Steve and Biddy’s Wedding
We had a lovely weekend away this weekend thanks to our invite to Steve and Biddy’s wedding.
An excuse for a Weekend Away
We have to admit, that at 51 years old, we were beginning to wonder if Steve would ever find ‘the one for him’, but he has in the form of Biddy and we are delighted for him. We were also pleased to be invited to their wedding lunch and evening reception. The lunch was in an italian restaurant called Romolo’s in Shrewsbury and the evening reception in a village hall in a village called Dorrington just a few miles to the south of Shrewsbury. Shrewsbury is a couple of hours drive from us so we booked into a B&B called the Dorrington Horseshoe’s that was just around the corner from the village hall and planned a weekend away.
We left home after breakfast and early easter eggs on the Saturday – well, we wouldn’t be at home on Easter Sunday so thought we’d have them a day early instead as they would only melt in the car if we took them with us.
Easter Eggs
It was a nice easy drive to Shrewsbury where we thought we would wander around the shops before heading to the restaurant. The room we had booked for the night only had a double bed but the owners had kindly said that Morgan could sleep on a camp bed for no extra charge if we brought one with us. Half way to Shrewsbury Anna realised that we had forgotten the camp bed and sleeping bag for Morgan! So, once in Shrewsbury it was time to find somewhere to park and then find a camping shop so that we could get a sleeping mat and sleeping bag for Morgan. Crazy really as we have at least 15 sleeping bags in the house, but didn’t have one with us. We did need some new sleeping mats though, although didn’t realise quite how expensive the self-inflating type were. We nearly got our hands on one that had been reduced from £30 to £16 in Millets, but someone else beat us to the last one. Not to worry though as we found exactly the smae model in Blacks reduced even further to £10, btut hen realised that it wasn’t self inflating. We eventually settled on some that were reduced from £45 to £20, but quite why they cost that much in the first place is a mystery to me! We then had a coffee and a scone and headed off towards the riverfront to find the restaurant. We were a little early so did a quick geocache, had a stroll along the river and then went into Romolo’s where we met the rest of the wedding party.
Lunch at Romolo’s
Lunch was lovely, all italian pasta dishes of course. I polished off mine, helped Morgan finish his and then Steve passed me a bowl of spaghetti bolognese saying ;here, do you want this one as well, I know what you’re like’ I couldn’t say no could I, so I ate a bowl of bolognese as well! We were on a table with people from Biddy’s side of party but they were all really nice and we got on well with them, even making origami models from the name signs after lunch. They did of course assume that we were Steve’s relatives as we have the same surname as him despite being no relation at all, just friends.
After lunch came the speeches from Steve’s Best Men – Yep, his two nephews were doing a double act as best men.
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- Anna and Morgan in Romolos
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- Speeches
The party then disbanded ready to meet up again a couple of hours later in Dorrington.
An Evening Ceilidh
We drove the short distance to Dorrington, found the village hall and the Horseshoe’s Inn where we booked in. As coincidence would have it, or more likely due to the fact that there aren’t many places to stay quite so close to the village hall, Steve and Biddy were staying in the same B&B, as were some other wedding guests. The Horseshoe’s Inn has recently been refurbished and looked nice, even if it did have the creakiest floorboards and staircase the world has ever heard! Apparently the food is really good too, but having already had 2 ½ lunches and with more food promised for tonight we didn’t get chance to sample an evening meal here. The room was nice though so we set Morgan’s camp up and chilled for a while.
Our Room
We then took the short stroll to the village hall, stopping off en route for another quick geocache.
The evening reception had said ‘food and dancing’ and that just about summed it up. We finally got to meet Steve’s Mum, his nephews, and his sister, all of whom we’ve heard of over the years and all of whom seemed to know quite a bit about us too. They seemed genuinely pleased to meet us at last and all seemed lovely. They also seem to be over-the-moon and maybe even slightly relieved that Steve has finally found someone to share the rest of his life with, and we have to say that they certainly looked happy together. We’d only met Biddy once before when they came here for tea and cake one weekend, but got on well with her. The invite to the wedding came as a bit of a surprise to us but it’s great to see how well they get on and they certainly seem to be the perfect couple.
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- No, they haven’t fallen out already, it’s the Dosey Doe
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- Square Dancing
We ended up sitting on a table full mainly of teachers most of whom had at some point worked with Biddy who is herself a teacher. Again they all seemed really nice so we had plenty of people to chat to. The evening entertainment was courtesy of a Ceilidh so it soon kicked off with plenty of Scottish music and lots of line-dancing. Anna and I joined in with a few dances, and then came the food. As you can imagine I ended up having more than my fair share, although there was more than enough to go around with burgers, sausages, kebabs, chicken, lots of different salads, baked potatoes and much more. After polishing off a few plates of that it was time for several plates of pudding and with Cheesecake, Pavlova, Chocolate Torte, Apple and Raisin Cake and Trifle on offer it would have been rude not to try them all!
After more dancing, the cutting of the cake and more chatting with Steve and Biddy’s guests, it was time for the final dance.
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- Cutting the Cake
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- The Wedding Cake
We managed to persuade Morgan to join us for this one at last before saying our goodbyes to everyone and heading back to the B&B for the night. It was pretty warm in the B&B so I didn’t sleep too well, but then I never do, so I was up at 5am..
The Easter Bunny Comes Calling
Morgan had been worried that the Easter Bunny wouldn’t find him seeing as he was away for Easter, but amazingly he did, so there was some more chocolately treats, along with a couple of pages of codes and puzzles for him to solve in order to deduce the location of yet more chocolately Easter treats. The treats were all at our house, so somehow the Easter Bunny had hidden them while we were away, made codes and clues as to there whereabouts and had found us in Dorrington where he/she had left the clues for Morgan! That Easter Bunny is cleverer than you think!
Making Room for Breakfast
I then headed out for a half marathon around the lanes of Shropshire. What with that and my morning ablutions there was now room for a hearty breakfast so we headed down to the restaurant. I know it was Easter Sunday, but they didn’t start breakfast until 9:30am which seemed quite late to us. I think it was late for everyone else there as well as they were all waiting when we got there and most people seemed in a hurry to eat their breakfasts and get on their way. There didn’t seem to be much in the way of urgency from the waiting staff though and there seemed to be a general lack of organisation making breakfast a bit of a haphazard affair. Someone would come out ask one table (ours first) if we wanted drinks. We ordered coffees, but then they didn’t materialise. They did bring out some glasses, and orange juice for people to help themselves to, along with some bowls and milk for cereal, but there weren’t enough bowls, glases or orange juice to go around so some people were left waiting whilst others could make a start. Steve and Biddy were in a bit of a hurry as they had to get off on their honeymoon so Biddy ended up having her cereal in a coffee cup that she found.
They then came out one at a time and asked what people wanted for breakfast, offering us a full english breakfast which we all decided to have. Not that they really gave us any choice so Morgan ended up with a huge full english that he didn’t really want – Not to worry though as I managed to ‘help’ him with it. Other people got offered toast which we didn’t so we had to ask for that, and we had to ask for coffee’s again as the first lot we had ordered never arrived. It was all really nice though, it just seemed very unorganised, especially seeing as it was only breakfast and that there were only 9 guests staying so it shouldn’t really have been difficult to be ready for us. I did at least leave feeling suitably full.
Closed!
We had planned to visit Dobies Garden Centre in Shrewsbury and the Derwen Garden Centre in Welshpool on the way home. We always like wandering around garden centres, needed to check out some garden lights and wanted to break up the journey home a little bit.
We got to Dobies at 10:40 and it was closed, presumably opening at 11am so we decided to give it a miss and head to Derwen instead. When we got there, the gate was closed and there was a sign saying ‘sorry, closed on Easter Sunday’. Ohm well, there went our plans for a nice stroll around the garden centre. We decided to head to Coed y Dinas, the big ‘Cheap Charlies’ garden centre in Welshpool instead as that was bound to be open… Nope, that was closed too so we just continued on our way.
We did stop in Machynlleth to get some milk from the Co-op, ut that was closed as well. Thankfully the Spar was open so we could at least have a cup of coffee when we got in. Morgan then found the treats that the Easter Bunny had left and we chilled for the afternoon after a very enjoyable weekend away.
Thanks Steve and Biddy for the invite. Congratulations to you both and may you have many happy years together.
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Cleverer!?
Sounds like a good week end..Steve scrubbed up well
Did I really read that all three of you had a dance,I’ll remember that for the future:)