The best pooch

Now I know for most girls, the first thing on their list to prepare for their wedding is looking for the perfect dress or checking out venues. Is it a church or civil service? But, the first thing I did was take my lovely pooch to the vets. The one thing I definitely knew once G had popped the question was that no matter where we got married (and going abroad to Europe was an option) was that Floyd, our border terrier would definitely be coming. We’d talked about getting Floyd a pet passport for a while but always seemed to leave it too late. You need to allow 6months once they’ve had the vaccinations etc before you can travel to and from other European countries. So getting Floyd’s pet passport and making sure he was ‘good to go’, wherever we might get married, was top of the priority list before THE dress.
I have to say the process of getting the passport was really easy and having Floyd at our wedding as best pooch and our four-legged page boy was lovely. He was even allowed in the church in France and was perfectly behaved.

(Pics: Floyd and our best man ready to leave for the church. Floyd get's ready for his extra special wedding breakfast!)

The proposal

It took Gareth, my other half, ten years, yes ten years, to propose but i can honestly say the wait was well worth it. More about our two fabulous wedding days in later posts. But i've added a couple of pictures - one in the UK, one in France, with this post.

Can't say it was the most romantic proposal in the world. Friends before me had come home to a house full of roses, boyfriend bent down on one knee with a ring in one hand and a surprise pair of tickets to New York.

What you also need to understand first too is that i told him i wanted to be married before i turned 30. And not one to leave anything to the last minute or be pressurised into anything, yeah right, it was on the eve of my 30th birthday that Gareth finally popped the question. I'd arranged for us to stay at a lovely hotel in the New Forest using a wine, dine and stay free offer from the Telegraph. Great offer, by the way. Does anyone know if the Telegraph still do these offers?

If i'm honest i might have had my suspcions. I'd found a business card for a diamond specialist when i was cleaning the house a few days earlier. That and when we arrived at the hotel which i had booked in my maiden name, the hotel told me the booking was in the name of Mr and Mrs Anwyl. As you can see, my future husband's attention to detail was a bit lacking.

I couldn't ignore this fact so had to ask, in my best innocent tone, why the booking had been changed to Mr and Mrs? His response.... well don't you fancy being Mrs Anwyl then?! That was it, nothing more, nothing less.

We had a lovely meal at the hotel and i have to say that i couldn't sleep a wink all night because i was soo excited and texted all our friends and family at 3am to tell them the news.

Can anyone better that proposal?