Ahhhhh! My first entry as a married woman!!! I've been driving Jonathan mad these last couple of days by pointing out all the "firsts" - such as "The first time we've seen the cat as a married couple." or "Our first drive home as a married couple." Heh.

Anyway, I can tell that this entry is going to be a long one, because I am still gushing with news and photos I've got from my mum (and there are still so many more to get from people, as well as the "official" photographs).

So... I shall start from Friday the 6th May 2005. The girls at work had been shoving me out of nursery several times, planning something it seems, but quite what I wasn't sure. The children came up to me saying "You're going to look very beautiful in your dress when you get married" and things like that. Anyway, on Friday morning, they made me go and cut paper all morning, and then when I finally returned, I came back to nursery, and all the children were sitting down, and there was a throne with a beautiful crepe paper flowery background, with horseshoes and bells and stuff. It was so sweet. And a few of the parents had turned up and were standing there too. They sat me down, then dressed me up in a dress (net curtain around the waist), my hen night sash and veil, and the horseshoe they had made for me. They had placed a box of tissues by the "throne", which came in very handy. I was blubbing away, and they got the children to sing a song, something along the lines of "Miss Brown is going to get maaaaarried, she's not going to be Miss Brown anymore, good luck and con-gratulations Mr and Mrs Hunt" or something like that. Then they gave me a box of chocolates and a posy of flowers which a couple of the children presented to me.

In the afternoon, I was expecting the same to happen again, as we have different children in the morning and afternoon. But when I walked into the room, all of the nursery children as well as all of the reception children were sitting there, and also was my mum and nan, and next to my "throne", my future husband. They sang the song again, gave me the gifts again, but this time chucked confetti over me and Jonathan, and after the children went home, opened a bottle of bucks fizz or two for us to enjoy, with a balloon and they gave us a card and some vouchers.

Mum, Nan, Dave and I then left to go to the B&B, and Jonathan left to go home. We dropped Billy (Nan's dog) off at some kennels for the weekend, and then went to see what the B&B was like. It was gorgeous, and overlooked hills filled with sheep. Later on, we set off to go and pick Helen up. There was a bit of trouble finding her, and where to pick her up. We ended up going all the way to Thame, as she was on an Aylesbury bus. On the way back from Thame to the B&B, we stopped off at a hotel/restaurant, and had a meal. We had quite a long wait, and while we were waiting for the food, we chatted a lot. Just as the food arrived, Dad phoned to check arrangements for the morning, the result of this phonecall leaving me quite stressed and worried. Then I realised that I'd forgotten to send the actual ordering for the tables. So I sat worrying about that. But I sorted out an arrangement to get the table plans in time for Steve and Betsy to set up.

For the rest of the evening and meal, Mum and Dave proceeded to start teasing me. I can't remember what about, but I suddenly had the overwhelming urge to burst into tears, not because of the teasing, but something to do with the wedding. They weren't happy tears, but I didn't know why I was crying. Mum rushed around the table to give me a hug, and Dave disappeared off to pay the bill... we'd about finished our meal by this point, but soon came back with a glass of orange juice, that wasn't just orange juice... He was such a good ol' soul. I calmed down eventually, and we went back to the B&B where we went into our rooms, and sorted ourselves out for the night. Helen and I sat around, chatting and I sent Jonathan one last photo of myself as a single woman to his mobile phone with my camera phone. Eventually I must have got to sleep (after chatting in the dark to Helen for about an hour) about 12.30am.

I think I'll have to carry on with the wedding day in the next entry, so I'll leave you with the anticipation for now...