Considering I do at least a couple of weddings a week, the nerves really set in when my sister got married on 23rd August. I was determined to make the morning run smoothly without too much stress though, so I devised an itinerary (which I usually do for my brides as time disappears on wedding mornings) much to the amusement of my father and brother - I learnt the hard way three years ago after my own wedding that some sort of itinerary is essential, they seemed to have forgotten this, though.

The night before the wedding I was at my parent’s house making the bouquets and button holes. A couple of bottles of wine were consumed and we were all a weird mix of excited, stressed and nervous.

We woke up on the wedding morning at not much past 8am at my parents’ house - my husband was back at our flat as he was determined to stay far, far away for as long as possible! My mum and sister-in-law had to go to the venue to take the cake and do some last minute venue dressing. Fortunately the co-ordinator at the venue had taken care of most of it though so there wasn’t much to do. In that time I took care of a few bits and bobs and tried to relax a little - the odd glass of bucks fizz helped!

The morning went on and I set to work on styling my mum’s hair (I can do basic light hairstyling but never usually do wedding hair, only makeup). Then my mum put the heated rollers in my hair while my sister-in-law cooked a huge fry-up for everyone. Our fry-up had to wait though as my hair was taking longer than we thought it’d take.

After we chowed down our fry-up it was time for me start work as a make-up artist. I did my mum’s make-up first, then my own and finally my sister’s. Tick tock tick tock…. somehow we’d lost time somewhere and there was a little bit of a last minute panic. When I finished my sister’s make-up we took our rollers out of our hair and there was the funniest moment where we just looked at each other and broke into hysterical laughter - our hair hadn’t gone quite as planned - huuuuge hair! Anyway, no time to faff, we had to get dressed. Upstairs my ever-organised sister-in-law had already got into her bridesmaid dress and was waiting to dress my sister. I hurriedly got my dress on so I could also help out. We got downstairs and the other two bridesmaids had arrived and were looking beautiful. We grabbed the bouquets etc and headed off!

My sister had an amazing day… and it turns out that I know far too much about weddings - I received many comments that I should become a wedding planner!

Anyway, here is a picture of my sister and me.

After the wedding, my husband and I drove down to Devon for a holiday with our friends and we had an amazing time - although I now need another holiday to recover!