The Summer of Love

I've just finished an incredibly indulgent and summery read. I happen to know that at least two other people (my Mum, and my Sarah) have shared in this particular indulgence, as Mum gave me the book to read, and Sarah squealed when I told her I was reading it, and was extra-pleased because one of the main characters is also called Sarah. But I thought I would share it with a slightly wider audience. The book is called Wedding Season, by Katie Fforde, a favourite author of mine whose books I can drink up in very few sittings. They are all incredibly cosy, romantic, fun and relatable - Yum. I'd recommend them to anyone (ok, probably any girl, though there might be the odd chap out there who'd find it entertaining...) after a light and easy summery read. You can read them in the evenings and pretend like you're on holiday, even though you don't actually have a long summer holiday, and are having to get used to the working world where you have to be at work at 9am the next day. *sigh*.

(...momentary nostalgia for this time last year, when I was in the middle of two months off between finishing my exams and starting my job, and had little to do but read summery books and watch Gilmore Girls...)

Mum gave me the book to read almost as a joke - I was home for 24 hours last weekend so I could go to the wedding of a dear and beautiful friend of mine, Debs. I honestly couldn't have been more excited for her, or in awe of how stunning and radiant she looked as she walked down into the church.

Pete and Debs, with Suzi.
Credit to Felicity Woolman, whose photo I have stolen.

The joke of the book was not that I'd been at a wedding that weekend - that doesn't really deserve a book. The jibe was more at the number of weddings and hen parties I'm attending this year.

Me and Mica on her big day, back in May
Credit to Rhoda Lawes for the photo

Some of you may know that I was a bridesmaid for my friend Mica's wedding [above], almost two months ago now (how that time's flown!), which is one of eight weddings I've been invited to this year. Sadly I'm only able to attend seven of them, as I can't get to the one in Paris; and many of them have had/will have hen parties that I have the privilege of attending as well. In fact, I drove straight home to Northampton for this wedding from the hen party of the wonderful Claire [below], having been at her housemate Hannah's the weekend before. And we haven't even gotten to the two housemates of my own who are getting married in July, and September...

Claire, woderfully adorned in Port Meadow

My Mum told me that everyone has a year where all they do for the summer is go to weddings every weekend. I thought she must have been exaggerating, but now I see that this is actually quite likely, and I have genuinely planned my one-week trip to Switzerland around going to various of the weddings this summer. The book I mentioned earlier centres around three friends: a wedding planner, a dress maker and a hair and make-up stylist, and the ins and outs, and ups and downs of their lives, running their own businesses, dealing with demanding clients and their own relationships as they facilitate the big days of others. Having spent much of this year on the inside of what planning a wedding looks like, it was an entertaining read to notice some of the same things in the story about different brides that I have this year. 

Up until last year, in all honesty I'd had very little to do with any weddings - everyone I knew was either already married, or nowhere near married - and then suddenly, as if by magic (a shop keeper didn't appear) a bajillion of my favourite people got engaged. And a couple more have been added since then. It's been an amazing year, really. It's so exciting to see so many excellent people settling down together, and making that commitment, and being absolutely stunningly beautiful in the process. 

For any of you out there concerned for my emotional well-being, you can be assured that all of this hasn't actually given me a hankering of my own to bride up and settle down with anyone in particular (if anything I've got itchy feet to go out and storm the world under my own steam at the moment...), but as a final related laugh (having loved and photographed already this post) this picture did strike a particularly entertaining chord. Especially as I'm already twenty-two.