I'm back!

I have so much to share with you! The last two weeks have been super busy - stuff leading up to the wedding, the wedding weekend itself, a few days of fun in Edinburgh and then straight back and off to London to sing in a mini opera at the Tete-a-Tete festival! I got back late last night and I have to say, I was thrilled to be back home. Today I do have several things I need to be catching up with but I can only take it one day at a time - slowly, slowly! 

The wedding was wonderful - we had such a great day, but more importantly, so did everybody else! It was a really relaxed day, the music was totally amazing - I'm so lucky to have such talented friends who were able to sing and play so fantastically for our ceremony - and the weather, after a week of horribleness, was just gorgeous. We even got a little sunburnt during the ceremony, which was outside! 

Here we are, with two of our bridesmaids. I'm in the white! As you can see, I went completely mad and bought an actual wedding dress!! Crazy. I surprised myself. But I was so pleased with it - it is covered with beadwork and has a very 1930s vintage look - in fact, loads of people asked if it was in fact vintage. I made myself some bracelets (which I can't share with you as they've been sent off to a magazine already!) and bought myself a VERY long rope of glass pearls which I have fallen slightly in love with.  It was a beautiful day and I was so happy that so many of our dear friends and family could be there with us. 

Here's a wee video of my choir singing - all friends plus my Mum who I was so pleased was able to sing on the day and did so well in the wee solo I gave her near the end :-) I wrote this piece myself for the ceremony, words by Robert Burns. 

*** I can't get the video to upload right now for some reason, been trying for over an hour! So I'll publish this and come back for the video later on. ***

***25.08.10*** I give up! I just can't get my video to load, on either Safari or Firefox. Does anyone have any top tips for video loading onto Blogger??!***

O were my Love yon lilac fair,
Wi' purple blossoms to the spring,
And I a bird to shelter there,
When wearied on my little wing;
How I wad mourn when it was torn	5
By autumn wild and winter rude!
But I wad sing on wanton wing
When youthfu' May its bloom renew'd.
O gin my Love were yon red rose
That grows upon the castle wa',	10
And I mysel a drap o' dew,
Into her bonnie breast to fa';
O there, beyond expression blest,
I'd feast on beauty a' the night;
Seal'd on her silk-saft faulds to rest,	15
Till fley'd awa' by Phoebus' light.

I hope you can all understand the Scots words! Wi = with, Wad = would, gin = were, wa' = wall, drap = drop, fa' = fall, a' = all, faulds = folds, fley'd = fleed or flew. Scots can be considered a dialect rather than a true language and so lots of the words are just English words, written out how we would say them with a Scottish accent. (I'm not a linguist in any way, I love language but I am sure there are much more technical ways of putting these things!) It's a very beautiful language/dialect and I would urge those of you who are not familiar with Burns' poetry already to read some or listen to some of his songs. 

I did NOT manage to get my bridesmaids' jewellery finished in time...I spoke to them before hand and just said it was really stressing me out and they told me just to leave it until afterwards and not be silly. I'm so glad they did - I was so calm about the wedding for most of the build up but the two days before got on top of me a bit! I am totally crap at organisational stuff, I get very stressed and tearful and I found asking people to help so much quite difficult and overwhelming. SO, guess what I've been up to today?! I have these three bracelets finished for my lovely girls so far. It is a pleasure making these, I'm so enjoying creating them now that the time pressure is off. I'll leave you with these pictures. Hope you like them!