Wedding fun

LONG BLIP COMMENT! Summary is: Wedding was lovely, bride and groom looked beautiful, venue really pretty, fantastic to see the family and our boys did very well (mostly....)

Oh what a night! Balian was not impressed by his cot so we slept on a duvet on the floor together (never thought I'd long for the plastic hospital mattress...!) At 3am he decided he'd like to commando crawl around, so I had much fun retrieving him from under the desk and from playing with the valance. Nathaniel slept well, so gets the gold star!
After a yummy breakfast we headed out. On the way we saw Kath and Geoff who gave the boys a gift of Spot books. Nathaniel decided to sit straight down to read them in the middle of the courtyard. After some persuading we managed to get him in the car. Bay had a nap but Nate want keen so we headed to buy a picnic lunch. Odd seeing them both in a trolley, seem so grown up! Some Peppa Pig car meltdowns later and we tried to encourage sleepy time. Nathaniel eventually fell asleep so Andy dropped Bay and I off to continue driving him around whilst I could get everyone things ready.
Floor picnic kept the boys happy whilst Andy and I quickly threw our outfits on, then dressed the boys in coordinating navy suits. Sadly no good picture of us all looking smart, it was so hot and humid we had to remove layers rapidly!
Wedding was lovely, and can only have been enhanced by Nathaniel tantruming during the entrance, the vicar drawing attention to it by commenting "oh somebody is not happy", by the tantrum being audible from outside the church and by Balian getting frustrated and joining in the crying as he couldn't latch on properly during the readings! I had thought I was being hyper aware, and that your childrens cries always sound loudest to you, but when complete strangers/guests at dinner said "poor boys not happy" and "you tried to feed him but failed" I realised it was very obvious to the whole congregation! Didn't help that service was at 1pm (nap time) and it was very hot and was fashionably late starting. Also the boys stood out as they were the only children there...next youngest guest was 24! So much for "it'll be fine as Andy's cousins children (six children aged 2 to 7) will be there", as the four couples had decided to go child free!
Tantrums over and the boys settled down to the party. The reception was lovely with lots of grass for Nate to push Bay around on as he dozed. We then managed to get Nate to have a second nap in the buggy too by marching around the beautiful hilly grounds (obviously Andy and I were perfectly dressed for this!) Such a beautiful sunny day, so lucky the weather held off from raining.
I stayed with the children in the garden whilst Andy went into dinner for the speeches. Being outside in the peaceful garden was lovely after a hectic few hours, and I managed to get a nice picture of the bride and groom before they entered for dinner.
We joined everyone for the wedding breakfast which went well, Nathaniel enjoying his special sausages and Bay sharing mine and showing off his water spurting trick.
After a cool down upstairs and change of clothes for the boys we joined the evening reception. Balian asleep in the sling on me (after more hiking around the grounds!) and Nathaniel bonding with cousin Neil by playing throw the pine cones onto the lower terrace garden. He was having so much fun giggling away and telling Neil "this one's rubbish, squirrel got it", that we were still there for the first dance at 9:30pm. I had the honour of dancing with all three of my boys at once to their chosen song of Stand by Me (played by a very funky band). A lovely memory.
Time for bed, and we managed to get both asleep before 10:15pm and Andy back downstairs to join in some rapid drink mixing with his cousins. So nice to catch up with them all.
A really lovely day, ending up so much better than we could have wished. Aside from the comments about the tears at church, we've had so many compliments about what adorable, lovely, well behaved boys we have...we know, but it's always great to hear! We're so very lucky.