Our little Catermaran

One of the things included in our hotel was the ability to use the catermarans on the sea. Since I know nothing about sailing, Josh gave it a go! We did OK at the beginning, and had a good try at it, but eventually we ended up stuck along the swimming area! Oh well, either way, we really had a great time!

One off my bucket list: Horse Riding along the Beach

One of the things I was most excited to do in Mexico was go horseriding along the beach. I dont know why, it has just been on my bucketlist. It didn't even have to be in Mexico - just on a horse and a beach! Our hotel arranged everything for us, so after we had been there a few days, one morning we got picked up by a little van and driven - so long! It seemed to go on forever, but we picked up a few other guests from hotels. Eventually we got to this place - it was very touristy, but kind of in a jungle.

I dont know how to describe it - but we got onto this little pickup truck - where we all sat in the back. It was way too unsafe - but so very Mexican. It took us to this corral with a whole bunch of horses. We got helmets and headed off with our guide. I have to say, we weren't terribly well dressed for it -

shorts and sandals, but we made do! We followed our guide into the forest, and then along the beach. It was so beautiful, and deserted too! Eventually we rode all the way along this inlet, where we came to this little beach hut. We were met by this lady who took us out on this big loop

snorkelling - so we could see all the coral and such. Then it was back onto our horses and along the beach. It was such a lovely ride, even though my horse was a little dopey! I still really enjoyed it - and our guide took adorable photos of us!

Our beach!

While our resort was quite far from the airport, it was right along the beach. It was a super lovely five star, all inclusive reso. We chose one with tons of things to do too! The first day we got there, we explored a little of the resort and headed down to the beach. We had our own beach for the hotel - with lots of lovely beach loungers and palm trees. I'm not too good at relaxing at the beach, but I did do ok relaxing for a while!

A nice relaxing morning

After we left our wedding, we went by limo to our hotel. It wasn't very far away, but it was enough time to take my shoes off! We walked into the hotel, my dress all picked up and no shoes on! But we were so happy to just be in the quiet and just alone. Our wedding planner

had packed us three slices of wedding cake. They were amazing! I wish we had had six pieces, but oh well! In the morning, we had really yummy waffles on the bed, and then headed out to Marina. I have wanted to visit there since we started going to Bradenton, but we never got a chance. So we walked around Sarasota marina in the sunlight, walking among the boats, and along this pretty path looking over the harbour. It was so relaxing, and then we headed over to each of our parents houses, before heading to the airport for our honeymoon in Mexico!

Our beautiful Reception

After we had the ceremony, we took so many photos. It was quite warm in the sun, so after that, it was nice to be able to go back inside where the air conditioning was. We were able to have a few moments inside, before being announced to everyone who was waiting. They had all been enjoying our

yummy canapes and the bar, so they were all excited to see us. We came out and they announced us as Mr and Mrs Small - which was super cute! I think the weird thing about weddings is that right then, you do the first dance - so even though it was fully sunny out, we danced! To Ed Sheeran's "Thinking out loud".

It's such a cute song, but it was a little hard to dance in my dress! We had such a nice dance though - very different than practicing in our hallway! We danced, then we had our photographers take all our guests and arrange them in a heart. At the time, it seemed to take so, so long to arrange them -

but the end shot was AMAZING! Then we got to sit down for our dinner. My dad gave a really lovely speech, David gave his best man speech, and then Shelby gave the most heartwrenching speech you ever could have heard. It was so lovely - and she did so beautifully. Ms Halsall-Williams, our speech teacher would have been so proud of her - she made it, even with tears. It was so hard not to full on sob! I was so excited about the dinner - and the steak was literally the best thing I have ever tasted in my life! It was so yummy.

I was a little nervous about eating that I didn't finish it all - so Josh got some! It was so nice to see all our hard work - all those beautiful tablecloths I ordered from China, all the pretty vintage furniture Mummy had ordered, and all the amazing flowers, the glittery table numbers - it was just perfect -

with all these lights over our heads. It was really exactly as I had pictured it. After dinner, Josh and I moved around while everyone ate, and chatted to everyone. It had really helped that we had done a lot of the chatting and meet and greet the night before at the rehersal. It was nice to catch up

with all our friends who we hadn't seen in so long! Then, Daddy and I danced, and I cried the whole way through! The whole way through! Daddy laughed a lot and tried to hold it together though! Then Josh danced with his Mummy and that was lovely. But then, THE CAKE! I loved how beautiful our cakes were - mainly because we had 3 of them! Three! But they were great! We cut the cake with a katana - a samurai sword! Everyone really loved it! After the cake - we danced - all night! It was great! Lots of good music and dancing! It was great fun! And about 11pm, our limo came - and we headed out!

We finally are married. MARRIED!

It's funny - we had been waiting for this moment for months and months and months - years actually - but I was really really nervous. The music I chose to walk down the aisle to was a beautiful piano rendition of Christina Peri's "A thousand years" - which is something

I am still glad (only one month later) that I chose! But it was a really long time for people to get seated, and everyone of the girls to walk in slowly and take their place. I was hiding up above, on the balcony - and having a good time just sneaking a peak at everyone waiting. I have to say, I prayed and paced a lot up in that corridor. I was mainly worried about falling down the stairs in my beautiful shoes! But then, Alexis, our wedding planner, came to make sure I went on time - I was so nervous - but then I took this big breath

and just went for it. And I am sure I shook the whole time - but I remembered to have a big smile on my face. I don't think I breathed again until I was up with Josh. We had such a beautiful ceremony - most of which I don't remember really. We hired Wiley Lowe to be officiant -

and actually that was one of those decisions where I was just so glad we bit the bullet and hired someone. Everyone raved about Wiley afterwards - I had actually seen him in a YouTube video and known that was who I wanted to marry us! We had our friends Abel and Sinead do a reading - and then George and Mary did one. It was great to have them in the wedding with us. I cried a lot the whole time, but I managed to get through my "I do" without my voice shaking too much! And then, the glass was broken, and the music came on, and we walked down the aisle ( with poor Shelby trying to rescue my veil!) and then - it's like all my worries faded away - because we were finally married!

Surrounded by our family and friends

We got married! The ceremony was lovely - and I was so much more relaxed once we had gotten the ceremony out of the way and people weren't looking at me anymore. Once the exit music came on - I started dancing and was so happy! We were finally married - after all this time! So we

headed around the front of the house, and all the groomsmen and bridesmaids followed us around, and we took all sorts of family photos. Ones with our families and grandparents, and brothers and sisters. I liked those photos so much - especially this lovely one of me and my grandma.

We had all the guests in the back having a cocktail hour, and little canapes. Some of the food we chose for the wedding was really great - we had chicken and waffles - and little bang bang shrimp - it was all super yummy! One of the reasons that we chose the Powell Crosley was because the light was so beautiful and amazing. They have these beautiful Banyan trees along the side of the house, which are amazing, and we took the bridesmaids and groomsmen to these trees - and took lots of great pictures.

We took some individually and together and the boys took all sorts of silly photos - I love these boyband photos they took too! Very silly! We then took a couple more photos, and signed our marriage liscence. While we were out taking photos, Abel and Sinead, our JET friends from Ireland, were out with their baby. His mum came and looked after the baby and then took baby Casio home so they could enjoy themselves! While they were out there, we were able to get

our photographer to take a photo of the four of us. It was one of my favourites of the whole day - it wasn't planned or organized - just taken. And we look so happy! I was really pleased how the photos turned out for this - the colours and such. Everyone had been such a good sport and worn colours which went

with the colour scheme - and my mismatched bridesmaid dresses worked out really well! And our grandparents all wore light colours too which went really well together. I was so glad I was fussy about that, because it looked great! After all the photos, we went back into the house to be announced for the reception!