Tony & Ruth

Our friends Ruth (who is one of Annie Joy's Godparents) & Tony (affectionately known as Tony ten Bellies on account of how much he eats!) got married on July 5th at Mossley Hill Church.
It was the most amazing ceremony that we have been to in a long while. You could really sense God's presence in the worship. The vows were beautiful (I think they wrote them themselves) & I really believed that they meant them too! As you can see from the photo above, they are so happy together!
The church is beautiful & oddly enough, I had picked a library book up a few weeks earlier called The Sailing ship Tree by Berlie Doherty which happens to be about the nearby stately home, Barkhill Mansion, which Mossley Hill church served. (Barkhill Mansion is now I M Marsh college. Just look at what fits on the estate today!) There is a detailed description of the church in one of the early chapters! It was great to visit it in the flesh after reading all about it!
After the ceremony we went to the wedding breakfast at our church Frontline. The main room was set out beautifully by Jude. She did a fabulous job of transforming the room into a romantic cosy dining area. Our church building used to be army barracks & the main room was were the tanks & other army vehicles were stored!

The cake looked gorgeous although we didn't get to taste any as we left before the cake cutting!!

I was really excited to see that Annie Joy had her name on the place settings at our table! How sweet!

We all enjoyed the love heart favours! :o)

The speeches were funny & moving. I loved that Ruth's Dad used old photos of Ruth which were projected onto the screen behind him as he talked. This is Ruth when she was born. I loved that her Dad began by thanking his wife for making the wedding possible by bringing Ruth into the world in the first place! Tony's brother was the best man & was really funny! Tony is the only one in his family who is a Christian & it was great to hear how much Tony's family respect his faith after the changes they have seen in him since he started following Jesus.

Annie Joy was as good as gold throughout the speeches. she enjoyed exploring the room when the meal was done. The candle bag lights on the bleachers at the back of the hall gave us all on our table a bit of a scare when one of the tea lights started to scorch the bag! (They were fire retardant bags so they wouldn't have caught fire but even so...!)

I couldn't resist taking a picture as we left of all the Shloer & wine bottles that had been cleared off the tables!

Annie fell asleep before the band started singing but they were very good! It was a lovely day & we had fun chatting with friends & sharing Tony & Ruth's wedding day. We think they will be very, very happy for many, many years to come. ;o)