Our church ceremony at Christ Church Jebel Ali turned into so much more than just the ‘signing the papers before the big wedding in December’ we thought it would be. It was a wonderful (proper wedding) day from start to finish…
The Ceremony
The aisle at Christ Church is big. It’s long, it goes on forever. I knew that before our big day and I had been fretting about the fact that we only had 20 people (including us) attending the church which meant only a few rows would be occupied…which meant my dad and I would be walking for days!
So the music started (James and I chose the music together and we loved it so much we might use the same for December for continuity so I won’t say what I walked down the aisle to just yet) and me and Dad started to walk. It was so lovely to see all of our Dubai friends, who we think of as family, and actual family looking back at us and smiling. I’m so grateful for all of them for being at the church. We had originally thought they wouldn’t want the trek so just invited them to the celebration brunch, but they all wanted to be there for the ceremony and it meant loads to have them all there in the church.
James was facing Father Tim. He didn’t have a Best Man for this wedding (I didn’t have Bridesmaids either – we’re both saving them for the big wedding!), so he was there all alone. I so wanted him to turn around, but he didn’t. He was good. He just kept looking straight on (even though Father Tim told him he could look around, he told me later). So yes, that walk. It did go on for days, I think I made a joke as I finally approached James about it being “the longest walk ever” and my dad had to whisper to me at one point to “slow down a bit”. But despite it being so long, when I think about it now it still all feels like a bit of a blur. I’ve made a note to myself to be slow, to be calm and enjoy every single second in December and to look at everyone’s faces.
My Dad handed me over to James and I started to shake with nerves. Which is ridiculous really, no idea what I was actually nervous about. We kissed, hugged, he told me I looked amazing and then I was OK.
We didn’t have any hymns or special readings, just Father Tim doing his thing – which involved two readings he had picked from the bible. Our vows were the standard vows. James nailed it, I giggled. I’m not even sure why. I just have the worst habit of getting the giggles at the most inappropriate time. “All that I have, I share with you” I said and then whispered a little comment to James, which made him laugh a bit too. Definitely guilty of dragging him down with me. Sorry, Father Tim.
Just like the bridal march, the vows and ceremony went by in a blur – although apparently the whole thing lasted 45 minutes! Suddenly Father Tim said those incredibly special words: “I now pronounce you man and wife” and that was that. The feeling of happiness when you hear those words is incredible. After seeing it so many times in films and when people you love get married, it’s fantastic when those words are said to you and your favourite person in the world.
We signed the register and asked our mums to be witnesses, which they loved, and then headed out to a really fun song (again, keeping quiet for now!), with our family and friends all dancing down the aisle behind us.
MARRIED!
The Reception
The private room at The Ivy was the perfect venue for our wedding celebrations. The team were fabulous, very accommodating and went out of their way to help make our afternoon and evening with them special. The private room holds 20 – the exact number of us there were. It’s all dark wooden walls, with a beautiful long table in the middle, on which the team had placed personalised ‘congratulations Sonja and James’ menus. So lovely! We’re going to frame one and put it on a wall. My mum (with the odd encouraging nod from my dad and two closest girlfriends, I’m sure) had gone out of her way to make the post ceremony brunch very wedding-y. She had been in comms with The Ivy for weeks, arranging lots of special surprise touches. The table was covered with wedding confetti, a Mr & Mrs sign (which, along with the confetti, had been secretly dropped off by my mum) had been hung in the corner and even though we thought we wouldn’t bother with a cake until the Big Wedding, my mum and dad had arranged a wedding cake – which was a wonderful gesture and I’m so appreciative that they did it for us. It was fun to cut the cake… and we had followed so many other wedding traditions so it only seemed right in the end!
The traffic leaving Christ Church was pretty awful, so we all arrived a bit late to The Ivy, but they were great about it and let us stay in the private room long after the official ‘brunch hours’. We had toasts, stories, speeches (thankyou dad and James – loved them) and even the throwing of the bouquet. It was so intimate, but so fun and so special and we had a truly brilliant time…which carried on until long after midnight.
We both woke up the next day feeling a bit broken (always the sign of a good celebration), but very happy and we both said how much it had all felt like a real and proper wedding – despite our constant thoughts that it would simply be ‘the warm up’.
We have fantastic friends here in Dubai and they (along with our family) helped to make it a day and wedding to remember!
The Honeymoon
Our honeymoon was the big fat juicy cherry on top of the icing on our wedding month cake. We had an amazing pre-moon to the Seychelles, three weeks before our big day. I’m all in favour of the pre-moon. It was a long weekend, just us with no wedding planning or worries about the big day. Just a chance to enjoy spending time together and to get excited about what was coming. We then accidentally had another pre-moon the week before the wedding. James had a work trip to Singapore so I joined him for another long weekend and we had a fab time. Then of course it was our big day and then after a week with family with us here in Dubai, we headed off to NYC on honeymoon (part one!). I’ve been a long-time lover of NYC and have been lucky enough to visit many times. James and I went together early last year and had a brilliant time so we thought it would be the perfect place for our first trip as Mr and Mrs and a nice change from super sunny climes. As always, NYC didn’t disappoint. We walked and walked and laughed and cycled and walked and laughed some more and even did a Flywheel class. An indoor cycling class on honeymoon?! Yes, that’s us! It is where we met and where our little story began so it only seemed right.
We stayed at the Knickerbocker in Times Square (so we were central) and it was very lovely to be welcomed as Mr and Mrs Willn. Ahh, proper married.
Married Life
Married life is lovely. I like being married, a lot. To be honest, not much has really changed in the way we live. We’ve felt like husband and wife for a while, but it’s lovely for us both to have experienced that special day together and to share those memories and for us to know that we’re officially a family. I love seeing the wedding ring on James’s finger and I love looking down at my own wedding band and smiling because I know what it stands for.
It’s quite fun and quite weird to have a new name. I’m double barrelled in some places and just Sonja W or Mrs W in others. My new signature is a treat too – I suppose I should spend some time practising. Christ Church took care of getting the wedding certificate attested and had it done and ready about three days after the wedding. I went to collect it and signed to say I had received it as Sonja Stephen. Three days into married life – it’s easy to forget you have a new name, isn’t it?
Wedding #2/The Big Wedding
The big wedding is now less than two months away! That number on my ‘days until our wedding’ chalk board in our kitchen (which started again the morning after our church wedding!) seems to be decreasing at quite a pace and I know that just like the first one, it’s going to be here and over before we know it. Which means I now need to get down to the serious planning. I did most of the essential stuff months ago, when we first decided on our dates. So venue, planner, music, lighting, sound was all in place before this first wedding. I decided to just ‘park it’ for a while though once I knew the core tasks were done, because thinking about and planning two was distracting from the excitement of the first one. But now it’s all go. I’ve had a flower meeting this week, cake and food tasting is set up and I’m off to London (another plane!) next week to collect and bring home my dress! Excited.
I’m thinking about the December ‘event’ differently now. It was always very much “just the church ceremony” and then “the real wedding in December”, but the church wedding felt so much like a wedding and I really do feel very married, so now I’m thinking of December as a beautiful wedding blessing and a wonderful and fantastic opportunity to have so many of our favourite people all together on one island for a big party.
I really can’t wait! And this time I will take in every moment of walking down the aisle and I won’t laugh during the vows – or I’ll at least try harder not to.
Next time I’ll be sharing all the details of where I’m up to with the December wedding planning…
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