Before I met Simon again, I’d often considered selling my house and moving nearer to where I work (Littlethorpe in Leicester), as it was an hour’s commute to and from work each day, and had even decided upon the lovely village of Market Bosworth. I travelled through Market Bosworth every day to and from work and during the summer months it is so beautiful.
When I met Simon, however, he only lived around the corner from me so it felt silly to move all the way to Market Bosworth, particularly as we’d still have to do a lot of travelling to see each other. I did persuade Simon, though, that Market Bosworth was about half way between my work and his work, so would be an ideal place to live when we were married.
He didn’t take much persuading. Once I’d taken him to the farmer’s market and shown him around the village, he felt the same as me. I’d always wanted to live in a small village, with a sense of village community and before we got engaged we’d often visit Market Bosworth together, stopping to have a drink in one of the local pubs and to walk through the park – people were so friendly to us both. Simon fell in love with the village almost straight away, just like I did.
During one of our visits we noticed that Bosworth Hall was hosting a bridal fayre. This was in November 2010. We visited the fayre and decided there and then that that was where we wanted to have our wedding reception. It looked just like a stately home, the gardens were pretty and welcoming, and there’d been a snow fall so it had a lovely wintry, romantic feel about it.
Inside the atmosphere was really welcoming and the rooms that had been made up to replicate the wedding breakfast just seemed beautiful. The staff were very professional and friendly, as they have been throughout our engagement.
We had part of our plan but still hadn’t got a date in mind. Although we knew we wanted it to be during the Summer because Simon and I have got children from previous relationships, and the school holidays was the most obvious choice. We agreed on the 4th August 2012 (leaving plenty of time for all that saving we have to do!)
Then came the hard bit – where to get married? Simon hasn’t been married before so he wanted the whole traditional church thing. Me, on the other hand, I have been married before and didn’t feel it appropriate to do that, so I thought a registry office marriage was the way forward.
As I soon found out though, that was an argument that I wasn’t going to win – an appointment with the vicar from our local Church was made and that was that…
After Simon persuaded me to meet Mr Peret, the vicar at our local Church, I went to have a chat about my previous marriage and to discuss a church wedding with him. He was a really nice man and made me believe that even with a second wedding (given the right circumstances), a church wedding could be an option.
As Simon hadn’t been married before (nor his brother), Simon’s tact was that his mum was never going to be able to “buy a hat”, so that was it, I gave in. However, since arranging to get married in the Church, I’ve found out that that was where my mum and dad got married! My dad sadly died in 1999 so maybe I was meant to get married in that church afterall!
