Down the Yellow Brick Road Part IX: Down the Aisle.

While we were faffing around outside, the crowd was going wild with excitement:

Can't you just feel the anticipation? :P

Finally! Here come my beautiful ladies! I was still hiding out of sight outside, of course.

For some reason, Sister Ruby Slippers walked in looking really shy and nervous - until she caught her husband's eye and giggly-smiled. I must ask him if he pulled a face or something! (That's him at the very edge of the right hand side):

The useful staff at The Moon & Sixpence closed the doors behind the girls so that I could approach without being seen too much. Well, there's only so much you can do with glass doors! I was really pleased, because I had no idea if they were going to do this, and I really wanted it to happen!

Here my Dad leads me across to the chapel:



And a view from behind us, which I edited in photoshop for some colour variety. This washed-out look doesn't always work for me, but I like it here:


Aaaaand...I'm in! I wanted a silhouette-looking entrance photo, so I tried this in photoshop:


I can honestly say this was the most overwhelmingly happy I've ever been in my life. I had really wanted to do the serene, smiling gracefully bride walk down the aisle. Instead, I ended up grinning from ear to ear, trying to wave at my friends with my eyebrows, and just generally being like a kid trying to contain his excitement in a shop filled with Christmas presents. This is okay. I'm not that serene, calm, elegant bride. I'm that "so-happy-that-I'm-actually-past-the-point-of-crying-bride", also known as the "so-excited-I-could-jump-up-and-down-bride".

It was such an amazing feeling to see all the people I know and love, all so happy to see ME. It's impossible to describe. I've never felt so overwhelmingly overwhelmed, and so full of emotion I didn't know what to do with!

There was actually a very sweet moment as we walked through the doors. I've told you before that I love the movie Father of the Bride, and that I watched it the night before the wedding. Well, in the movie, Steve Martin and his daughter are waiting to walk into the church, and he steps forward, and she stops him because it's not time yet. That exact thing happened here! My Dad was all set to walk in as the helpful door-guy opened the doors, but I held him back, because the music (the theme from Father of the Bride!) wasn't at exactly the right point I wanted to enter yet. We had gone over this in rehearsal but my Dad's a bit scatty! Anyway, I didn't mind. It was all too fabulous to mind something like that!

Here are some more of us walking in:

I wish I'd practised how to hold a bouquet. It looks way too high.

Googly-eyed Bride:
Breathe, just breathe....


Mr Ruby Slippers makes his first photo appearance as we reach the front of the chapel. I can't say "altar" because there wasn't one.


My Dad is totally excited to be giving me away:

Lifting the veil:
Ouch...watch..the...hair...
So that lovely veil was quite the mission for my poor Dad to lift back over my head and straighten out. It was pretty funny, though.

I cannot remember what he was whispering to me here, but I like the image:

Actually, maybe he's just still straightening my veil!

Then as we stepped up onto the main platformy area, my girls (primed beforehand) kindly straightened my train for me:

And there I was, face to face with the man I'd met randomly four years before; who, on the first day we met, showed me how to paint flames onto a black stage flat, whose dvd collection made me fancy him a little, who was the reason I kept going to boring house parties thrown by his housemate, who kissed me for the first time on Christmas Day 2004, and who, in a few minutes, would become my husband.


Amazing.


Previously:
Part I: The Night Before
Part II: Salon, Supermarket & Judy Garland
Part III: Setting Up
Part IV: Prettifying
Part V: All Bridalled Up
Part VI: For the Boys
Part VII: Going to the Chapel and We're...
Part VIII: Meanwhile, Back at the Chapel...