We did it! I made an honest man of Jon on 2nd July. As I'd mentioned in my last update we did things on very short notice, barely giving ourselves time to give our notices at the town hall. (Archaic procedure for getting permission to marry, don't ask.) We married at Chelsea Registry Office (which is where Jon's parents got married 30-something years ago) with just 4 guests - 2 witnesses and 2 understudies (because I always carry a spare!) and then had a lovely lunch at Gordon Ramsay's.
It was the hottest day of the year so far and just beautiful. We had a bit of a drama getting there, the cab driver we got was a bit rubbish and only got us there in the nick of time and only because I couldn't take it any longer and started barking orders at him. My vow to avoid turning into Bridezilla at any time well and truly went up in smoke in that cab! To complicate things we'd had a problem with Jon's wedding ring in that we didn't get it in time due to massive cock ups by the jewellers (Tip: If your husband to be wants a titanium/platinum wedding ring made, make sure you have more than 2 weeks to do it and call the jewellers a few days beforehand to make sure they have sent it to the correct place, and then when they resend it make sure they read out the exact address to you to ensure they haven't made a big mess of it) so we had to stop at the jewellers in Knightsbridge en route to the registry office to pick up a stand-in ring. It looked pretty hairy for a while and our guests all arrived promptly and when we weren't there by 10 minutes before our ceremony was due to start, sat in the waiting room taking bets on which one of us had got cold feet and done a runner! But we made it... just.
The ceremony only took 15 minutes and I vaguely recall uttering the words "Right! Down the pub then?" afterwards as we had some time to kill before lunch. Lunch was indulgent and fantastic. And Junior decided to make his/her presence felt for the occasion too. I had a horrendous bout of morning (afternoon) sickness during lunch and threw up spectacularly in the ladies room. Cue massive cleanup by the extremely efficient and sympathetic staff. I kind of wanted ol' Gordon to come in and shout at me though, would have made for a fantastic wedding story.
After a sumptuous meal and overpriced Champagne we went back to our (new) flat and sat on the sparse furniture enjoying some less pricey Champagne and delicious cake. By that time the pregnant bride was more than ready to slip into comfy clothes and I did actually fight the urge to throw on my pajamas!
A lovely day was had by all, and thanks to our wonderful friends, Vivien, Sophie, Nik and David for taking part. (And didn't we all scrub up well!) We are toying with the idea of having a bigger do after the little one is here, probably in California but we'll see if we get around to that before our silver anniversary.
