28th June 2014 - Our Wedding Photos - Getting Ready!

Happy Sunday!

We are ecstatic to finally be able to share our professional wedding photos with you!

It's so much fun reliving our day - can't believe we've already been married for over four months!

It was a no-brainer for us to wake up together and get ready (mostly) together on our wedding day. As we were getting married at 5pm, we felt like if we were separate, we would have missed each other all day, and on what was to be our best day, it made more sense to have our very best friend (each other) by our sides. Also, as our bridesmaids were 'joint', we didn't really have girls who would naturally stay with one of us. 

The above is Riverside Lodge - our venue, and where half of our abroad guests stayed for the three days we were up there. You'll see more of it in our 'details' post!

When we woke up the morning of our wedding and looked outside, it was drizzling slightly, and we thought we had come all the way to the other side of the world to escape a rainy England wedding, and... ended up with a rainy England wedding! That would have been alright of course, but we were really relieved when the clouds broke up and the sun peaked through - the weather we had hoped for!

Aren't the Idaho mountains incredible?

Funnily enough, Laura ended up getting in trouble on our wedding day - she went off with her mum to help put up the gorgeous signs her mum made, some bonding time, and ended up being away for over an hour! She arrived back to a stormy faced Sarah - who had even sent a bridesmaid to look for Laura! Luckily a kiss and all was forgiven.

We did hair and makeup with mimosas served in our Westminster seal champagne glasses we were given at our legal wedding in March, and spent time with our mums and bridesmaids - it was so fun and relaxed!

Afterwards, we ate some lunch, and our mums had their hair and makeup done. Then came the gifts - we gave our girls their thank you's, and Sarah's mum gave her a token of good luck.

Love this one of our florist seeing our wedding day looks!

The girls got ready, and helped us get into our dresses. This is where we separated - we didn't see each other from when we put on our dresses/accessories/veils until our first look.

 Sarah went first!

She's free!

Then Sarah was sent outside to the docks where we would have our first look, and it was Laura's turn. 

 

Then, we were ready for the great unveiling! 

Next post, on Tuesday 18th November - our First Look!

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Is It Time To Get Festive Yet?

Attack of the Christmas ads, maybe I should rephrase that it didn't sound very Christmassy - welcome the Christmas ads!

Here is how pretty much every meeting I had today went:
Them: 'How are you?'
Me: 'Good - you?'
Them: 'Good - can't believe it's almost Christmas - have you seen xxxxxx (insert any of the below here) advert?'
Me: 'Ah yes I awwwwed, wiped a tear, felt a longing for a white Christmas and then consoled myself with the fact that the amount of food coming my way will make up for a lack of snow - NOT'.

So anyway for those of you who haven't quite had the time to sit back and enjoy the festive ads on offer in the UK let us offer you a whistle stop tour.

Firstly John Lewis:

Awwww isn't it sweet, or as my Dad point out - highly unrealistic as penguins are from the South Pole and therefore nothing to do with Christmas! In fact it is kinda sweet in a cuddly toy way but it is a shame there wasn't a bit more equal love shared and it's not just us who think so:

(From the Evening Standard)

But the popularity of penguins must be at all time high if the sold out range and craziness to get some penguin themed clothes in store today was anything to go by.


Then there is Sainsbury's:

Maybe I should have mentioned a tissue may be required. Based on a story that war stopped on Christmas day for a game of football you can't help but appreciated the message in this poignant clip.

Aldi kept to a food theme:

So does Waitrose:

Marks and Spencers went with this:

Erm okay.......
I think I prefer this one:

I am counting down the day till we get to unpack ours, we are even attempting lights this year - cue much excited, fear and OMG this could be AMAZING or TERRIBLE! Lets hope for the former!


But nothing beats good olde Coca-Cola for that Christmas feeling:

Are you feeling festive yet?

Made in Dagenham - The Review!

It’s rare that I feel compelled to write about something almost immediately after it happened but after seeing Made in Dagenham last night I wanted to get this post written before I forgot things I wanted to say.

So here goes my review of Made in Dagenham, currently showing at the Aldephi Theatre, London. http://www.madeindagenhamthemusical.com/

To start at the beginning, I had no idea what to expect in terms of story or show, I had heard of Dagenham but only as a place in Essex and this made me somewhat nervous – neither L nor I are ‘Only Way Is Essex’ fans, what if the whole show was about living in Essex?! – it wasn't!

We actually ended up at the show because of a lovely Twitter friend we made a couple of years ago, as we work in London she lets us know if any tickets become available as we can attend on short notice. And that’s what we did. And we are so glad we did.

This show pulls you in from the start with catchy songs and a true-to-life feel that just about anyone could relate to. Essentially it is a feminist story but that doesn't become obvious until the plot gets moving. It starts in a typical suburban house in the 60’s. Both parents work in a car factory – the wife sewing seat covers, the husband in the manufacturing plant. On top of the day job, the wife cooks, cleans and looks after the kids - after all, it’s ‘her role’.

The play is based on real life events, the story really happened, it was dramatised in a 2010 film and for this production songs were added for musical flair but at the heart is a true story. Not only that, the situations, the events, the views of women's roles in society have not moved on significantly since 1968 so the story could just as well be happening today – it's really clever. As the tag-line states, it is about showing ‘how ordinary people can do extraordinary things when they stand together’ and this show did just that.

I won’t give the story away completely but a few of the key issues that it brought to light were:

• Equal rights
• Fair pay
• Women’s rights
• Society’s view of women

The issues are just as relevant today as they would have been then. On the way to work yesterday, we heard on the news ‘essentially the pay divide means women are working for free for the rest of year compared to men being paid to do the same job’. Can you imagine!!!! Laura and I are lucky enough to work for companies that do not have ‘pay gaps’ dependent on sex so are not experiencing this, but plenty are! Thankfully this has changed since the 60’s in most roles because of the Equal Pay Act of the 1970’s– no doubt in part because of the women at the heart of this story.

From the Metro.co.uk

‘Women are half as likely as men to be in a job paying more than £50,000 a year. While full-time female workers earn on average £28,000, men earn £33,000. This is a difference of £5,000, or 16 per cent. Perhaps most upsettingly, it means that women are effectively working for free from today until Christmas. Yes, for free. Just giving our time, energy and talent away like it’s worthless.’

From: MadeInDagenhamthemusical.com

Besides the pay gap debate that is still raging on, the other topic that struck a chord was equality. Again, the world has moved on since the 1960’s but when they said the line ‘If not now, then when’ – it wasn't just L&I that looked at each other and whispered ‘Didn't Emma Watson say that in her UN speech, just weeks ago! (HERE)’ In fact, weren't these the very words that launched the ‘#heforshe’ campaign?

Much like Emma’s point that feminism isn't just a woman’s issue, this play highlighted the role that men can play; in fact, the result of the play would have been very different if men weren't involved. It was just eye-opening to see how a society so focused on established rules literally saw their world collapse when one group of women pointed out that fair pay was fair. It was as if no-one had ever thought about it.

The actor playing Harold Wilson, the then Prime Minister, even came out with the line ‘well why are women working when the war is over?!’ it was the 60’s – women worked – how could such an out of touch leader have dealt with a society that he was clearly clueless about? Another point that is oh so relevant in the UK today!

Putting aside the wonderful subject matter and important message, this is a top musical - the singing is flawless, acting is realistic and not cheesy (often difficult to do in a musical!) and the jokes are funny and well executed.

So if you are in London, go see this musical! We will definitely be making a second trip!

Halloween Weekend!! A Weekend Round Up

This past weekend was one of my favourite holidays - Halloween! And on top of it, one of my closest friends from school is here in England on her way home from a travel nursing assignment in India. So, it was a doubley awesome week!

On Thursday, in the lead up to Halloween, Sarah and I continued our annual tradition of seeing the Rocky Horror Picture Show at Prince Charles Cinema in London. It has been my favourite movie since I was 14 or so, and we've seen it every year we have been together (except one, 2010 when we were in Oz!).

This time, we took along my friend (also named Sarah, great name!) who had not seen RHPS before, let alone attended a screening full of people in corsets and fishnets, yelling at the screen and participating in the film. And we didn't really know how to explain the concept beforehand, either. So the poor thing I'm sure thought it was incredibly weird! But it seems she loved it all the same, even though someone threw rice in her beer haha. 

BTW I love Tim Curry so so much.

Friday, I threw a Halloween lunch for my colleagues at work. It was so much fun - I had creatively themed foods, a pumpkin carving competition, Halloween music videos going on in the background - it was awesome! My colleagues all dressed up as well, which I loved.

It's so odd being an American in this country, because on one hand I love being the influence to make my favourite holidays fun for all my colleagues. But also, I feel a bit sad that Halloween isn't EVERYWHERE like it is at home! It was their first ever time carving a pumpkin, most had never trick or treated before, or only done it once and not again because so few houses participated, oh and here, Halloween has to be scary costumes - my Cinderella one was certainly out of place! But on the plus side, at least now they can all say they've carved a pumpkin! Captain America strikes again!

We left early from work to get up to Birmingham for our very first year in the house to receive trick-or-treaters! I'd left a skeleton up all week as a sign to parents that we would be giving out sweets. But then, there were two accidents on our way up - resulting in us not getting home until after 7pm! I was sure our house would be egg'd or something for having the decorations up but not being in!

Luckily, as we pulled up there were two trick-or-treaters next door, making our way to ours. I scooted inside just in time! And am happy to report we got about 10 kids to our house!! I was pretty impressed as it would have been too late for the really little ones. I was surprised to see no Elsa's from Frozen - I know I'd been told about the scary costume thing, but didn't truly believe people wouldn't dress up as princesses or Disney characters! Either way, I almost cried because I was so happy - such an awesome Halloween, being proper grown ups, in our proper house, giving out candy.

Saturday, our friend Lisa joined, for a girls weekend/Vegas reunion. We took them into Birmingham town centre, where we walked the canals in the sunshine, and had a yummy pub lunch. We love nothing more than showing friends around, whether its London or Birm!

We went to Bonfire Night fireworks in the evening, it was good fun to take Sarah (our friend, not my wife) to celebrate a holiday they've never even heard of in the states). It wasn't too cold too, and we loved feeling like locals! We finished the evening with a delicious roast, and having her try a Yorkshire pudding - the result of a hilarious miscommunication where we were saying she should try one, and she was telling us she doesn't really like dessert - we couldn't figure out where the convo was going wrong, until finally we realised the word 'pudding' was throwing her off, it's not sweet!

Sunday was amazing, relaxing, couch-ing, eating, and enjoying our home. 

What a weekend, what a way to usher in November! Now I can't get in trouble for singing Christmas tunes!!