Richard and Heather

Sailing - Greece 2008

2008-02-26T19:25:00.001Z

At the London Boat Show in January, we booked a flitilla cruise with Seafarer Cruises. We will be sailing in the Sporades, in Eastern Greece. So far there are four of us booked on a 36' yacht for a week from the 14th of June. Looking forward to it.

photos from the photographer

2007-08-12T21:08:00.000Z

The photographer has sent us a link for her website with the photos. If you go to http://www.lizneville.com and then to 'photo order' you can search under 'Christie' for our photos. I think she still can't remember my new surname.

We have completely lost steam on this one and although she has been great about sending us all the info and photos promptly, we have done nothing with them. She keeps gently bugging us but I think these gentle reminders will quickly turn into snarly shoves to do something. Worse than not ordering our photos, we haven't finished our thank-you cards! V bad. We've put a time in the diary to complete all the wedding stuff.

Married life good so far and suiting both of us very well. And we're settling nicely into our new little flat. Before we got married we hoped that we'd be able to have somewhere that we could entertain friends and family and have a welcoming home. So far we seem to be doing just that and have had lots of people to visit. There are still so many more to see and also so many people to visit around the country. Maybe we need to start a list and then when we get to the bottom we start all over again :-)

So now to all the lists ...

Sailing options for 2008

2007-07-30T09:35:00.000Z

Since we met sailing, and since we enjoyed St Lucia so much on our honeymoon, we are thinking of combining the two activities and going sailing in the Caribbean next year, starting in St Lucia.

I looked at Moorings first of all, and their catamarans start at £522 per day (so £52.20 per person per day if we put the maximum 10 people on). Flights aren't included in that, so it sounds a bit pricey.

Other options, based on a quick search:

http://www.yacht-charter-caribbean.com/destinations/YACHT_CHARTER_St_Lucia_CARIBBEAN_EN.html

http://www.dsl-yachting.com/rates/sterling.shtml

http://www.caribbean-adventure.com/yacht_charter_st-lucia.php3

http://stlucia-guide.info/getting.there/sailing.and.yachting/

Watch this space...

Richard

Tick tock, tick tock...

2007-03-17T00:28:00.000Z

Just 11 weeks to go. According to Heather, we're getting married in the 22nd week of the year, so I guess we are halfway through our engagement! We are really enjoying ourselves, but the waiting is very frustrating. I keep telling Heather to pretend we aren't going to get married for YEARS yet, so it will somehow be easier to be patient, but I don't think that's working for either of us.

The effort that we are putting into having a fun wedding does act as a counterbalance in one way, at least. Having slaved away at making invitations and started organising the rest of the day, and now that we've told people details of the date and venue, we're definitely not going to run off and elope now, as tempting as that is :-) There's also the small matter of my flat not being big enough for two, so we can't move in together yet _anyway_. Sigh.

Looking forward to starting our life together.

Richard

News from Heather

2007-03-03T14:41:00.001Z

It's been a long time since I've written anything and so much has happened. Rich has included a short list of what we've been up to. It seems like so much is already organised but that is hard to believe. Often have moments of vague panic thinking about the million and one things that still need to be done.

But actually when I look back at how much we've done in 2 months I'm very proud of us. The most important stuff is booked – namely the church and the reception venue. And we've met up with Charlie, our minister, to talk about the order of service. It was good to meet with him but also slightly panic inducing. We've got a vague order of service, some ideas of songs and the passage that will be used for the service. But still need to fill in more details, like flowers at the church and people to do stuff. Hmmm

Other stuff that's been done include getting my dress. Yes, it's finally done! I spent a fun and mad day with my bridesmaids trying on wedding dresses. We had to book times at the various dress shops, madly try on about 10 dresses, looking in various mirrors and then rush to the car and drive at speed to the next dress shop, hop out and look composed in front of the next shop assistant. Great fun! And found something that I liked – and then found it somewhere else for less by doing an internet search (yay for technology!). So that's now bought and expected to arrive from the far east at the beginning of May in time for final fittings.

We've also found our photographer on the recommendation of friends. We initially thought we'd just ask some friends to take photos of the day but then a lot of people told us that the actual day is such a blur that the best way to remember things is through the photos. So it's worth spending the money on a good photographer.

We've spent this weekend finalising the guest list and making invites. Rich's flat looks like a craft shop explored in there, bits of paper and ribbon, rulers and pens and knives scattered to the winds. My bridesmaid Alison sacrificed her Saturday to come and help us. Good friend Ali :-). We still have more to finish today but hopefully will get most of it done and sent out.

And we've also finalised honeymoon! Yay! And that's all the info you're going to get about that.

So it feels like a lot has been done but still so much to do. Making steady progress. At this stage it just feels like we have the big things sorted and now we just need to fill in the details.

And that includes invites! So nose to the grindstone...

Progress report

2007-02-23T17:08:00.000Z

Well, sorry about the silence from us. We have been getting things done and it all seems to be coming together nicely. Here's what we've been doing since the last update:

- Went on a marriage preparation course
- Met with Charlie Skrine, our minister, to discuss the outline of the ceremony
- booked a photographer
- booked a florist
- looked at wedding rings, but didn't find ones we liked
- started making invitations

There's still loads more to do, but the really scary stuff seems to be coming together... unless we are forgetting something!

Richard

Engagement Story

2007-01-17T17:58:00.000Z

Rich proposed to me in my kitchen on new years day while we were cooking dinner (a great start to the year. So far 2007 my all time favourite).

We had just come back from a glorious holiday in Jamaica. We had gone there so that we could spend Christmas there and I could meet his family. And it was a beautiful and fantastic country. We had great time there and loved spending so much time with each other and with his family. One of the best holidays.

And so we returned with the firm idea of getting married sometime in the new year. But the question of 'when' still remained. So I was sort of expecting a proposal but...

Anyway, we were in my kitchen on new year's day cooking dinner. I got up to go and get the peas out of the freezer and saw Rich come up behind me. When I turned around I saw that he had a very serious look on his face and so I hugged him and smiled. He then said, "Heather, will you marry me?". And I was initially so taken aback I didn't know what to think. Was this real? And it was! I was so shocked and thrilled and happy! Dropped the frozen peas (which I am now convinced are now a vital feature of any romance) and said, "yes, yes, yes". We then almost burnt supper and had to throw away most of it as no appetite (ahhh, love).

The next day (Tues) we went through to the diamond district in London (called Hatton Gardens) with the hope of maybe looking in some windows at something and getting an idea of what we wanted for engagement rings. We thought most places would be closed. But there was one shop open and the owner (a little orthodox Jewish man) ushered us in, showed us a whole range of rings and we found one we both loved. Easy :-) And then we went to a posh restaurant and I got another proposal with champagne. And then back to my place for coffee and my third proposal - this time on bended knee. And in case you're wondering, I said yes every time.

Most things so far in the planning have proved to be easier than expected and we are now in the happy position of having a date for the wedding (June 2007), the church and minister and a reception venue booked.

So onward to the new day. Will keep you posted with further developments.

More venue shopping.

2007-01-14T01:59:00.000Z

We saw two potential venues for our wedding reception today. The basic plan is to have an afternoon wedding, starting around 2pm, then the wedding party will have photos while dinner guests head from the church to the venue, where we will join them once the happy snappy bit is done. We will then proceed to eat drink and generally be merry. Then, in the evening there will be music and dancing, with more guests joining us for that phase of the evening. The guest lists are still evolving, we're just happy to have a clear idea of what we want, and it seems like we are making progress. I don't want to put up any details of the venue until it's all set, hopefully very soon.

Dates and venues

2007-01-09T23:06:00.000Z

The date, the church and the minister are booked , which I think is the critical bit! The reception venue hasn't been confirmed yet, but Heather found something really cool, so hopefully we will be able to book that, maybe as soon as tomorrow. Then there is "only" the hundreds of other things to worry about. It's going to be a busy few months, that's for sure.

Richard

About Us

2007-01-08T22:40:00.000Z

In case you don't know us both, here's a tiny shapshot of who we are and how we met.

Richard is Jamaican, and has been living in London since July 2002. He's an enthusiastic sailor, not-so-enthusiastic long distance runner and an avid technophile. He works in the City as a technical consultant providing computer software programming services to large large investment banks.

Heather is South African and has been living at various places in London and South-East England since January 2002. She likes the outdoors, reading and baking. She is a Speech and Language Therapist working for the NHS.

We met 1st July 2006 on a sailing trip in Greece. After seven days of adventure including major storms on the first day of the trip we definitely were interested in each other and started dating when we got back to London.

Much more to tell, but I'll stick this online now and come back to it later perhaps.

We're engaged!!

2007-01-08T22:24:00.000Z

On the 1st of January 2007 I proposed to Heather, and she said yes!! There's a funny story to the proposal, which I may put up here later. We went shopping for the engagement ring together in London's Hatton Gardens diamond district. That was actually really easy, we found a jeweller who was open late and he showered us with a variety of styles, before we found the right one, a yellow gold band with a white gold setting for a solitaire round-cut diamond.

We're planning the wedding for the 2nd of June 2007, at St Helen's church Bishopsgate, in London. That's the church we both attend and having the service means a lot to us as we start our new life together.

More to come...