for both the wedding and the honeymoon, and generally trying not to freak out too much that something had been missed... and a trip to the local Medieval Oyster Fair- which mum was helping a friend out on a stall) By Sunday evening, we were both ready for sleep... luckily the beds were lovely and comfy and despite imagining being awake to all hours, I fell asleep pretty easily. 

Wedding day had arrived! We woke up and had a fabulous continental breakfast in the pub downstairs, then got our stuff ready to head to the venue. My best friend (and bridesmaid) arrived closely followed by the taxi to take us all down to the venue. We had a fun mini tetris like game trying to get everything and all of us into the taxi but we did it! When we arrived at the gates, they were locked, and my hairdresser was already sat there waiting. So I had to call into the venue 'hi it's Karen, the gates are locked'... 'sorry, who?' at this point inside I wailed... my wedding day, and the venue didn't know who I was!! Arrgg! So I repeated who it was, slowly and carefully reminded them 'I'm getting married here TODAY'... a few seconds of silence, then recognition dawned and she apologised and come flying down the driveway to open the gates!

The morning then passed in a bit of a flurry... mum, myself and Zoe were all down to have hair and make-up (of sorts) done so we had a nice rotation going on. My aunt also wanted her hair to be done by Heather after we'd all been sorted out. My cousin turned up as photographer, and accompanied by his wife they set off round the grounds taking lots of piccies before everything was set up. They also took photos of the getting ready process (as did Zoe between getting herself ready). The weather was a bit of a worry, as when we woke up, it was grey and murky... being coastal it was a strange 'almost' mist which was being forecast to turn into big storms and heavy rain by the evening... brilliant!! After about an hour of being at Creeksea, Zoe said she thought the sky was brightening and the clouds breaking up... so she then spent the rest of the time int he cottage running between the door on one side, and the windows on the other with a running commentary about what was happening in the sky!! By the time it got to ceremony time, it was brilliant blue sky, with an occasional fluffy white cloud, lovely warm (but not hot) sunshine... a perfect early summer day! About an hour before the ceremony it was time to get dressed, firstly I helped Zoe get herself sorted into her dress while mum got into her posh frock. Now both my key helpers were sorted they both helped me get into my dress. Somehow, between it coming out the dress carrier and getting onto me, it ended up with numerous soot like marks all over the skirt... this sent me into a proper bridezilla swear-off... my dress was ruined!!! Mum and Zoe zoomed into a frenzy of brushing at each individual mark and got 99% of them off, and my cousins wife said she couldn't notice anything... but I knew where each bit was. I took a bit of calming down from that!! I came out the room to see my dad, and the the registrar turned up for the official pre-ceremony chat. She chucked everyone out to talk with me privately to check I still wanted to go through with it (duh!) and to get all the official questions done for the certificate. Everything and everyone was ready to go! As we came out the cottage and got ourselves prepped to head to the orchard, a spied a few last minute stragglers running from their car, still tucking in shirts and tying ties... Once I found out later who this was it didn't surprise me in the slightest!! Zoe had a minor panic about the speed of walking in, and when she should go etc, but a quick talking to by my co-ordinator and we had things sussed. Numerous photos later, and we were good to go... cue the music!!

So I hadn't felt nervous at all in the build up... even when the music started I felt fine... until about halfway down the aisle it hit me 'omg mum, now I'm scared!' It was a lovely ceremony in the orchard, birds tweeting, sun shining, everyone either smiling or crying... and despite the fact that I was happy, there doesn't seem to be a photo of me not looking grumpy or terrified! At one point Glen had a spider crawling up his chest, it was quite distracting, and so i had to bat it away... but it could have easily looked like I was about to slap him round the face! Fortunately it would appear that no-one but Glen noticed this! And then we were married!! Woop!

Mr & Mrs Mills

Our Disney themed Cake

I won't bore you with all the ins and outs of the rest of the day. If you were there, you know how lovely it was, and if you weren't there... then you missed out! lol. Anyhoo... there was much dancing, much merriment, the food was glorious, music and company great. Had I of taken 18 months-2 years (the standard for wedding planning) I don't think it could have turned out any more perfect! The reception marquee looked understated, but awesome with my Disney balloons and simple homemade place settings, the wish tree table looked cool once people started adding their tags on, and the cake... OMG! It looked fabulous and tasted divine!!

The Wish Tree

The Reception Marquee

Table Decorations

 At the end of the evening we said our goodbyes to everyone, packed off the last few people into their taxis and then we retired to the bridal cottage where we very quickly both flaked after such a full on day! 'The morning after the day before' we were greeted to a fantastic breakfast spread laid on by magical silent fairies while we slept. We had tea, coffee, juice, toast, croissants, cereal, yogurts and all sorts of locally produced condiments etc... Glen not being much of a breakfast person had a little, but I tried my best to make it look like we'd had a fair bash at devouring the food! Once breakfast was done, we had to load up the car and safely get everything home again via a stop off at first the travel lodge to collect dads suit to return, and then the cake lady's house to return her cake stand. We eventually arrived home as man and wife (I didn't make Glen carry me over the threshold seeing as we've lived together for so long it felt a bit daft!) No rest for the wicked as we had to drop the dog and Glen's mum over to hers, finish getting the bags/car ready for our honeymoon adventure, do some food shopping AND go and be nosy at a house fire (and fire engine/ firemen) across the green!

Early Wednesday morning, we were up... Glen making sandwiches and me doing last minute nebs and medical packing. By 7.15am we were on our way to France! We got to the EuroTunnel port on time, to find that our train had been delayed by half hour, so had some time to kill in the terminal. After a while it was time to board the train and Glen had completed his part of the journey. Mid train journey we swapped places and it dawned on me that I would a) have to drive off the train, and then b) drive in FRANCE!! Needless to say, I managed both without incident... although every time we passed a lorry it made me shudder for some reason! We got a little lost at one point, but it only added about 10-15 minutes onto the total journey as Glen quickly jumped onto his phone with GPS to get us back on track... it could have gone horribly wrong if we hadn't done that so soon. 

Disneyland hotel

We arrived at the Disneyland Hotel, unpacked the stuff out the car and rocked up in reception travel worn and sprouting bags from all places to find a huge grand room, with giant staircase... I felt SOO out of place at that point in time! We checked in, found our room (very impressive) I did a quick neb and we were out into the parks! Our first point of call was to figure out where we could eat, as we figured we should eat and get an early(ish) night. This plan didn't work out as we couldn't find any of the restaurants we could use our meal plan in that had spaces. We eventually laid ourselves on the mercy of a lady in the Blue Lagoon restaurant (attached to Pirates of the Caribbean ride) and she got us a table booked for 9pm. So we had a couple of hours to kill so hit some rides. We returned about 8.30pm hoping to get in a bit earlier as we were both pretty knackered. We were seated a short while later, and had probably the best meal of our entire trip. Every thing we ate got a noise of enjoyment which surpassed the last... neither of us could pick a favourite part of that evening... the food, environment and staff were all stunning! We returned to our room and collapsed.

My Flaming Creme Brulee in Blue Lagoon

We spent most of our time doing LOTS of walking, lots of ride riding... and it would appear from the number of photos, lots of eating!! I ended up coming home the heaviest I had ever been  (since then I have surpassed that weight briefly before I realised I had to control my eating somewhat!) We tried different types of food, and enjoyed a variety of different experiences to what is available in America. Overall, the 'Magic Kingdom' park could have been mistaken for Florida (we had very Orlando-esque weather for the first few days) but the 'MGM/Hollywood Studios' park was seriously lacking in atmosphere. So much was lost by it being in French (I know it was in France, but the staff made little effort to play their roles or inject any enthusiasm into their jobs) We thoroughly enjoyed our time there, would probably return in the future, but not for so many days, and certainly NOT be there over a weekend! Although, our next Disney foray is definitely going to be a 'proper' honeymoon to Walt Disney World in Florida... We treated this as a mini-moon as it was planned pre transplant and several things would have been done differently if we hadn't thought we'd be travelling with oxygen and a very poorly Karen!!

Glen enjoying a doughnut

Me with the Spring Flowers display

Our journey home was pretty uneventful, although we were getting a bit squeaky with timings for reaching the terminal in time for our planned train... made ten times worse by the fact it took us over an hour to get from the first point of the terminal through both of the check-in booths... but which time we'd obviously missed not just our train, but the one after! Luckily we were allowed on the next one and only ended up back in England about 45 minutes later than planned! The rest of the journey was fine (although I was incredibly tired!) and we arrived home safe and sound!