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-   -   Tracey & Neil's UK Bonfire Night/Disney Wedding (Nov 2016) & Disneymoon (May 2017) (https://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=784488)

tracey1302 9 Apr 14 12:26 PM

Tracey & Neil's UK Bonfire Night/Disney Wedding (Nov 2016) & Disneymoon (May 2017) Dress, pg 7!
 
Hello everyone :wave:

I've already posted on here with a 'should we, shouldn't we' have a Disney wedding but as I've just got engaged and am super excited, I thought I would start my planning journal! Hurrah!

This is going to be a long ride from start to finish but as there will be technically two weddings to plan, there will be a lot to talk about and a lot of planning to do!:d:

About Us



We are a couple from Halifax, West Yorkshire and have known each other since play group. Yeah, I know, we really need to get out more :blush: This is us in our first year at Primary School.



I am a lecturer in a University in Yorkshire (probably best not say where haha) and Neil works in Investments. We live in a beautiful village just outside of Halifax and, aside from going to University and the like, have lived in this village with our respective families, all our lives. It is a beautiful village. One of those idyllic Yorkshire ones where everyone knows everyone and people say 'Hi' to each other on the street. One of those where you can't really go to the local shop without seeing someone you know. We love it and I can't imagine us ever moving. We're not really creatures of change.

How we got together

This is usually a 'how we met' story but that doesn't really work for us as we've known each other since Playgroup.

Neil and I have been friends for a very long time. We went to primary school together and secondary school together. We were in different classes at secondary school. I was in Neil's set for History at A Level. He was a rebel who never did his work, I was a geek who always did (three weeks before deadlines etc etc. - I was always a planner!) We weren't particularly friends in school as we hung out with very different people. But through where we lived, we always saw each other at family dos and family friends' birthday parties and the like. Our parents all knew each other very well. As we got older, at said parties, we became good friends. We would find ourselves talking to each other quite a lot at these parties or pub visits or whatever.

Then we went to Uni and that was that. In University holidays, because of our mutual group of home friends, we seemed to spend more and more time together. At my oldest friend's 21st birthday party, I was talking to Neil pretty much all evening, until he walked me home home at 4 in the morning :blush: Nothing happened between us at this point but my tummy had that little nervous twinge!

Couple more years passed and every time I saw Neil, I started to feel that feeling. You know, the one where your fingers start tingling and your stomach swoops when they walk into a room. Yeah, I started to feel that. At a NYE party of one of our friends, we ended up talking to each other all evening again. After that, we started texting, getting more flirtacious. I asked him to attend my oldest friend's wedding with me, as my guest. This was the same friend who's 21st it had been. While this may sound a bit 'WOAH, that's a bit too soon' it really wasn't with us. We spent that much time together at these sorts of events with family friends, people genuinely wouldn't have batted an eyelid!

After this invitation and continuous flirtacious texts, we finally went on a date. Although neither of us labelled it as such, obviously. At the end of the date, Neil gave a me a long hard gaze and thanked me for a wonderful evening and made to leave... I wasn't having that. I'd waited years, so I just said, 'Neil...' and he walked up to me and kissed me. It was so amazing, I get goosebumps thinking about it even now.

And that was that. We've been together ever since. Friends and family weren't in the slightest bit surprised. Turns out, they had known that it would happen before we even did :d:I genuinely believe that Neil is my soulmate. I'm not usually for all this stuff, having had two bad relationships before Neil, I always sort of thought that you just have to work at relationships but we are genuinely two halves of a whole. We have the same sense of humour, laugh in all the wrong places in movies, we both LOVE movies. Our DVD collection is inexplicably large, we both love good food and wine but most of all, we just *fit*. What seemed strange for both of us is that when we started going out, having gone from friends to lovers very quickly, it just didn't feel strange at all. It just felt like, 'Why haven't we been doing this the whole time?' We wasted a lot of time with the wrong people.

The Proposal

Everyone always dreams of their perfect proposal. For some, it's just at home over dinner. For others in sky writing, for others, on Christmas morning. I had always envisioned getting engaged in Disney. Being a Disney fanatic in every way possible and always secretly wanting the whole Disney wedding thing, it just fit for me. And by the time we had this July 2014 holiday booked, me and my entire family were convinced that that was where Neil was going to propose. Neil had other ideas and has since said that because that's where everyone thought he was going to do it, that's where he would never have done it. And in hindsight, I am so thrilled that he didn't do it there. :D

We booked to go to Kirkby Lonsdale in January of this year for our five year anniversary. I booked us into a beautiful place called the Sun Inn.



Highly recommended if anyone fancies an amazing quiet weekend break. It was just amazing. Big comfy beds, fluffy white robes, open roaring fireplaces etc. On my Mum's recommendation (as her and Martin go to Kirkby a lot) I booked us into a restaurant called the Avanti. Again amazing.

We had lunch in Settle on the way up and generally enjoyed a wonderful day together in Kirkby Lonsdale. Had a couple of drinks in the gorgeous quaint pubs, did a bit of shopping, then got ready to go out for our meal. This is the Avanti restaurant.



We had an amazing meal (no pictures sorry but it was far too dark anyway!) and at the end, Neil went to the loo. Or so I thought. Apparently, he accosted a waiter, told him he was planning to propose and that he needed to get two glasses of champagne to our table in about five minutes.

Neil comes back to the table. I still have absolutely no idea what is about to happen.

Then he begins, 'We've been together for five years now, and I can honestly say it's been the best five years of my life.'

I smile shyly. :inlove: Neil says things like this sometimes, but usually just when we're cuddling together in bed. Not in the middle of a restaurant. But you know, it's our anniversary. He's bound to be romantic. Right:o:

But then...

'And it's from these five years that I know for absolute certain that I want to spend the rest of my life with you.'

And he reaches for his coat pocket...

Me: :omg:

My hands clasped over my mouth as he shifts out of his chair and gets down on one knee right there in the restaurant.

'Tracey, will you marry me?'

And he produces this ring, this beautiful ring that I can't even believe. I sob even more. This picture is from the next day by the way, I didn't go to this gorgeous restaurant in a denim jacket. :d:



The tears fell shamelessly down my cheeks as I just sobbed 'Yes' and gave him a massive hug and kiss!

Sorry, I don't have any pictures of us on the night. The Avanti is really dark though so I don't think they would have come out anyway! :(

Right on cue, the waiter comes over with the champagne and then the rest of the restaurant suddenly realises what's just happened and starts to cheer and clap. I'm still sobbing with happiness at the table, Neil's just thrilled that I said, 'Yes.':d: I stick my hand into the hair showing off my sparkler and a group of women in the corner of the restaurant (think they were celebrating a birthday) suddenly started singing 'Chapel of Love.' :spin: It was genuinely the most amazing moment of my life.

Then we began the long and arduous task of telling everyone we'd got engaged. Which was difficult in Kirkby Lonsdale where there is literally no signal :angry::d:

My Dad already knew, as Neil had done the gentleman's thing and asked my Dad for permission to marry me! Major brownie points scored for that one! And Neil's parents knew as his Mum had caught him looking at rings in the town centre!

TBC

Biscaya 9 Apr 14 01:04 PM

Oh wow what a fabulous story. Just lovely xx.
Congratulations and happy wedding planning

Jo

tracey1302 9 Apr 14 01:17 PM

Wedding Plans

Having known I was going to marry Neil for a long time, as shared in my other thread, and being quite a planner, I have quite a few ideas already. I'm pretty sure Neil is not dissimilar to many other grooms on here. He's not really that bothered :d:

His parents and Neil both know that I have always wanted a Disney wedding but my ideas have been diluted over the years, knowing how upset some of my family would be if they couldn't be there on my wedding day. And Neil's side don't so much as have family but close friends who he wants there so as I say, my ideas have been diluted some.

Realistically, we are looking at at UK Wedding in June 2017 with a Disneymoon and Escape VR. My Mum has already told me (whilst still crying with happiness! :d:) that her and Martin would buy my dress. And Neil's parents have also very generously offered to contribute towards the wedding. However, Neil and I are still madly saving for a house deposit so we are going to have to wait a little while, regardless of contributions. I don't mind though, planning is all the fun! However, as Neil's Mum has said, we may have to set a date sooner than we think as the nice places do get booked up quickly!

Because we live in a very nice area in the middle of West Yorkshire, some of the places round where we live have seemed offputting to me because of:

a) Price
b) Familiarity - I've been to many weddings at the key venues in our area and neither of us want our wedding to be a bit samey samey.

There is one that is being refurbished that we would consider BUT unfortunately, the place is currently a building site so we'll have to hang fire.

Currently, we have three that we really like the look of, all about 45 mins away from where we live so not too bad! :) We haven't been to look at any yet though! We'll leave that till August, September time, I think with Florida in July and then another wedding in July when we get back!

1) The Coniston Hotel, Settle.



View from the hotel.



Ceremony room

Ironically, we saw this hotel as it's on the journey up to and back down from Kirkby and we both though 'Wow!' and this was even before we were engaged and looking. My Mum loves this hotel! This is the most expensive though :confused2

2) Wortley Hall, South Yorkshire



I actually think this place is an absolute BARGAIN. I know prices will go up BUT currently it's at £5995 for a package including all room hire, drinks, three course meal, evening buffet, DJ for 80 day, 100 eve. We would have a few more guests but it doesn't cost the earth to add them on. For the location and the photos and especially;



This is the ceremony room. It's beautiful.:inlove:

Definitely have to see it in person though. :thumbs-up

3) Tankersley Manor, South Yorkshire

This place had me at the ceremony room:



I always fancied somewhere barn-like and quirky, which is why I like the beams at the Coniston. I want something I can make fairy tale like and this just had me at hello. It's got gorgeous gardens and reasonably priced guest rooms and pool and spa. And it's very easy to get to :D

And again, very reasonably priced.

I really like this place which is sooooo close to where we live but they are charging the EARTH! It's like £3000 more expensive than Wortley Hall! :omg:





The Disney Bit

The Wedding Pavilion and the Grand Floridian. End of discussion. If we go with the big UK Wedding which is very likely, then it will be an Escape package with no add-ons! Except maybe some flowers for my sister and extra champagne if we need it.

Think we'll just ask parents, siblings and close family friends who would go to Florida on holiday anyway so for whom the expense of going wouldn't be horrendous :d: Keeping the numbers down for that won't be difficult as we'd probably have to do July as we're doing now to avoid Oliver's A Level exams! (I've thought of everything! ;) )

Then maybe a meal at 'Ohana... I'd love to go to Cali Grill or Narcoossee's but wouldn't want to make it too pricey as people would probably have to pay for themselves, depending on budget!

And a stay at CBR, CSR or SSR! Don't know yet because we can't book that far in advance :angry::d::d:

Anyway, stay tuned and I hope you've enjoyed my wedding PJ so far!

LaurenYorkshir 9 Apr 14 01:17 PM

AWWWW! What a truly lovely story :) I for one am looking forward to seeing your plans come together.

kblackman 9 Apr 14 06:11 PM

Sounds lovely :) can't wait to hear your plans x

hunny 247 9 Apr 14 07:43 PM

Aww what a lovely start! I will be following your plans cant wait to hear more! i live in Halifax and Im planning a 2018 wedding (hopefully in Florida! ) xx

Guest 9 Apr 14 09:11 PM

Great start, looking forward to hearing your plans. I'm planning a Florida wedding for 2016 so glad I'm not the only one thinking ahead.

Guest 9 Apr 14 09:47 PM

Love your plans so far, what a lovely love story :) that barn option looks fab! Can't wait to read more :) x

Guest 10 Apr 14 12:06 AM

All looks great. We would have done a barn if we got married here. I hate carpets and curtains, so any house/hotel/room never seem to go down well with me, I'm like a hawk "look at the horrible carpet!"
I hope you get to have your dream, whatever that ends up being,p.w e would have done Ohana for our meal, but we're now having a dessert party so wanted to cut back a little.
Can't wait to read more plans as the time goes on! How exciting :)

nicki2014 10 Apr 14 08:05 PM

congratulations! lovely story, 2 weddings how exciting! :) ps i live round the corner from you, huddersfield!


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