Afternoon lovelies! Thank you SO much for the love yesterday on part one of RMW Real Bride Rebecca and Dave's wedding.

I know you're all more-than-ready to see the photo booth, LOVE lights, feathers and The Watling Street Band, so let's just dive straight in.

We left our lovely pair just as they arrived at The Gatsby ...

RMW Real Bride Rebecca: We pulled up to the gorgeous Gatsby, to be greeted by all our family and friends cheering! We immediately found ourselves with a welcome cocktail each (apple strudel martinis for Team Bride & strawberry margaritas for Team Groom!!) gazing at the amazing work our lovely family, friends and the staff at The Gatsby had done. My vision had come to life! There was my photobooth, the step-ladder of chocolates, the cocktail stirrers, the light up-signs, the tables full of candlesticks, the vodka favours, the feather place-setting, all of it perfect! I loved every thing!

Chatting to all our guests was fantastic, and seeing them so happy was the best thing ever. After doing the rounds, Dave & I, along with Hannah, our photographer, snuck off while no-one was looking!! We had a lovely meander into the town, chatting about our day so far and how excited we were and wondering what on earth Ross Noble was going to say at the speeches!

We had a good giggle at how my humungous dress had now given me the power to stop traffic, and then we had a little break and found the lovely garden to Berkhamsted church and let Hannah snap away while we giggled and chatted some more. The photos from this time, well, they are some of my favourites and we're really going to struggle to decide which ones to print out! We really will treasure them all forever.

By the time we came back we had enough time to do a few quick pictures with the bridal party before Ross Noble re-appeared ready to introduce us to the dinner table as Mr & Mrs!!!

The speeches provided some of the funniest moments of the whole wedding, Ross was hilarious (as expected) and had everyone in stitches. It may have taken a good 10 minutes or so for him to actually get round to introducing us, but we didn't care as we were too busy bent over double, laughing harder than we ever thought possible!

In between Ross entertaining everyone and presenting us with our wedding day trophy (!!!), we had some lovely speeches from the Best Man and my Step-Dad. My Mum even presented us with a lovely book of recipes from all our guests and read out a message from my Dad who couldn't make it over. It was lovely hearing such touching words from them all, as well as the obligatory embarrassing stories! One last lovely speech from my new Hubby and we were clinking our glasses and tucking into our gorgeous wedding breakfast!

The food was absolutely stunning, The Gatsby really did an absolutely outstanding job, all the food was so well presented and tasted divine. You would never have guessed they were having to feed 90 people all at once! We were very lucky in that we were able to give all our guests a choice of 2 meat main courses, something that I think helped ensure everyone enjoyed their dinner fully. To start there was chicken liver parfait, red onion marmalade & toast, followed by either slow roast belly pork, crackling, mustard mash & red cabbage or stuffed chicken breast with tarragon mousse, sweet potato puree & tomato salsa (obviously there were some equally yummy vegetarian options too), and this was finished off with toffee apple & spiced pear crumble with creme anglaise.

Surprisingly, even with the addition of Ross, the staff at The Gatsby somehow managed to keep everything spot on time and so we finished dinner just in time for our next wave of guests to arrive. Another round of chatting, hugging and reminiscing about the rest of the day and then it was time for us to cut the cake.....of cheese! Yup our gorgeous cheese cake was wheeled out and again the guys had made it look amazing, and even worked around the fact that I clearly hadn't checked the size of our cute topper against the top layer of cheese! Oops! Cutting the cheese was, in true us style, a rather comical moment....cheese is a lot harder to cut when there is a large mountain of it!!

I also took a moment to throw my bouquet! I had always said I wanted to be able to throw my bouquet as catching a bouquet at a friend's wedding had a large part in Dave finally plucking up the courage to propose! (I have always been adamant that I wasn't trying that hard and it kind of just fell into my hands but the picture certainly shows a different side to the story! ;-)) But as I began making the fabric flowers and collecting all the brooches for my bouquet I started to worry about throwing it. For starters, no one wants to be hit in the eye by a brooch! And secondly, after putting so much hard work into the bouquet I really didn't want to let it go, I wanted to keep it for all time as a testament to what I had achieved!

So I began thinking up ways around this and in the end I decided to make a smaller bouquet (a bit like the flower girl's wand) that would be held into my bouquet using a ribbon. That way it had still taken the journey down the aisle with me and would bring luck to one of my lovely friends! So in the end I was able to throw this little bit of my bouquet and hopefully it will bring us a new wedding sometime soon!

By this time the band were set and ready....it was time for our first dance! I think I can safely say we were both a little nervous. We had decided upon a more upbeat song as we both dreaded the nervous first dance shuffle! So what upbeat song did Dave and I choose? Why of course Pencil Full of Lead by Paolo Nutini! We heard it way back at the beginning of our planning and hadn't been able to get it out of our heads. We searched through so many of our favourite songs but pretty much every single one had some slightly worrying lyrics!!

When it came down to it, this was the song that always got me excited about our big day, and whenever I heard it a huge grin would appear on my face. So it was settled, this was our first dance song. When I say Pencil Full of Lead is a fast song, I am not exaggerating! I had no idea how we would manage to dance to it, especially considering we had not rehearsed it at all! But we did and it was an amazing feeling. I may have nearly gone flying when Dave swung me around the dance floor like a rag doll, but it was so much fun and once again I was grinning like the cheshire cat! Thanks to our lovely friends and family we weren't left spinning around too long before they all got up and had a good old boogie!

Now this is the bit where I get a bit over the top and tell you how flipping awesome The Watling Street Band were, because quite frankly they were! I am so, so chuffed that Dave managed to find them. They learnt Pencil Full of Lead especially for us, they played a ridiculous number of amazing songs (including some pretty awesome mashups), they had even agreed fairly last minute to do a longer set and stay right up until the end of the night.

The icing on the absolutely wonderful cake that was our wedding day was when my new hubby suddenly appeared alongside the band!!! Yup, he had secretly arranged with The Watling Street Band to sing with them! It was amazing, he sang I'm A Believer (a song that will forever remind me of some amazing times with my lovely Folkestone girlies), and he was awesome! All I remember is everyone dancing around me while I just stood there stunned, in floods and floods of happy tears.

This really was THE BEST DAY EVER!

And that, you gorgeous lot, is where one chapter ended and another began! I am now a Mrs and enjoying every moment of it. Yes it is true that nothing really changes, but at the same time it kinda does. Just saying I have a husband is one thing I never really thought would excite me as much as it has done. Knowing that we have pledged ourselves to each other for eternity is a wonderful, wonderful thing. Yes we had been together for over 10 years, yes we knew that we were meant to be together, but to hear your love utter those immortal words in front of all your friends and family is something you'll never understand until you are there.

My advice to all your gorgeous brides-to-be? Well it is that of every other bride who has graced these wonderful pages, but I'll say it anyway...Enjoy EVERY minute. Be as creative as you want to be! Don't sweat the small stuff. Accept help from family & friends - they really wouldn't offer if they didn't want to. Wear red lippy if you want to!

Big OH MY GOODNESS I'M MARRIED love,

Rebecca xxx

Oh and if you want a little giggle, here's a link to the Ross Noble show featuring our wedding!

Photography by Hannah Mia
Dress Ellis Bridal @ Signature Brides | Stationery Love Doodle | Venue The Gatsby | Light Up Letters Doris Loves | Band The Watling Street Band | Feather Cape Biba | Flowergirl Monsoon | Bridesmaids For Her & For Him, Miss Selfridge, Bing Bridal & Debenhams | Groom & Groomsmen Debenhams | Cheese Cheese Stall | Pork Pies Samphire | Cake Topper Miss Cake