I wasn't the type of girl who grew up dreaming of weddings and babies. I've never pictured myself in a white dress or living life following the so-called traditional path, so it's weird to now tick the 'Mrs' box on forms and have a ring always on my finger. And I love it!!
On October 31st 2019 (yep, Halloween!) at our local Registry Office, Josh and I got married in the presence of my parents. Nothing about our journey there was traditional. There was no proposal...it was a discussion and consequential joint decision. We both picked out and wore somewhat matching engagement rings. For the ceremony I wore a black knee-length dress and he wore jeans and a shirt. And I didn't take his name.
From deciding that it would be beneficial legally to get married until the day actually arrived was a total of 4 months. These two people with no previous interest in marriage decided at the end of June, bought our engagement rings on the 11th of July, booked the date not long afterwards, gave our notice on August 6th and completed the deed on October 31st - our official 1 year anniversary of being together. 4 months! The average length between engagement and wedding day is apparently 12-20 months, but with no guests, no party and no real planning involved we were able to grab the only date we wanted, Halloween, in the current year rather than wait 16 months until the date came around again. Thankfully, it is apparently not a common date that people want to book at the registry office, which was to our surprise!
Now, once all of the above is taken into account, obviously we also didn't have the usual wedding costs either. Including the wedding itself (room, registrar, licence etc), wedding rings and our outfits, we spent almost exactly £250. A far cry from the UK average wedding cost of anything around £15,000 - £30,000+...like, what?! Considering I used to be a wedding photographer, we had no photographer and I only allowed my parents to take one quick photo on their phones. I suppose that the party side of a wedding is where a lot of the expense comes in and we can count our friends and family on one hand, plus we don't like partying in general so that wasn't an issue.
We did drive up to Edinburgh for the evening where we had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe, drinks at The Conan Doyle and stayed at a little boutique hotel before visiting Edinburgh Castle, The Writers Museum and Greyfriars Kirkyard the next day. That was our celebration haha!
Obviously, as I mentioned in a recent post we did book a 'proper' Honeymoon (read about it here) but even that isn't traditional seeing as it is in the month that our first wedding anniversary will be rather than the week or so after.
Lastly, I wanted to also touch upon the fact that I said I didn't take his name. However, I am Mrs Hallow. We wanted to have the same last name as each other, it feels more like being an official, legal, legitimate family to me, but there were reasons not to use the current names, therefore, we chose our own and changed both of our surnames via deed poll.
That is how I became Mrs Hallow.
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