Getting Hitched!

I am now officially Mrs Writingale-Roberts!!!

What a feeling! Does that make me officially middle-aged at the age of 24, now that I’m married? Do I need to start wearing Mom jeans and driving a Nissan Micra??

If so, bring it on! I love being Matt’s official woman. He wants me – forever!

It was the most fepic day ever – even with the interference of the Dragon Mother.

Despite global warming and the recent flooding, the sun was shining on us. I woke up with a bit of a headache ( or a pain in the arse, as the Dragon Mother insisted on sleeping in the same bed as me the night before – I think she was frightened I’d change my mind and dump her at the altar…)

The morning went swimmingly – we weren’t getting hitched til 2 o’clock so there was plenty of time to sort hair, make-up and champagne!

I made Dragon Mother go first with make-up (miracles permitting) as the first slot was 7.30am and I wanted an extra snooze. It took a while, but the make-up artist was amazing and managed to iron every wrinkle out of her face…unfortunately she was a bit short on gorilla-glue so I still had to listen to her directing operations from under the duvet.

When it was time to put my dress on, I thought I might explode (literally). I was squeezed, tugged and poured into the beautiful dress by my darling mother who was having a pink fit about the amount of weight I had so obviously put on. Once I caught my breath, I managed to tell her that if she didn’t put her glasses on I might just drown her in the Jacuzzi bath. She’d only gone and wrestled me into one of the bridesmaid dresses – a size 13-14years I am not!

I won’t bore you with all the details but let’s just say the moment I saw Matt waiting for me with that twinkle in his eye, everyone else just melted away. He looked absolutely stunning and I couldn’t help thinking how beautiful our babies would be.

My mother was already crying and I could hear her snuffling like the Gruffalo behind me. I knew that would happen so I figured I’d help her along a bit by writing my own marriage vows to Matt. They went like this….

We’ll spend our lives together,

We’ll have times when we’re apart,

When we’re nursing those who need us

With the love that’s in our hearts

We’ll have our little family

Three girls and just one boy

They’ll fill us with pure heartache

But we’ll also have much joy

Our lives we’ll fill with laughter,

With tears and egg fried rice,

As we go through times of hardship,

But then things will turn out nice

As our bond becomes much stronger

And we stick like super glue

Cos you’re the better half of me

And I’m the naughty half of you

So here I am – just saying

I love you, don’t you know

From now to all eternity

I’ll always be your Flo

Everyone, bar Mother, thought it was fantastic and Matt absolutely loved it. Traditional we are not – we are going to make our mark on this world and we started right then.

After the photos had been taken in the searing sunshine (someone really should invent under-arm fans) it was time to eat. My husband and I (!!) took our seats at the top table and everyone stood and clapped. I looked around us and saw all of the people who make our lives special. There was a table of my closest workmates including Carla and Steve; Carla looked full of love and Steve’s face just oozed pride (and probably relief that we’d got this far with no calamities!).

I was so pleased to see Matt’s workmates there too. They had all turned out in force and kept winking at us or giving us encouraging smiles when they caught our eye. After all he’s been through recently, it was so good to have them there on our special day.

Once the speeches were done (nothing too smutty from Matt’s lifelong bestie Ben), we cut the cake. I’d instructed the photographer to have her lens firmly pointed at the Dragon Mother when it came to cake time – I needed this moment to be eternally captured so I could revisit it during tough times.

The cake was a stunning 3 tier affair, traditional in shape and topped with a 3D Matt & Flo. It was bright yellow to reflect our sunny personalities and had been decorated beautifully.

As we were about to cut the cake, I pulled my mother closer to me and told her to smile for the camera. The range of expressions on her face was priceless as we displayed the first slice – a giant slice of home-made pork pie ‘iced’ with mustard. Everyone laughed, apart from mother, who whispered to me ‘But what about the vegetarians?’!

We ditched the formalities after that, and the evening do was a huge party which we will never forget. Matt and I sloped off around midnight, just as Mother was teaching our drunken mates to line-dance.

As we lay in bed eating our pork pie cake – we raised a little glass of left over champagne to each other as Matt whispered ‘Here’s to us Flo – now and for the rest of our lives.’

Bring it on gorgeous husband, bring it on..!