A peek at our wedding venue

Well, I thought it was only fair I showed you the quaint and unusual place where we got married. It was very, very romantic :)

So this is where we had our ceremony. It takes 25 people and it's beautiful. Just out of shot is the Arts and Crafts private house where we stayed and had our wedding breakfast.

And this beautiful little place is down at the end of the property. It's a tiny cabin with a wood burning fire and an cosy attic bed where we spent our wedding night. Absolutely perfect!

Previously on Laura's Little Home...

Well, people...

I have discovered several things in the last few months. Not the least of which has been that I am a terribly unfaithful blogger, but I promise I have reasons!


Life has been crazy. Really, madly, truly crazy. Since I last wrote I have had 5 freelance jobs. My husband has had at least three times that number. We have got married. We have had a short break to celebrate. We slept in 14 beds in a 3 week period. We travelled to three countries (and in the next week I will add two more, one of which will be in a different continent). On New Years Eve we decided to relocate to a town we had never visited and within 9 days had found a house, and we are now in the process of purchasing it. We have chosen honeymoon dates, we have decided that we are going to start trying for a baby. All in all.... my head is spinning and it's marvellous!


There is nothing so magical as those early days of being newly weds. Yep, I'm head-over-heels, crazily, madly (sickeningly?) in love and proud of it. My love and I got married on 08-09-10 (that's in September, UK blogger here!) and married life is wonderful. Our wedding was perfection itself. Just us and a small handful of guests in a lovely country house on the edge of a lake. We had our wedding ceremony in a treehouse, with music we loved, and our closest friends. It was marvellous.

The most interesting thing for me was the interaction with our friends regarding our wedding. It teaches you how people perceive you, and how people perceive marriage itself. Two examples:

1) It was funny how many people were very surprised that I was so calm. There's almost a prerequisite for brides to get mental at weddings. Everyone loves a good bridezilla, right? But what's the point in getting upset over things you can't change? We made a decision at the start to accept what we could not change, and make the most of what we had. Plus, we did some damn good planning over the things that we could influence!
The only two things we couldn't help were the weather and other people. And here's the amazing thing. Despite limiting our wedding invitations to just 21 people, we had 6 people act out. I don't mean just politely turn down the invite, I mean lash out, attack, guilt trip and whinge. Now, clearly we need better friends, or thicker skins, or a combination of the two. Because we really aren't bad people. We just have people in our lives who are rather dramatic. We work in theatre, my family is particularly dramatically inclined, and we live with a degree of stress and adrenaline. I've never really thought about it before, but I'm now inclined to think that it would be healthier for us to do without some of this.

I spent the day before my wedding mourning the breakdown of my friendship with a close friend whom I've known for 11 years, who turned down my wedding at short notice to work with a minor celebrity. The behaviour of my aunt who guilt tripped my mother and I over a weird perceived snub that neither of us can remember. Fielding an hysterical phone call from a friend of my husband who kept us guessing about her attendance, pulled out, opted back in, threatened to arrive at the venue as I was walking down the isle (what an entrance, right?) and then finally threatened that we would regret for the rest of our lives asking her to stay away if she couldn't commit- all within a 2 hour window the day before we were to be married.

But we survived.

And more than just survived, we had the day of our lives.

And we came out of it stronger. 

One of the proudest moment of my wedding was when my husband turned to me after the hideous phone call from Ms. Femme Hysterique and told me that he was proud of the way I dealt with the situation. I won't lie- in the moment I wanted to rip this girl a new one and inflict unspeakable un Christian punishments upon her, but in that moment I chose to take the high road, with the inhuman strength I suspect can only ever come from the obscene cultural programming we receive which tells us that managing other people's expectations of our wedding should take precedence over our own wishes and desires.

(That and a stiff glass of really nice scotch.) 


You see, I have a reputation for being somewhat fierce. And impulsive. And down right damn crabby. Perhaps even scary. But I mean well..... I just get outraged when I feel people could be nicer or better. Ironically, I suspect it makes me less nice, but I'm working on that. I'm far from perfect. But knowing that I'd helped him by not stressing him out made me feel like a better person. I've slipped since, and I'll slip again, but I have something to strive for. I'd rather be the good guy than be perceived as a bitch- I'd say that's a fairly good thing to aim for this year.


2) Most people now ask me "So, how's married life?" Now, that's an easy question! The answer is-

"It's amazing/great/fantastic/exciting/never dull/the same but really different/lovely/cool/ace *

(* delete as applicable)

I can't fault it really. It's what we both wanted,and we're enjoying exploring it and all that it brings: both the ups and downs, the unexpected, the nerve wracking, the odd, the weird and the hysterically funny.


But what do you say to someone who asks "So, how's life after the wedding?"

See, I think that's an odd question. It's almost asking for a negative answer. In some odd way it almost asks you to say "Yeah, it's okay, I just wish the wedding could last a little longer." It's like asking you how your hangover's going. It's a subtlety, and maybe you wont agree with me, but I think it's there.
I realise weddings are important. Heck, we just spent a house deposit on one, and I wont under estimate the cultural significance of the act one iota. But I see the wedding as being a precursor to the marriage. Once it's done it's done, and exists as a beautiful memory, a one off event, a significant public celebration of your love, a lovely exciting one off that heralds the start of something new and delineates your desires to build a loving partnership for life. The wedding is something that you do to get to the good bit...

The marriage itself.

Doing the wedding bit again would kind of feel almost like a chore... for me the marriage is totally and absolutely where it's at. :)

Where to decorate when you can't?

Ah, renting. It's a state of anti-decorating. 

There are so many rules: no painting, leave-it-as-you-found-it, no remodelling, no messing with walls, no drilling, no putting up pictures (eek!). I can't say we follow the 'no putting up pictures bit'. I can confirm that I am a pro with Polyfilla and a paint scraper on moving put day. (I have reason to believe that Polyfilla may be known in the US as spackle? But I could be wrong...)

Our current flat is very VERY small. I moved in shortly after we started dating (fast mover? No no no, I swear!) It's just over 600 square feet. In this space we fit a living room, a kitchen, 1 bathroom and 2 bedrooms. Rumour has it that this small space used to contain 4 adults and two cats. It makes me feel sick to think about it! 

Our second bedroom isn't really part of the main living space as it's G's studio, and is crammed full of audio equipment, cables and dust bunnies. It is the only territory I refuse to conquer. 

.......In contrast, 2 weeks or so after we started dating, he came home one day to find that I had cleaned the bedroom from floor to ceiling. Luckily he didn't realise I was sneakily nesting (mwahaha!) Admittedly, it wasn't so much that I was trying to make myself indispensable and encourage him to let me stay, it was more to do with my inability to breathe and the desire to not itch when I spent the night (as it were).....

My decorating attempts in the flat are (so far) pretty restrained. Mainly because we don't have space for much furniture. Everything we have is pretty functional and it got here before I did.  I have some lovely furniture of my own from my previous life, but it's in storage as none of it fits in here. 

I like to think about my skills as a sneak attack against the generic IKEA-dom of a bachelor pad. Luckily my very lovely finace is more than happy to indulge my decorating fanaticism. ;-)

I started small...

Yeah, when I said small, I meant it! 

In most houses, I reckon that fridge art is an afterthought. Just somewhere to put the free magnets from the local takeaway or things the kids bring home from school. 

In our house, it's one of the easiest place to put up things that are sentimental and spontaneous.

The postcards are positive and life affirming. 

The printed messages are opportunities to remind us to stick to our healthy eating kick and the top one is a Flylady message (the Do It Now principal). Have you heard of the Flylady? I love her! www.flylady.net - she's one of my heroes.

There's a business card from our favourite ever restaurant on their too.

The letter with the little foam guy on it is a thank you letter from a very important charity called Kids Company which I donated to. They work with disadvantaged children in inner London and it is run by a genuine living saint, Camilla Batmanghelidjh. www.kidsco.org.uk. Unbelievable- please give them some of your time, even if it's just to read their homepage.

There's also some magnetic alphabet. I change the messages frequently. 

Sometimes they get a little PG 13. 

Occasionally they may even be R (blush!) as we currently have a child free home. 

They also sadly have to be creative in their spelling as we seem to be losing them at a rate of knots. Some houses lose random socks, we lose vowels and consonants....

Thankfully, as literate adults we can appreciate the quirkiness without setting a bad example. One day we may go crazy and buy a second box of alphabet letters. Although I already have a cool woodcut style alphabet project in the works which will take care of it.

Today we are 2

Well, this is the very first post on my little fledgling blog.

I'm writing this blog as a personal exercise. It will be a place to share stories of crafting, knitting, cooking, house hunting, and family making.  I am about to become a wife, we will hopefully soon be homeowners, and shortly after that parents. 

At least, that's the plan.... 

...But we all know plans don't always come off the way you expected, right? And that's half the fun!

I love crafts, I love decorating. I used to paint and I am hoping I can use this blog to push myself to commit more time to creating. The next 6 months will be a quest to find a house of our own. 

And- most importantly- turn it into a home using crafty plans, elbow grease and love. 

The hardest part of this for me is finding something to start with. So, for my very first post, I decided to indulgently write about a topic which requires no prompting. 

My very wonderful fiance.

Today is our second anniversary. Today we are 2. Two years since we met. And one year since he proposed. And the celebrations continue, as we will be getting married in two and a half weeks.

When I think about how much we have done in the past two years it amazes me. How far we have come, what we have achieved, our ups and downs, our love, our excitement in each other, the new things, the discoveries, how in tune we are, how closely our individual paths have aligned, and how amazing the path that we are walking down together is becoming. 

It totally amazes me. I can't believe how much my life has been turned upside down. Or maybe I mean, turned the right way up??

It has been a real eye opener to recreate myself as a fiancee, and to start to visualise myself as a wife and a mother. It is exciting and a bit crazy and- occasionally- totally overwhelming. There has been excitement and reassuring security in being engaged. That shouldn't sound like complacency- it doesn't mean that the hard work is done. To the contrary, being engaged may be exciting and fun, but just when you settle into the role, you suddenly realise that you are about to become a WIFE! That's a whole other level of....well, being grown up! 

I mean, when did we get so grown up? It sort of snuck up on me...

And nothing makes me happier in the world. Being married is an adventure- one that I am more than ready for.

Sometimes it is almost hard to be loved so much by one person. Sometimes G looks at me with such naked devotion that I almost feel that I can't live up to his love. It is overpowering and fantastic, and it makes me weak at the knees. I am a lucky, lucky girl and we are a lucky, lucky pair to have found each other.

It is so overpoweringly obvious that this man is my future. He will be the father of my children. He will be the man I grow old with, who will hold my hand, who will love me forever, who will be by my side. The man that I will love, the man I will support, the man who I will care for, who I will listen to, who I will laugh with, who I will grow with.

Well, I could write so much more. In two years we have built up many stories, many memories, many plans. I could write about him for hours. He is the air I breathe. My bread and butter. And I love him with every fibre of my being.