Our Love Story

Having so much free time in England with Peter has allowed me to balance our time together with my wedding planning while he is at work. I can easily spend hours going through websites and blogs, photos and videos while jotting down ideas and saving tons of pictures that inspire what I want our day to be. I realize now, that by surrounding yourself in this kind of stuff can easily drown you and cause you to forget what the day is all about.

Even though I am a fairly organized person, I am doing my very best to let the plans sort of "fall into place," without rushing or stressing over them, and I'm happy to say that I quite enjoy this route, as haphazard or untraditional as it might be. I know a wedding is a big deal to plan, and most things must be booked and organized in a timely fashion. But, since our wedding is going to be small enough (about 50 people), and since it will be during the day, I'm having fun brainstorming DIY ideas, and emailing certain people to help us. I trust that with the help of my friends and family, everything from my handmade invitations, to the decorations, photography, and cake will be perfect, fun, and everything I've envisioned.

As I am sure most of you know, Peter and I have entered a video of 'Our Love Story' into a free wedding photography giveaway! I had a few ideas of what I wanted the video to look like, and after we each shot our version of the story, everything kind of fit right into place as I put it together! If you haven't watched it yet, please do! And if you haven't voted for us--it's a must, to help us win! One vote is allowed per day (per computer) every day, until Sunday February 20th! 

Vote for us here:
http://freewedding.heatherpepin.com/

Voting started yesterday, and after sending a mass email and a few postings on facebook, Peter and I got home last night after seeing The Wizard of Oz in London--to find that all of my friends and family helped us spread the word! It really amazes me to see how everyone comes together to help and support us! I have the best friends & family a girl could ask for!


I was also challenged by another competition (that we didn't end up getting into the top 3 for) to make a storyboard with wedding pictures that have inspired us. Since collecting so many pictures, I actually really enjoyed this and it came together fairly quickly and easily! They represent the simplicity I hope for in our day. I plan to do our flower arrangements myself, so these kind of show what I want them to look like. Also, here is a picture of my dress! Simply click the image to enlarge :-)

Last but not least are pictures of my gorgeous rings! My engagement ring was one of those things where we just "knew right from the start." (Kind of like us!)
So it didn't take much looking around after we saw it :-) However, it wasn't quite the same with the band. We went to a few shops in town, but I wasn't really madly in love with any of them. I don't really like the small gap between the two rings, so I was on a hunt to find one I loved, with the least amount of gap. Here they are!

LOVE. Life.

Since being in England, I have seen everything from the large city of London, to the smaller cities like Canterbury, to even smaller villages like Lyminge, to the lush green countryside. The variety is amazing and I love the closeness of it all. Peter's parents have been giving us a few books with great walks in them and are very encouraging to try them out. Sometimes while Peter is at work, he'll get emails of maps or routes from his dad with nice walks, runs, or even bike rides. So this weekend we finally tried one of the walks. It was supposed to work out perfectly, as we would be walking from Canterbury to Lyminge (about 13 miles on main roads) where his parents live, and they would give us a ride back. The walk guided us away from the main roads, making it completely picturesque, but also more roundabout than straightforward. We weren't looking for a direct route or anything, and very much enjoyed the adventure. But after about 5 hours into the walk, we'd taken a couple detours, missed a few signs, and were nearly fed up of the strong winds, light drizzle, and feeling like "we should have been there by now" when we were still miiiles away. We also didn't start until about 11am, so by 4 o' clock we'd be starting to lose daylight quickly. So when we finally made our way out through one of the forests we'd got lost in...we walked on until we had cell phone reception and were picked up by his mum. She took us back for a warm cup of tea which was much needed, and after chatting for a bit, were on our way back to Canterbury for dinner with the guys at 7:30. Aside from our frustration towards the end, it was a gorgeous walk with amazing sights of churches, estates, countryside and wildlife--oh! And Shetland ponies :-)

Scotland Avalanche

This video has been saved under my bookmarks tab for a few months now, but when we first saw it on the BBC, both of us had to re-watch it a few times because it's so funny!!

Click to watch!

Today

We love him! When I came to England last summer, we saw this CD at Peter's parents computer. I asked if I could bring it with us for our drive to Belgium, since I recognized his name. I can't tell you how many times we've listened to that CD since then! So I came across this website--Josh sings to Ellen for her birthday, and of course I love this song too!

Josh sings for Ellen

Sam & Ella

We found these Shetland ponies on a run one weekend & had to go back a second time to see them and feed them a few carrots :-) For no reason at all other than we think one is a boy and one's a girl, we decided to name them Sam and Ella. They are SO sweet! They run (sometime a full sprint!) right up to the fence where we are, to be pet and to smell us. They are so small and so precious! :-) It's love!

Brighton

During the Holidays I remember looking at a "Kent" calendar in the bookstore and seeing the Royal Pavilion in Brighton. So since adding that to our list of places to see, we made the one and a half hour drive down to go see it! The weather was typical--grey skies and since it was right on the water, really windy. The drive down was a fun one, as they usually are :-) We listened to the Tron soundtrack that Peter loves so much and I took in the sites. We parked at a Park & Ride which turned out to be free(!) then hopped on the bus that took us in to town. The houses out there are stunning, we sat on the second floor of a double decker bus so had a really good view of the homes. 

We first walked down to the Pier to get the cold bit out of the way first :-) You could immediately tell that this would be a gorgeous place to visit during summertime. We walked along the Pier while taking pictures & taking in the beauty and on our way back, stopped for a bag of biltong. Then we continued our walk up to the Royal Pavilion. I was hesitant about going inside because it honestly didn't look as big as I thought it would outside (don't judge a book by it's cover?). But after paying the student discounted rate and seeing the inside, I was thrilled. We had an audio guide as we walked through the pavilion, which was nice as it helped me to understand and really appreciate what it is I was seeing. I knew nothing about King George IV before coming here, and by the time I'd left, I feel like I knew the guy! The decor of the place is absolutely i n c r e d i b l e.  Literally, I got chills when we walked into the banquet room. Unfortunately you aren't allowed pictures since all of the wallpaper is the original-but here is what it looks like in there: Banquet Room & Lotus. He basically built this place as a weekend/holiday getaway, decorated to impress his guests. Hanging above us all over were these massively gorgeous chandeliers that literally (according to our audio guide) weighed a ton. A few of them hung by Dragon's mouths, while others for example in the dancing room, were held by Lotus flowers. An amazing fact about this place is that it's decorated entirely inspired by Asian culture, although King George had never actually been to Asia. It was simply based on pictures he had seen. You would never know this after being inside and seeing the detail of everything from the wall paper,  the paintings on the walls, the furniture, everything. We stayed in here for a few hours, taking in the beauty of the place and learning about the past. After, we had a sweet little picnic on a bench outside, although we were bothered by the massive amount of birds (which Brighton is known for having) and then continued on our adventure. We walked around to find the "Lanes," a famous little shopping area with lots of antiques, jewelry and quirky restaurants and pubs. It was again, smaller than I imagined it would be, but lots of fun nonetheless!