Eeeek!

120 days to go. Blimey.

Buying things

The collection of wedding gubbins is steadily growing, with the latest additions being some expensive material (suit-shaped) and some shiny metal (ring-shaped). We've had to find a safe place for storing the latter of these, so let's hope that I can remember where I've stashed it when it gets to May time!

We've also had confirmation that we'll get the special wedding licence, so that's another thing crossed off the list. Part of me was worried that The Powers That Be would refuse permission to use the school chapel and we'd have to resort to a registry office quickie before having a pretend ceremony on the day. Luckily, that's not necessary. Phew.

In other news, we started writing out invitations, using address lists carefully provided by both mothers. Consequently it's been really easy to do the family invites (despite one or two hiccups over the spelling of various relations' names!) but we are now into the dangerous territory of invites for friends. I have NO IDEA where most of my friends live, so there are many hours of phone calls ahead if we're to get these invites out before June. Thank goodness for offical society address lists.

Official paperwork

Our decision to get married in the school chapel was dependent on the school chaplain's willingness to marry us. Unfortunately, we've been suffering something of an interregnum between the departure of the old chaplain and the arrival of the new, so there was no offical confirmation that we could actually get hitched on the day we'd booked. Whoops. Apparently there is no official wedding licence for the chapel, so we're having to apply for an Archbishop's Licence, which is dependent on the chaplain's support during the application process. Luckily, Adam (the new chaplain) arrived during the Christmas holidays, and he's more than happy to officiate; the paperwork was posted off today, and all looks promising. According to other colleagues, who have already undergone this process, the licence is a huge certificate, featuring the signature and seal of the big cheese archbish himself... quite a momento to have!

Rev Adam is in his thirties and has previously worked in parishes as well as being a school chaplain in Liverpool. He has officially been here at school for six days, and already has the entire staff eating out of his hand because he is so lovely. He spoke at school chapel this morning, and even the kids listened and laughed during the sermon (even the headmaster's daughter stopped reading her book to listen to what he had to say!). It was a bit of a gamble deciding to be married by a bloke we'd never met, but I'm so glad we took the risk: it should be a lovely service.

We sat in the pub last night talking to some of my colleagues about weddings. It seems that they had quite stressful experiences with their nuptuals, so I'm wondering where we're going wrong/right* but it all seems to be well in hand at the moment. Mind you, if I can organise a Guide camp for 200 people, I ought to be able to organise one day's worth of wedding without too much effort...!

* Delete as applicable