Hello Everyone
Back in March my husband and I went to a wedding in York and of course we took Oliver with us! A wedding with a nearly one year old is a whole different ball game than before Oliver came along. Its going to be along one so you may want to grab a cup of tea!
The Journey…
Three things I learnt during that journey…
1. You practically pack the WHOLE house!
2. We need a bigger car
3. Thank the lord for cbeebies! (Who said babies sleep in the car!)
We stayed for 2 nights at the Aldwark Manor Golf Club near York, which is where the wedding took place. The hotel was in beautiful Yorkshire surroundings and we were very excited about our first family trip away!
Packing for 3 days away with a baby is like a military operation! The hotel was in the middle of nowhere which meant we had to pack for every eventuality! The car was loaded with clothes, baby food, travel cot, steriliser, bottles and the kitchen sink!
Oliver hadn’t had a nap the afternoon we left as we were hoping he would sleep in the car which much to our surprise (can you sense the sarcasm?) he didn’t! Luckily I had downloaded plenty of episodes of Teletubbies and Baby Jake to entertain Oliver during the 3 hour journey and this lucky Mama was sat in the back to watch them too. I was also armed with a bag full of snacks! Although he didn’t sleep during the drive, he was as good as gold and the journey really wasn’t too bad!
The Ceremony…
The morning of the wedding we were woke up in our lovely room at 6am by a little voice shouting “DADA DADA”, as we were sharing a room we knew there was no way he was going back to sleep! So we sat in bed and popped Cbeebies on until it was an appropriate time to leave the room and get breakfast. We were down for breakfast by 7:30am and straight away it was apparent we were the only couple with a baby staying there as the restaurant was empty!
Once we all had breakfast we went back to the room in an attempt to get Oliver down for a nap! Much to our surprise, he only slept for half an hour (more sarcasm) and then wanted to get up and explore the hotel room! Due to this very short nap it meant we had one tired and slightly grumpy baby during the ceremony! We found our seats, which as we were family meant we were near the front so no chance slipping out of the back door during any possible meltdowns! Luckily where we were sat as it was such a beautiful day, there were french doors open so that was my escape route! I also had a bag armed with dummies and rice cakes. In the end we made it through the whole ceremony with no tears albeit we were a whole bag of rice cakes down!
I was so proud of how well he did to sit through the whole ceremony with no meltdowns as since he’s become more mobile he really isn’t happy to sit on your knee anymore! He then went on to make us even prouder at how funny and happy he was during the three course wedding breakfast and speeches. After that we sneaked off back to the room for a quick nap before the evening guests arrived. He slept for an hour and then went on to party until 11pm!
Although going to a wedding with a little one is a different experience to what it would of been like before, we had a lovely time and we were just beaming with pride at how Oliver took the whole weekend in his stride. So many guests came over to say how well behaved he was and how lovely he looked!
Thanks for reading!
Love,
