On honeymoon, Be Back Soon

One year down...

Can you believe it? We started writing this blog a whole year ago! 

We decided to write the blog to le our friends and family in on the whole story of how we got engaged, 12 months in and we have an amazing number of followers from all over the world! 

I honestly though we might get about 100 views on the blog (mainly my mum) and that we might last until Christmas, not having much to say. Now we have tens of thousands of views and are the featured blog on North West Bride Magazine! How crazy is that?

Anyway, to celebrate this we want to give you all a piece of our wedding! We have some of our favours left and want to share these with you! 

We decided to go for something a bit different (I'm sure you are shocked!) and designed up some puzzles with our cartoon on them!!

All you need to do is send an email to howgeeksgetmarried@gmail.com with your name an address and we will send it on to you!

Thank you all again for all your support over the past 12 months!

#Tardisbooth

So this is going to be a picture heavy post. This week I am going to chat about our Tardis.

We had just got engaged this time last year and as we frequently did we would brainstorm ideas while driving on the weekend. We were away shopping and while on the motorway Catherine said we should have a photo booth at the wedding. Then simultaneously we both said "how cool would a Tardis photo booth be?" It was that point I said in my Wayne world voice "I will build you a Tardis!" That's how it all began.

I started on the plans, spent a lot of time on tardisbuilders.com and dreaming of how it would all come together.

I started building in January. I took a trip to B&Q with my dad. Filled up the van full of wood. I was giddy with expectation.

Between work and home life the only chance I had to work on the Tardis was on Saturdays. I would wake up and go to work. Every time I finished for the day I would show Catherine pictures of my progress. It looked like a giant brown box but to me it was so much more. Everytime I looked at it all I could see was the finished product.

Time drew on and the weeks turned to months. Every week I would spend my spare time working out details of how it would come together. Where to get the paint? What is the perfect colour? What style will the windows be? How to get windows on it? How to make the doors open? How to make sure the doors stay closed? So much time was spent inventing ways to build the Tardis.

It was time to paint. Catherine and I went to home base in Omagh. Now I must say home base became like my second home, every Saturday morning I would pop in a grab some wee item that I had be mulling over all week. I'd also take the opportunity to call in with the Morris'. We took our Tardis cake topper with us as well as the Pantone number and the colour name (Oxford blue). Homebase were able to match the paint and then begun the only pain of Tardis building. I hate painting. I am no good at it. However this was a labor of love. Base coats, drying, first coat, drying, it takes forever!!!

It was almost there! Thanks to signature signs in ballygawlley they were able to print the "police public call box" signs and now it was the headache of actually turning what I had build into a photo booth. A computer monitor from Amazon £15. Then after a lot of research a canon selphy printer cp500 bought from ebay. Ink and paper from Amazon.

One of the main issues I had was that I wanted the photo booth to be completely automated. One big red button and that's it. Takes the pictures, does voice prompts and prints without any other input. The issue is that there is no real usb red button on the market. After a couple of weeks of pondering. I ended up with a guitar foot peddle linked by usb with a red cover. I used a piece of software to record the input and matches it to the key required to start the program.

The software used to run the photo booth was "sparkbooth" it works out at around £35 and it does offer a lot of customisation. We designed up the photos to print with our how geeks get married logo.

It was all ready.

Thank you to lusty beg for letting us set up the Tardisbooth the night before as it would have been a nightmare to do it on the day.

It went down a storm. I looked really impressive and it functioned well. All our guest who had a chance to get in had a personalised keepsake of the day.

Now that it's all over what to do the the Tardisbooth? If you have any ideas what we should do please get in touch!

Hitting a low point...

So the wedding is now 5weeks past and we had been warned that it would be around now that we would be starting to feel a bit low, or at leat feeling like there was a bit of an anticlimax. 

Luckily though, we are still flying high! We've been enjoying all the buzz of catching up with friends and family since the big day. We've been settin up our house! So with all this going on we just seem to be getting higher and higher!

I guess there are two other reasons as to why we've not felt the anticlimax-

NO.1 - The Minimoon!

We received the amazing gift of a night at the Slieve Donard Resort and Spa (http://www.hastingshotels.com/slieve-donard-resort-and-spa) from one of my Gorgeous Bridesmaids, Cathy. It included dinner, breakfast and a 1hr treatment at the spa! 

When we arrived up we found out we had actually been upgraded to one f their Reaort rooms which was a lovely surprise! 

It was absolutely stunning! We went downstairs for a few drinks and then came back upstairs got dressed for dinner and went down and had the most incredible dinner! The food was fab - as were the service! I can recommend it enough!

The next day we headed to to a scrummy breakfast and then down to the spa - full body massages for each of us! It was exactly what we needed!

NO.2 - the Honeymoon

We decided to wait a few weeks after the wedding before heading away! So we will be flying off in the next few weeks and. We can't wait to share it all with you!!!!

Very last minute prep...

As I have mentioned when we arrived we got to hear one song from Danny Conlon Jr. We were quickly caught up in chatting to all our guests. Making sure they had enough to drink and that they were enjoying themselves. We had arranged a champagne (bubbles) reception to go with the music (Bublé).

We went straight to the reception room to see how everything had been set up. We had brought the flowers from the church to decorate the room some more. I was in awe; the room looked like a massive marquee. The walls and roof were draped in white, all they chairs and tables were white with a blue ribbon.

 For our table centres we had bought white birdcages that hold four tea lights, Iona then proceeded to wrap the flowers from the pew ends around the cages to great effect.

I then noticed it! The cake! It was huge. The cake had five tiers. All wrapped with blue ribbon.

•

Rocky road marshmallow Malteaser

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Orange and chocolate sponge

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Lemon drizzle

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Gluten free Madeira

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Wedding fruit cake

Atop the cake stood our cake topper an 8 inch Tardis with sounds and flashing lights. In front the bride and groom kissing as she stood on top of a suitcase.

At this stage time was getting on. We left the team to finish setting up the flowers and we went to get our photographs taken.

Before we left it was my job to set up one last thing. I unveiled it. I turned on the power. The computer was running, the printer was full, the camera was adjusted. Our life size homemade Tardis photobooth was running #Tardisbooth. I will go into more detail next week.

Champagne? Don’t mind if I do...

(Note from Catherine : Sorry for no post last week, I was supposed to have the photos all edited and ready for James's blog, but I still haven't quite gotten around to it! So today you are getting the non-edited versions plus an extra special video that you may not have seen if you aren't friends with us on Facebook!)

The Mass was over and we signed the papers. We were all in good spirits. We all noticed that the sun started shining through the window onto our wedding papers. It looked really cool. We got a chance to get our picture taken with the Cross that had sat at the top of the Sacred heart spire before the renovations had started. It will probably be coming down again for another 150 years!

 


It was great craic meeting everyone as they were leaving the church. So many faces we hadn’t see in a while as well as those faces that just make you smile. Our little Balloon girl was again very entertaining. 

We got pictures taken with each others families. It is like a tradition in my house that the family wedding picture is hung on a particular wall in the home house so now Catherine and mine will join that tradition.

The amazing Glendale Limousines  laid on a fantastic service, champagne of everyone and coke for the little one (Fionnuala). They were even very patient with us. (Damien ran across the road to get a few Bud for the drive).

The whole time the wedding part chatted giggled and made jokes. Noodles even made sandwiches for the journey. By the way a top tip is to bring sandwiches and snacks in the Limo! You will never believe how hungry you will feel.

The Limo pulled up to the ferry to Lusty Beg, we went across and at this stage we were enjoying the champagne a lot. Our photographer continued to take photographs the whole time. 

As we made our way up to reception we got to see the signs and hearts we arranged to be hung up on the wooden archway. The signs were in retro 50’s style with sayings like “When I said “I DO” I didn’t mean the dishes”

We entered Lusty beg and were greeted by another glass of champagne. Also playing for our guest was our “Bubbles with Bublé”. For the drinks reception entertainment we hired Danny Conlon Jnr. 

Catherine will continue on Thursday! In the meantime here is a video of some of the fantastic pictures taken by our friends and family!

Videos... Or it didn't happen!

So I got our raw footage the other day and I'm so excited to be getting a chance to edit it all myself! James's lovely uncle Peter filmed the whole day! There are some amazing shots!

You all know that the day was filled with little quirky items but some of you may not have seen that the boys made a special effort with their speeches! Here is the intro to our amazing Best Man's speech!

The speeches were incredible and everyone enjoyed them- that's the joy of having storytellers as family! The craic was amazing!
James's speech was really great, although there were a few photos that I wasn't entirely impressed with! I will let him fill you in with all that!
If you want to see some of the pictures that our friends and family have shared with is on Facebook check out the quick video I made over on Animoto!
https://animoto.com/play/C7NcvsbhXnIuo7dsoj2ctA

The Nudge...

As I waited there was quite a hussle and bussle in the church. Everyone was smiling and they are in complete awe of the size of the church and how wonderfully it had been decorated. Jason the night before had been on his hands and knees watering flowers. We were entertained during the wait by Orla Mcginn with OuR music. I say wait but there really wasn’t much of a wait. Its Catherine-  as she always has said was on time and in fact a little early. There were a few guests that had to sneak their way in before she made her grand entrance. (Note from Catherine - I wasn't early, I was exactly on time- I had warned everyone I wanted photos outside the church and that I would be walking up the aisle at 12pm!)

Father Graham had given Jason the job of nudging me when Catherine was 3 pews behind, indicating when I should turn and shake my new father in laws hand and greet my new wife to be. As I stood there facing forward while the rest of the crowd faced the other I have to admit I got a little nervous (what would happen if I turned around and I got so overwhelmed, what if I was reduced to tears and hysterical crying?) what actually happened was that I was counting the blue dresses I could see from my peripheral vision. 1... 2... 3.... wait a minute why isn’t Jason giving me the nudge. HE HAD ONE JOB AND HE FORGOT THE NUDGE! 

No not at all. In my rush to see my Catherine I had forgot Fionnuala, the junior bridesmaid. As this realisation set in I got the nudge.

There she was, stunning, I was in complete shock. I barely even noticed Liam standing there holding his hand out, Catherine was the only thing I could see. Liam’s outstretched hand was soon noticed, we smiled at each other as he handed his daughter over to me.

With Catherine in my hand all seemed right with the world again.

Father Graham gave great mass. Relaxed, fun but still keeping the spirit of the magical moment it was. 

The music as great, Catherine’s uncle Derm and my sister Michelle did the readings and Catherine’s cousin Grainne and my other sister Claire did the prayers of the faithful. Funny side note is that Grainne and Claire read each other’s prayers by mistake, I noticed as I could see the shear dread on Claire’s face. (Another note from Catherine - I would like to admit something at this point. I may have accidentally told both ladies that they were doing the first three prayers of the faithful... I am so sorry girls! I blame Bride Brain!)

I totally forgot to mention our flower (Balloon) girl, my gorgeous goddaughter. We had got her a helium balloon that read “Uncle Jimmy, here comes Auntie Catherine”. It was very cute. Also she was a great source of entertainment during the mass too.

One week done...

Wow! 

I can't believe how fast this past week has gone! This time last week we were outside getting some photos taken by the amazing Isobel O'Brien, but more on her at a later stage!

You got a bit of a peek at James's morning in Monday's post. Here is my chance to let you know what happened on my morning! 

I got about three hours straight sleep the night before the wedding, part excitement, part due I having a head full of rollers! I got out I bed at 6.10am and heading for a shower. Had some breakfast and chilled out with my mum, dad, sister and brothers girlfriend (my brother was still sleeping!). 

Through the morning people started arriving - my amazing aunties Theresa and Anita arrived to do my hair and makeup, and my bridesmaids arrived and got into their matching pjs that Nuala brought! I have them out their dressing gowns with their names on them. 

Whilst I was getting my hair and make up done the girls headed down to Hair Depot to get their hairs done. When they arrived back they got their makeup done too. Isobel arrived just after 10 and just after that I got shouted to come down to the kitchen. 

There I found the lovely John from Dobbin's Flower shop standing with the most stunning and massive bouquet of flowers I have ever seen! At that point Hayley (Dee's girlfriend) handed me a box and said these are both from James!

In the box was the most gorgeous locket with our photos inside it and on the back the inscription "It is a truth universally acknowledged..." Which is obviously the first line from Pride and Predjudice. When I read the card that came with it, I have to admit I had a wee cry!

Speaking of morning gifts, a few of you asked what was in James's "Survival kit" - here is one of the notes I sent to James along with the box!

I then got dressed got a few more photos and chased everyone out to the limo where some of my lovely neighbours were waiting to wave me off!

It was an amazing morning and very chilled out! The only time I felt any stress was in the last ten minutes when I just wanted to get to the church and get married!

When we arrived at the church, James was standing at the door and I have I admit I just wanted to get out and give him a hug! Isobel and mum managed to move people inside and then it was time to head in. 

I had planned for months exactly how we would enter the church. I had timed it and practiced it in my head. The girls walked in perfectly on time, but when it came to me I just wanted to be at the top of the aisle! It was all a bit of a blur, but it was amazing swing all my family and friends looking back at me!

And then I got to the alter...

But the rest of the day is for another post!!!

I'll just finish up saying how happy I am to be Mrs Muldoon!!! 

How geeks GOT married!

So it official. We got a certificate and everything!

The blog is not over just yet we have a lot to cover all the secrets we have been keeping can finally be revealed.

So I thought I should get you the morning of the wedding from my side.

I woke up early on Thursday morning after a long night on Wednesday of setting up and driving the roads. Jason the best man, Jimmy my dad, Liam and Damien were amazing, they all put in so many miles and were completely needed to move stuff and set things up.

 So Thursday morning up bright and early at 8am. I had a shower and shaved again. I gathered all the things I had forgot the night before. The laptop, the flower girl gift and money to pay for bands. I ran over my speech one last time and drove over to the home house. Jason was right behind me and we were meeting dinky there.

My mum had been to the shop and got sausages bacon and rolls so we all tucked in to a large breakfast. No cooking in the house as the smell would stick to us all day. Dinky arrived all dress suited and booted. He looked very smart. Jason went to wrap his car in ribbon and I went to suit up. All came together nicely. I ordered a slightly smaller jacket for myself and it sat perfect. I put on my braces, tardis cufflinks, cravat and pin, I was ready.

I joined the fellas downstairs, we all sorted all our button holes and had a glass of champagne (just the one).

Jason handed me a basket of prep gifts from Catherine. It was brilliant. She had put so much effort into it. It was a great distraction to go thru all the things and to read Catherine's reasons for each item.

It was time to go. "Jason get me to the church". We left Aughnacloy around 10:30. The drive up was good. We had a good chat and a laugh. I randomly turned on the radio and randomly the song playing was "this is gonna be the best day of my life".

We arrived in great time. We went to find the priest and started welcoming the guests. We met up with Damien ( he showed up without a button hole lol) Jason delivered the rings to the priest and I started the short wait on Catherine.

People kept asking if I was nervous. I truly believe I wasn't. I was sure Catherine would show up and after that what else is there to worry about.

It's the big day!

So it's here! The big day!

I wanted to take a wee second out from the busy morning to say thanks to you all for being so amazing and being part of our love story! I am so excited for the day ahead. 

My fab friend Nuala gave me two cards this morning, one with a fab Bronte quote and one with a very apt cover!

"He's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same... My great thought in living is himself. If all else perished and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty transfer. I should not seem a part of it."

So for the last time as Miss Morris, thank you again for being so supportive and fantastic!!!

This time next week....

Holy cow! This time next week I will be getting married!!!!!!!

I can't believe it's so soon! I am insanely excited and everything is coming together. We had our wedding rehearsal this week which was so fantastic! Fr Eamon had us so relaxed, have us plenty of advice and chilled us out no end!

We have so much all finished up now. It's really just the big day to deal with now. Yesterday I wrote up my day timetable and today I am putting the finishing touches to our table plan and do the last of the crafting! 

I recently asked on Facebook what people thought about/ did in relation to moving home before their wedding. I got a real mixture of reponses! I will be heading home at the end of this week, but will probably call up to our marital home a few times to pick up bits and pieces!

I can't believe that it is all happening in just 7 days! Thank you all so much for being part of our journey! I can't wait to share our special day with you all!!!

I’m no Shake-a-Spear but...

The wedding is just around the corner and the tempo has been ramped up! All the jobs that were left for future James and future Catherine have finally come back around. We are meeting them head on and tackling them in a positive and decisive attitude.

When you book anything for your wedding whether it is a band, the cake a photographer they all somehow know to use the same line “Sure we’ll chat closer to the time...” it’s like they are all on the same script or had the same wedding service teacher. Now we are closer to the time, Catherine and i have sent a lot of time getting back in contact with these people.

The biggest thing that is yet to done is a biggie. I have yet to write my speech. I have plenty of ideas just nothing on paper. Every now and again I get small moments of inspiration. I smirk for a minute about how clever it is and tell myself to remember it. Since I do not actually write it down its gone forever. So absolute pearls are now lost forever.

One idea that has stuck with me is making the entire speech from inspirational movie quotes. The only problem is that although I could possibly use “NOBODY puts Catherine in the corner!”, I am struggling with “ROADS?... Where we’re going we don’t need roads”.

The speech is one of those thing at will come to me eventually I just need some time to sit and think. I have discussed it with Catherine. She has gave me a rough time limit (once I start I can ramble forever) secondly she has recommended I at least use bullet points. I normally unless I write down a few pointers, I'll wing it, speaking from the heart. This normally leads to a room full of blank faces trying their best to keep up with my lost train of thought.

I know that once I finally get pen to paper all will be ok and it’s not stressing me out because I know how much I love my very soon to be wife. I won’t have to stretch out a 5 minute speech; I will have to condense a sermon of how much I feel for her. We will see how I do in 9 Days.

AWOL

First off folks, I'd like to apologise on behalf of James and myself! We have been very badly AWOL for nearly two weeks now and that is down to a number of things. 

First of James and I have been pretty I'll these past few weeks. We both contracted two horrible variations of the dreaded lurgy that is going around. It was so serious James even went out and bought himself medicine. James never take medicine, so when he arrived home from work with cough syrup, so others and a grumpy head I knew it was serious!

James is a much better patient than I. Well no that's not true. James just carries on and attempts to fight through it by working harder and infecting as many people as possible around him. I on the otherhand curl up in a ball and sleep. Or at least I usually would. This time around I had something to organise...

It is now less. Than two weeks to the big day and there has been so much to do. I have only just confirmed the music for the day, I had my final fitting of my wedding dress during the week. The boys have all be measured for their suits. The favours are sorted, the surprises we have planed through the day are basically completed. I have confirmed our entertainment, I hav a few wee bits and pieces to sort out with te photographer... And so much more! 

Everyone said that we'd have so much to do in the last few weeks and I did believe them, but holy cow there's a lot to do when planning a wedding!

James and I did kind of take some time out from planning our own wedding to attend the Quirky Weddings Alternative Wedding Fair in the Waterfront Hall which was fantastic! Was so much fun being a judge this time around! I would definitely recommend everyone go to it, not just brides and grooms to be! 

All of our legal papers are all sorted, they just need to be signed on the day which is speeding up the road! I can't believe I have only one more post before the big day itself....

WOW

What goes on tour stays on tour

Last weekend I took part in the ancient tradition of the STAG. You eagle eyed keen readers may have noticed my missing post last Monday, this was stag related. Needless to say I had neither the mental ability nor the physical fortitude to hold my concentration for more than 30 seconds. Now that time has passed and I am back to myself again here it goes.

I woke early on the Saturday morning excited and bowled over by the shire number of texts and snapchats, all the boys expressing their excitement. I got changed put on my cowboy shirt and boots, and relaxed. My beautiful Catherine wrangled me up some breakfast and I was ready to go. I gathered up enough beer and Morgans to get a small army drunk, crisps and nuts to level things out. The plan was to meet at Jason’s house (the best man) have a bite and go on to the pub. Here I had my second breakfast.

I was also handed my amazing stag Polo shirt. He had done an incredible job. Using the Doctor Who logo and changing the “D” to a “C” he created the prefect slogan for a stag doo “Catherine Who”. It still cracks me up. The way I judge it is to consider what I would have done but it surpassed anything i could have dreamt up (and that is saying something). So with my new polo and second breakfast in me we headed to the pub.

The recurring theme of showing up early to the pub was emphasised for the last number of weeks. Everyone was told meet around 10am – 10:30am and the last man in has a forfeit. This is a great idea as it made everyone put an inch to their step and arrive on time. When we arrived at the bar “Dainty Davies” we were welcomed with 16 mystery shots. All had different shots in them but all looked exactly the same. The forfeit for the last man was to take 4.

There it was pints and shots at 10am. Everyone started to arrive and the bus came on time. Jason had booked Kellys Bus Hire to take us to Dublin. Originally we were to take the train however with the Dublin train strikes we were safe with the bus. The craic was mighty on the bus down. Agie (aka Kung fu Panda) had made a stag CD of classic 90’s tunes.
 

After lots of beer, cider, vodka, a mini road trip and a lot of dehydration stops we made it to Dublin (3 hours later). We checked out our Staycity penthouse apartment. It was unreal. The view of Dublin we had was unparallel. The top 2 floors were booked out so we didn’t have to worry about the noise. After a few more drinks, some slagging and some giggles we went for dinner in temple bar.

 

After that in true stag fashion... What goes on tour stays on tour....

Needless to say I had a fantastic time as did the rest of the guys. The road home was just as much craic as the say down as we regaled each other with stories from the night before. I would like to thank all the guys for making the weekend a blurry memorable one
 

Jason – “I love spar”

Dinky – “Jedward”

Damien – “Morris Minor”

Jimmy – “The King”

Nicky – “The butcher boy”

Agie – “Kung fu panda”

Phil – “Little Phil”

Shane – “Shane O Mac”

Pat – “Pat Jennings”

Gerard – “Spanner”

Fergal – “Sir Alex Fergal”

Wayne – “The Hurricane”

Loco – “TG4 Loco”