Wedding Photos - The Girls Get Ready

I can't believe it has been over 3 months since Chris and I got married! At long last the professional photos have arrived and I'd like to share the photos of the day with you! As you might imagine, there are rather a lot, so I've decided to split them into groups, and today I'm starting off with the girls getting ready!

Our wedding was held at a pretty church in the quaint village that my parents live in, there's a picture of the house above! Cute right!?  It was only a couple of minutes walk to the church, so we didn't need to worry about transport, and my bridesmaids and I could have a leisurely morning getting ready.  The only thing we needed to worry about was the weather!

As I woke, I heard that feared drip drip dripping, and the sky was grey.  It looked like we were going to be making use of the umbrellas my Dad had purchased especially!

Nevertheless, we were all in high spirits, and we had a lovely breakfast together and a glass of bubbly.  I had made little make-up bags as gifts for the girls, each with their name on the front matching the colour scheme of the wedding. I wrote them all a special letter as well, and we had an emotional few minutes before we got down to business!  I chose to do my own hair and make up, besides anything else I'm not actually sure where we would have put any more people. My parents house is beautiful, but tiny. I fear it would have been rather over crowded with anyone else there!

I chose a tea length Justin Alexander dress, which was perfect for the 1950s vibe I was after. My Dad quickly glued a lucky sixpence to my shoe while we were getting ready, and my Mum had made me a garter out of vintage lace (something old), it had a little blue ribbon running through it (something blue) and a gold heart that once belonged to my Great Auntie. My Mum bought my earrings for me, but decided that she would keep them afterwards, meaning that my something borrowed was sorted too! The dress and the shoes were new, that counts right?

I'm so glad I decided to go with a vale, as the pictures that are coming up are some of my favourites! To begin with I really didn't think I wanted one!

My bridesmaids were my new sister-in-law, and my three best friends who have been my close buddies since school. They were all wonderful and helped out loads, they worked hard to keep me as calm as possible, and I have to say, for a highly strung person, I was really pretty chilled, so they must have done a good job! 

My Mum made all of the bouquets on the day, you can't really tell from this photo, but there were some gorgeous succulents nestled in mine too.

As you can see, we got very lucky and the sun came out just in time for photos and for my Dad to walk me to the church!

I was pretty nervous once I heard the bells starting to chime, but it was so lovely to be able to walk to the church. Lots of the villagers came out to take photos and I felt like a bit of a celebrity!

Next time I'll be posting some of the pictures of the boys getting ready in a very wet marquee! I think the girls scored the best deal on that one!

Laura xXx

All photos were taken by my wonderful photographers Peach and Jo Photography!

Another Adventure in Pip

Last week we decided it was time for another adventure in Pip! So we headed out on a little coastal adventure.

The campsite we stayed in was in Bridport, and it was lovely. Finally the sun shone for us and we were able to sit outside and enjoy the country air!  We had our lunch in Bridport itself on the first day which was really nice, I also found an awesome shop called Zeitgeist, where I purchased myself some lovely melamine mugs for the van! Look how pretty!

On the send day we went to Lyme Regis.  We had fish and chips, mint chic chip ice cream and wandered the shops full of fossils.

On our last day we went to Durdle Door. It was a bit of a steep trek to get to the beach, but it was totally worth it, the views were stunning!

On our way home we went to see Guardians Of The Galaxy which was absolutely frikkin amazing! Definitely one to go and see at the cinema if you haven't already!

So at last, we had some sun on a Pip adventure! We're thinking of going to Cardiff for the next one, hopefully we will be able to get out again before the summer ends!

Laura xXx

Nail Art - Gold, Mint and Pink

Last week my nail art took inspiration from the colour scheme of this lovely tassel garland. Pink, mint and gold! I think its a lovely combination, don't you?

Supplies Used;

• Barry M - 320 - Foli Effects
• Rimmel 60 Seconds - 262 - Ring a ring o'roses
• Essie - Mint Candy Apple
• Nail Stickers

I went on a little mini adventure in Pip this week to Dorset,  on the way home we went to see Guardians of the Galaxy, which was super mega awesome! I can't wait to do my film review on that one? What have you been up to this week?

Laura xXx

July Movie Reviews - Maleficent, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes & Hercules

Chris and I go to the cinema nearly every week.  You might think that is excessive, but do you want to know a secret? We go for free! Every week we each get a free cinema ticket with our life insurance. Yep, I know that sounds crazy, but apparently this insurance company must think that the cinema is healthy for us! (They obviously don't know how much ice cream we eat!).

If you are interested we have our life insurance through PruHealth, and are part of Vitality Plus.

Anyway, I LOVE films, and I'm sure a lot of you do to, so I thought I'd start reviewing the films we go to see each month, to give you a heads up whether its worth going to see them or not.  Of course, these are just my opinions, you may feel very differently, so please take my reviews with a pinch of salt, and let me know what you think!

Maleficent 

I have to say, I was a little disappointed with this film.  First off, I love Sharlto Copley, his performances in District 9 and Elysium were frikkin awesome and I thought he was super funny in the A-team too, but he just doesn't belong in a Disney film in my opinion. Sorry Disney, I want him to stay put in my weird, edgy, sci-fi, pre/post apocalyptic scenarios please.  

Secondly, there were several plot holes that just left me screaming 'WHY?'! It may just be that the film was trying to stick to the original story, but I'm sure they could have made some of the decisions of the characters a little more believable by explaining them! For example, when Maleficent curses the princess, King Stefan inexplicably entrusts his baby daughter to the three faries. In the film Sleeping Beauty, everyone knows these are good faries, so it makes sense. But in this version, everyone in the kingdom fears anything that lives in the enchanted forest, which is where the faries are from, and only moments before the curse is cast the faries are not really trusted by the king! Considering this, it seems a very strange thing for him to do! 

And spoiler alert!... I'm not sure that the moral of the story was a very good one.  Essentially it dispels the myth of the old 'love at first sight' as we used to see in Disney movies like The Little Mermaid. Disney seem to be trying to correct their past wrongs regarding this recently, as  I seem to remember we learn a similar lesson in Frozen. So basically, the kiss from the prince doesn't work to wake Aurora up like it does in Sleeping Beauty. Great! They only met for like 2 minutes, so that would have been ridiculous if it had. Buuuut, the lesson we learn instead is that apparently Maleficent's kiss IS true love, and DOES wakes the princess up.  Erm,  is it really a good lesson to teach a child, that the stranger you have been spending time with, without your 'aunts' knowledge, is the only person that truly loves you? I think not. Stranger danger people, stranger danger!  It seems that some things have gone awry as the makers have tried to combine the original story, with this new slant that Maleficent is essentially good. I think they really could have done better. 

Another thing I found incredibly distracting was Angelina's cheek bones. They were just so pointy! I found myself wondering if they were make-up, prosthetics or CGI, rather than concentrating on the story at hand.  Having said that the costumes were fantastic, and I can't really fault Angelina Jolie's performance. I'd happily watch this again on the TV in a few years time, but I probably wouldn't be very pleased had I spent money seeing it at the cinema. Definitely one for TV in my opinion.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

I really enjoyed this film, I love the whole premise behind the franchise, and I came away pretty satisfied after watching this. The only thing that I felt could have been better was the development of the human characters, who were a little lacklustre.  I know it's not necessarily the sign of a good film, but I do like to see famous actors make an appearance, and the only big name in this was Gary Oldman, whose character was a bit of a non event to be honest. I really liked James Franco's performance in 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes', and was hoping for a similarly likeable protagonist in this sequel. However, it was the Apes that were the real event of this film, and so I guess it makes sense that the humans weren't the main focus. 

The Apes certainly made up for anything that was missing with the human characters, and, as always, Andy Serkis does an AMAZING job of bringing Caesar to life! There are some really emotional and touching moments, which, had the graphics not been great, would have just fallen flat. But as it is, Caesar is such a likeable and believable character, you just want him to succeed. The film is wonderfully terrifying, depicting a post-apocalyptic world 

It really is unbelievable how far technology has come in recent years.  If you thought the CGI in the last film was good, you will be in awe with this one! Definitely see it at the cinema if you can.

Hercules

I wasn't overly excited about seeing this one. I felt that the trailer was pretty dull so I didn't have high expectations for this film at all, but in actual fact, I was pleasantly surprised. The trailer didn't do it justice.  The Rock's performance was great, the story was pretty good, and there was a twist at the end, which made it more than the usual Greek Mythology film we have seen the likes of in the past. Remember Wrath of The Titans (Bleurgh!) I enjoyed Ian McShane's character, and including John Hurt never 'hurts'. (Sorry, that was terrible) It was good, and worth a watch, but probably be one that was almost as enjoyable watching it on DVD.

Did you see any of these films at the cinema? What did you think?

Laura

xXx

July Review

In Life

Last month was good as I finally started getting back into the swing of things with my blogging, hurrah! I got lots of things done on my 'too do list' including furnishing the house and having a cocktail party!

What We Watched

Maleficent
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Hercules

I'm going to start reviewing the films I watch in a separate post. You can catch my July review of the 3 films above tomorrow here on the blog!

What I Read

The Book Thief - Even though I knew what was coming for most of the book, this was a heartbreaking book! Amazing though, and definitely worth a read if you haven't already.

My Favourite Posts

OUR HONEYMOON

SIMPLE SYRUP RECIPES 

COCKTAILS MADE EASY

HERB 101 - LEMON BALM

THE MAKINGS OF A 90S PARTY and A 90's PARTY & A DIY PHOTOBOOTH

Laura xXx