Engagement Shoot

Just the title of this post makes me feel a little edgy. I'm not photogenic and not even a selfie girl so having an entire shoot dedicated to Matt and I made both of us nervous to say the least. You know the couples who take regular photos of themselves to share on Facebook? Yup, we're not one of them.

To get around the fear, I booked it at a beautiful Abbey owned by English Heritage which isn't too far from our village. It was a bright sunny day and the Abbey was teeming with families and even a couple of other photographers. We love the photos Alisa took for us! We really enjoyed the shoot and will definitely do more of this in the future (you know, for special occasions, not as a casual weekend activity!).  If you're local to Hampshire, check out her Facebook page here for some more stunning pics (of more photogenic people, ha!).

Here are a few of our favourites from the day! 

 A huge thank you to Alisa and we're even excited about our wedding photos now!

Our proposal story

Every girl wants to share her proposal story with anybody who'll listen!

We had planned to visit Hyde Park Winter Wonderland this year (because we missed it last year) and take a day off work for a Christmas date day. December 11th was settled on, tickets for the ferris wheel were booked and off we went!

Paddington Trail - find a Paddington and donate to the charity who sponsors it. This guy was in Carnaby Street.

We started on Oxford Street where we checked out the Christmas lights and then wandered down to Tottenham Court Road to eat delicious Korean food for lunch. When we arrived at the entrance to Hyde Park it was bitterly cold and the wind was something fierce! He suggested a walk around the park before entering the fairground and I thought, "Erm...okay but it's really cold and the fair is right there and I really really want to ride the ferris wheel right now!". Thought not said, that part is important!

Our walk took us down to the Serpentine where he suggested we sit on a bench together overlooking the pond. Too many birds. I'm scared of birds so I suggested we keep walking. Little did I know but I just ruined proposal number one!

As is always the way I needed the toilet when there wasn't one anywhere near where we were. We went on a hunt and eventually found a public bathroom. Afterwards I started to walk back towards the entrance to the fairground and he tried to get me to walk the other way to a secluded garden. I still hadn't cottoned on so ruined proposal number two!

We were metres away from the fairground entrance when he grabbed my hand and led me off in the other direction. I just wanted to ride the ferris wheel ya'know! As we walked the other way he told me he wanted to find a quiet place to talk. Oh. My. Word. I suddenly got it. Instead of keeping quiet and going with the flow I whittered on about any subject that came to my head. I was so nervous. 

My man did what he affectionately now refers to as his "love preamble" and then got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife. I said yes of course! 

Just to the left of the pathway intersection is where he proposed.

I finally got to ride the ferris wheel as an engaged woman. We then went to the ski lodge and drank mulled wine together, enjoying those first couple of hours of our engagement as a secret between ourselves.  

We Instagrammed this photo but didn't tell anybody it was our first photo togteher as an engaged couple. 

Christmas, love and shiny things

Merry Christmas friends! I know I have been quiet here but that's because my life was flipped upside-down on December 11th when my man asked me to marry him! Above is the picture we used to tell friends (well, those I hadn't already told in person, which was most!). Proposal story post will follow soon I promise. January will see the start of our wedding planning!

This Christmas has been very busy and the next three days will be a whirlwind of family, food and (hopefully) great (relaxing too) times. I'm hoping you have a relaxing and blessed Christmas time with loved ones!

Is it good enough to try?

Lately I've been into telling people that "I tried my best", even if I have failed at something or not quite done as well as expected. Somebody called me out on it the other day and asked if I thought that was good enough. I did a double-take. Of course trying your best is good enough I exclaimed with a mixture of indignant reproach and bemusement. Then I thought long and hard about it and started to wonder if it really is good enough to try your best at something when you know you might not fufill someone's expectations.

The biggest one right now in my life is sailing. My boyfriend is an avid and very talented helmsman (and crew for that matter) and he loves to be sailing at any given opportunity. In fact, before we started dating I invited him on a family sailing trip at the request of my sister-in-law who thought it would get us talking again after our fall-out weeks before. I didn't think he would actually take a day off work to sail with us all - he did. I would love to believe this is because he wanted to spend time with me, though I'm not totally convinced it wasn't the sailing which swayed him into saying yes more than my presence. So you get the picture, the man loves his sailing.

I've been sailing solo since the age of seven though not competitively and not with much gusto. Prior to that I was always thrown in a boat and everybody else did the work because, well I was so little. In Greece I taught sailing each day but under the supervision of a head instructor and made sure the teaching was up-to-scratch. I suppose I was in the boat for moral support and helpful hints more than anything else. I also got a great tan from working on the beach so there was that. So you see, sailing wasn't new to me when I started crewing for my boyfriend.

I don't make the cut though. Everytime we sail together we go through the same pattern which is roughly this: smiles, his erratic steering, my frustration, smiles because it's enjoyable for a moment, me feeling like he's patronising me with his comments, him thinking I'm not trying. 

Sometimes I think it's better to try than not. Sometimes it's right to persevere. Just as long as we have realistic expectations of ourselves and our talents and don't falsely lead others into thinking we're brilliant at something we're not. I'm not great at sailing, no matter how hard I try, but he knows that now. We can only improve, we can only try our best.