Our Day by Design

M E R R Y C H R I S T M A S I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas!

My sister's wedding on Saturday was fantastic! Congratulations to the new Mr & Mrs! Despite the terrible weather down south, everyone made it to the wedding and we all had a fabulous day. There will be proper recaps in the new year, where I also hope to get the bride herself to tell us about their big day, but for now here are some quick shots of the day. The bride wore Vera Wang and the theme was London which included a red bus; a tube map table plan; tube stop table names; Harrods chocolates & my nephew had a London jumper under his suit! With mum & dad With me & the best man Matt With me & Graham at Norton House (All images from me or facebook friends)

My sister is getting married today! (Date images inspired by Anna & taken from here ) I'm so excited for her and my soon to be brother-in-law Patrick and think its going to be a perfect day! At the moment we should be back from the hairdressers and be in the process of getting our make-up done since the ceremony isn't until 1pm. Ashleigh & Patrick, I hope you have the most perfect day and its everything you wanted. We cant wait to share it with you both!

We got back from Florida on Sunday and went straight back to work on Monday; back to normality already {well until tomorrow when the wedding festivities begin!} We had a fantastic holiday and I'm so glad we were able to make it for the week after the terrible weather which was effecting all of the airports & flights from the UK! I will do a proper post at some point about our trip but here are a few of the highlights: shopping, shopping and more shopping; {we took empty hand luggage cases to fill to bring home; only 3 Coach handbags this year!} the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Islands of Adventure ; family participation in Macy's Holiday Parade at Universal Studios ; {Grahams mum, dad, aunt & uncle got to help carry the Uncle Sam float!} Epcot ; Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party ; cocktails & dinner at the Grand Floridian ; our fancy hire car {don't ask, we got a discount on the upgrade since it was my birthday}; and even a romantic proposal in f...

8 months today since we got married, this year has flown by! I have had another very busy month with lots of birthdays and my sisters hen weekend which I organised and made some stuff for. We also had another blogger meet up in Glasgow where I met My Spare Thoughts , Adventures of a Dizzy Girl & Conversation Pieces again and also This Girl Is... for the first time which was lovely. I made some more invites for my sister and also did a mock-up on their order of service which is currently in progress as well as helping with a few other wedding bits & pieces. I finally finished my wedding recaps and have started on my honeymoon ones but there is a lot more to come! So if the airport is open again today, we should be on our way to Florida then once we get back I have a Christmas blog swap and then my sisters wedding which I'm so excited about! (All images by Craig & Eva Sanders )

Its my 29th birthday! Hopefully at the moment we are on route to Florida for 8 nights, where I'm looking forward to getting away from the cold & all the snow! We have lots of lovely things planned for when we are there including Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party, Epcot and Universal's Islands of Adventure so we can visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter! Although we will probably have computer access, there wont be many posts over the next week or so but I'm hoping I can keep up with all my other blogs in my google reader! I will leave you with a picture from my 28th birthday last year which we spent at Epcot, since I was able to get in to a Disney park for free! Hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Last weekend, the 20th / 21st November, I was down in London for the Hen Do for my sister Ashleigh, who is getting married on the 18th December. I am the only bridesmaid, or maid of honour, so it was up to me to arrange the weekend of events and keep it a complete surprise from Ashleigh. The only thing she knew was that it was to be held in London, where she lives {since the wedding is up in Edinburgh}, and that we were going to stay over somewhere for one night. It was a fantastic weekend and Ashleigh loved everything I had planned, from start to finish! Since both me, mum, my aunt and Ashleigh's friend Claire had all come down from Edinburgh on the 6.25am flight on Saturday, we had to get up at 4.30am and me, Claire & Ashleigh didn't go to bed until 4.30am on the Sunday morning. We started drinking at Ashleigh's at 11.30am and probably didn't stop until the club closed at 3am, so I was probably drinking for almost 16 of those 24 hours! L-R: Ashleigh, Claire, ...

Congratulations to the wonderful Anna from Anna and the Ring , who is marrying her Bean today! As I'm sure you are all aware, Anna is another British blogger who was one of the first to find my blog last July; she was so supportive up to and since our wedding, I love getting all of her lovely comments and she even left my this lovely post on my wedding day. I have loved reading Anna's blog up to her big day and I'm so excited for them both and cant wait to hear all about the wedding! I very almost met Anna last month but hopefully we can arrange a proper meet up soon! I hope you both have a fabulous day and it is everything you could have wished for! xxx

I wrote a guest post for Laura at Purple & Pearls , while she is on her fabulous honeymoon, about the last bit of DIY I did for our wedding, the Thank You Cards! You can read all about how I made them, the supplies I used, as well as the photo cards we put inside, over there ; hope you enjoy!

It was another early start the next morning, so that we could get to the rock fortress of Sigiriya before it got too hot since it involved an energetic climb to the top for the spectacular view. The guidebooks even warn you about the climb before you go! So hats, water and trainers at the ready we arrived at Sigiriya before 9am and started our climb. Even at that early time in the morning, it was so hot, which made the climb harder so I would not have liked to have done it during the hottest part of the day. Twice we saw people who had to lie down as they had underestimated the climb in such a heat, and the amount of water needed to get all the way to the top. Half way up there is a mirror wall and up a small metal spiral staircase there is a gallery of cave paintings. At the top of the rock is the main fortress. Lions paws guard the entrance to the palace ruin which is right at the top. It was definitely worth the climb to see the views but the last bit on the rickety metal stair...