Happy V Day!

I don't know if it's just me or did Valentine's Day seem a bit more explosive this year than any before! Don't get me wrong I do love the excuse to be extra romantic, as well as the exchanging of cards and gifts; but the amount of people in every card shop did scare me slightly. However I did 'love' this display of letters whilst out shopping yesterday, people were defiantly feeling the love as they had a selfie next to it :-) However you spent your Valentine's Day I hope you got spoilt lots, whether it be from your partner, parent, friend or a secret admire!

Valentine's Day this year naturally made me think about my wedding day and all the memories that are connected with the day. For me weddings are all about memories, combining a couples history and bringing it all together for family and friends to share. With a little bit of imagination memories can be a big part of any wedding day and it can make the day even more special. Including a couples history within their wedding day can be done in a variety of subtle ways and doesn't mean overpowering your guests with baby photos of the bride and groom as they eat their soup ;-) We had a number of things on our wedding day which reflected our time together prior to becoming Mr & Mrs. The first things was our table names; we had originally got together over 10 years ago whilst at Sixth Form College, the year was 2004 and it would be another good year before we built up the courage to eat in front of each other (this was my fault really and my biggest regret will always be going to Nandos on our first date and ordering a salad as I thought it was the least messiest thing to eat, that would not happen now I tell ya)! Each table represented a year of our time together from when we first got together in 2004 to the current year 2014. We liked the idea because it was something personal to us, not too obvious to our guests and it was simple. This is where my wine bottles came into a role of their own as I decorated them in years 2004 - 2014, finished off with a tall candle for decoration.

I love photos! Especially looking back at old photos. My Grandparents house in Ireland has a cabinet full of old albums, there are photos in there from years ago and my favourite thing to do is to spend time looking through them. My grandparents aren't there any more but I love how their presence is still felt due to the photos still there, not only in the albums but there are wedding photos of their children all over the wall and another cabinet covered in photos of their grandchildren. It's still so lovely to see :-) There were lots of photos at our wedding but we chose to display them in the form of a slideshow. We had seen this done at other weddings and it's something we always said we would try and do. Well on this occasion it was our friend and Liam's groomsman who made the slideshow. He done a really good job with the slideshow, combining old photos of us with friends and family, complimented with some of our favourite songs. I would recommend this idea for any wedding, it was really fun to watch and it gave our family and friends an opportunity to see different parts of out life. Weddings often bring together family and friends from different parts of a couples life and more than likely not everyone knows each others. Photos and a slideshow can bridge this gap and help the guests to feels more involved with the wedding day. We also had on display a couple of photo's of our parents on their wedding day, these were simply put in a frame and placed next to the wedding cake for all to see. This idea can apply to grandparents, aunts, uncles or any special couple that is connected to the wedding couple. Again combining the old with the new is always a winning concept for me.