Day 1 Friday 8^th August 2014: Road trip from Cambridge to Kingsbridge, Devon-England

Shaz and I gave our little speed demon a quick check: fuelled up, oil and water were ok, but the tyres needed some pressure. After getting grease all over our hands, the tyres had air in them and we were off! As we began our road trip to southern England, the roads were uncongested and we thought YAAY perhaps it will be smooth sailing all the way down south. However, about 2 hours into our journey, the traffic became gridlocked and was horrendous! So basically, because of the many traffic jams we got caught in, it took us a VERY long time to get to Devon. As it was now dark, we were driving very slowly through the towns as the roads were extremely narrow and to top it off they had HUGE hedges on either side. This made it slightly dangerous, as these so called roads weren’t even lit! Anyway, we found our bed and breakfast without getting lost and we both hit the sack immediately after our long, tiring journey…

Day 2 Saturday 9^th August 2014: The Summersthwaite Wedding, Thurlestone, Devon-England

After having a nice breakfast, Shaz and I glamourified ourselves and made our way to Thurlestone Church. The sun was shining – twas’ an amazing day to be getting married. As we entered the church, the ushers handed us each a program and we made our way to the stalls. As the bride (Vickie) entered the church with her father, everyone hushed and the ceremony began. This was my first wedding church service, so it was actually quite interesting. Many hymns were sung and a few readings were read. The choir was made up of the bride and grooms (Dom) friends and family – giving it that extra personal touch. There was also an amazing soloist – her voice was angelic… Following the official marriage of Vickie and Dom, we all made our way to the front of the church with a hand full of confetti and sprinkled it upon the newlyweds as they made their way out of the church – both had massive grins across their faces…

  

We then made our way to the reception, which was held at Vickie’s parents house located on a property close by. Drinks and canapés were served in the garden as everyone chatted away.

We all then made our way to the marque and found our seats. The interior of the marque was splendid – subtlety drawing on Vickie’s Mauritian heritage. Each person had their name on a tag that was wrapped around their serviette with a nice wooden fan on top.My favourite was the bunting – a simple yet so effective decorative piece! On the tables they also had a booklet, which had the names of all the guests and a few sentences about them – which I thought was such a nice personal touch. I especially liked what Vickie wrote about me: Ayse was one of the first Australians Vickie had met, and has taught her about all sorts of “far out” vegies including “pet-it-poys” and “mangie toots”. I mean seriously which Aussie knows how to correctly pronounce petit pois and mangetout – nevertheless it was HILARIOUS!!!

We had a splendid dinner, which was then followed by the speeches. I was informed that traditionally the father of the bride gives a speech embarrassing the bride; followed by the groom’s speech thanking everyone; concluded by a dirty/filthy speech by the best man. The first two were as expected, however, in my opinion the best man did not throw dirt on the groom at all! His speech was actually quite civil – funny of course but no secrets were revealed (slightly disappointed…). In any case, all the speeches were both humorous and emotional at times – simply brilliant! The dancing commenced soon after and there was a band for the “ceilidh” (pronounced Kaylee for all you non-UK folk). All the Brits around educated me – the ceilidh is traditional Celtic dancing where the MC calls out the dance moves and everyone follows. I had a go – it was actually quite a lot of fun! It was great to see the oldies having a go… the night continued on with more and more dancing… all in all, it was a brilliant and enjoyable wedding =)

Day 3 Sunday 10^th August 2014: The journey back to Cambridge

Both Shaz and I thought we should head to the beach after breakfast – we owed it to ourselves after enduring such a long journey down south! So, we headed down to Thurlestone beach, winding our way through the narrowest hedged roads. As we both got out of the car, we were nearly blown away by the gale forced winds! There was actually a weather warning the entire weekend ie Hurricane Bertha… we managed to stay on the beach for a few minutes, snapped a few shots of the actual Thurle Stone and we made our way back home. We had a smooth journey back, with close to no traffic jams, ending our trip on a fantastic note…