Anyone who knows us, knows that Dave and I have a shared love of all this motorcar.  We have quite difference tastes, but we are definatly both lovers of the internal combustion engine.  I am more of a 50's chrome fanatic, with the aim of owning a Morris, a mini, a beatle, a camper van and a nissan figaro one day.  Dave is more of your Koningegg, Ferrari, Caterham fan.

So it was no great surprise that one of the first things we booked for the wedding was a car to take me and dad to the church, and dave and I back to the Chilworth.  ( see about the 3rd post of this blog for a picture) However there was an underlaying issue regarding how Dave would get to church.  The proposed solution was he should walk, it would only take about 40mins and would do him the world of good, but Dave had other ideas!

As many of you will know for the last few years Dave has wanted to build a kit car.  When we first got engaged (feels like a long time ago now) we discussed Dave buying a kit and building it in time for the wedding.  A quick bit of maths based on the average build time and the number of weekends between then and the wedding left us in no doubt that building a car was out of the question.  However, there are plenty of people willing to sell on their hard earned projects, normally as the result of finishing one and starting another or unfortunatly very commonly the birth of a child precluding the need for a 2 seater car with no roof!

So consequently Dave went on a mission to find a ready built, MOT'd, roadworthly kit car.  And I am very happy to report (as he will now stop moaning on! - sorry involving me in his decision making process) that a deposit has been paid and we are awaiting a call to say it is ready to be picked up.

For my part I know it is blue with silver wheels and has no roof.  If you ask Dave, he would say "It is a Locust 7 which is replica of the famous Colin Chapman Lotus7 which some would remember from the TV series "The Prisoner".  This example although true to form in its mechanics (kent cross-flow engine, rear wheel drive etc) ha s lightly more modern twist with the blue colour scheme and 17" wheels." The car is intented to be a starting point for Dave to learn more about the upkeep of cars and the mechanics involved, with the aim to build one from scratch in the future. 

If you would  like to see some pictures of this spendid vehicle see the link below.

http://s176.photobucket.com/albums/w178/drmparsons/Locost%207/

The one slight fly in the ointment of this whole process is that this joy in our lives, will not fit in the garage we bought for it!  Yes ladies and gentlemen when we moved house 2 years ago we specifically bought a house with a garage to put a car in, unlike everyone else in world who fills them with junk!  However, our garage has cupboards and a washing machine in and unfortunatly as it stands won't allow the car to fit.  So a rented garage has been sourced from the council, at the very reasonable rate of £8.17 per week as a temporary measure.  We now have to rejig all the cupboard and move the washing machine (including its pipework) to fit the beast in!  

I hindsight I am thinking buidling the car would have been easier :)

But we will get in done and Dave has his car, that, to be honest, is all I care about :)

So for reasons best known to myself?!?  I decided that it would be a really good idea to go Wedding dress shopping the day after the engagement party.  Having woken up at 6am (as usual) and realised that the cocktails Stuart had been making me were not as low alcohol as I had first thought, I proceded to get washed dress and have some breakfast.  

Then was the challenge of raising one of my bridesmaids, who in her defense was up, showered and ready to go on time.

We met round my mum's house where Bridesmaid no2 and both mothers were up and ready to go.  Bridesmaid no2 also wishing the cocktails had been less alcofolic.

But anyway, we were off and in the wedding dress shop for 11am.  For anyone who has not been through this saga recently/ever, the form seems to be you are given some sort of tag/peg/ribbon, to attach to a number of dresses you would like to try on.  SO each of my dress desision guests was given a tag htey could place on a dress and I put tags on Two I had previously tried on and liked.  The helper in the shop then muddled them all up to see what the judging panel thought of them all, without knowing which was my favourite.  So my panel was assembled in an xFactor style line and it was quite a comical affair with them judging each entry.  However, progress was made when I tried on my favourite (i didn't tell the panel this till after) and they all liked it.  

Whilst we were in this shop we also had a very comical time of getting both bridesmaid (Louise and Vicky) to try on some bridesmaids dresses.  Comical because the shop we were in either had tiny dresses in nice colours, or normal size dresses in the most awful colours.  The image of Vicky in a barbie pink strapless net based monster will never leave me.  But in all this madness we found a dress that both girls like and looks good woth "my dress"

Yes the decision has been made, I have choosen my wedding dress, the job is done.  

So a big sigh of relief was had by all, although we did go to another appointment just to check there is not another dress hiding somewhere, but this only served to confirm its a Yes from me.

Evening,

So the engagement party was nearly two weeks ago now but it feels like we are only just recovering from it!  The day started with a lot of cooking and preparation.  Having spent a significant amount of money on Friday night in Sainsburys another trip was required and another £100 was spent.  The on to ma and da's to start the preparation.  And with a little help from my friends (thanks Vicky and Jon) we were all prep'd and ready for 1pm.  But as with any party people don't arrive till at least an hour later so we had some time for photo's and a nice sit down.

I hope a wonderful day was had by all, Dave and I certainly enjoyed it.  For anyone who missed Dave in a grass skirt showing off his new swelt look, we will try and upload some pictures!  The weather could not have been better and I think we picked the one sunny day for this whole year!  As many people said on the day, hopefully this bodes well for next year!

A big thank you to my mum and dad for hosting the whole day, to Vicky and Jon for helping with all the prep and a kind of thankyou to my brother for all the cocktails he somehow produced.  Although I have to say I think I would have been better off with a few less!  

Highlights for those who missed out were everyone's customes, my Dad's mamouth 3 hrs at the BBQ, Rob the meat monitor, the Volcano eruption as performed by my Dad and Kate Bush and definatly the Kar-e-oke washing up.  The hardened few arrived back at opur house at about 1:15am so a 12 hour party  isn't bad going really!  Thank you to all those who travelled to come, it was really lovely to see you all, and thank you for the presents we recieved, a really lovely thought. 

I hope everyone's heads were not too bad the next morning, I have to say I had to have a little snooze in the afternoon to make it all better but it was definatly worth it.