10th – 28th October 2013

The ferry arrived in Corfu in the dark and in the mother of all storms. During the crossing we had decided to just wing it and drive around for a while until we found somewhere to crash for the night and to contact our wedding team the next day…but as we disembarked, looking like tramps after being on the road for a few days and clutching cans of beer which we had bought on the ferry, I was tapped on the shoulder.

I spun around to see a smiling face and heard ‘Hi, is it Lisa?’ in a clearly British accent! It was Lorraine and Yiannis, half of our wedding planning dream team! They were passing the port and decided to see if we appeared…and we did! We followed them into town and they found us a great cheap little hotel right on the swelling sea front.

The wind enraged the water and the rain came down in biblical proportions as we all ate tapas at a gorgeous little local restaurant that night. We exchanged stories and met with Stella, completing our team of planners. Wedding talk was rife, the wine was strong and we were exhausted. Europe had been huge for us and it had begun to take its toll, as our EU tour was coming to an end we would never be closer to home than we were right at that moment.

Taken with Lorraine and Yiannis when the sun arrived!

We were tired and feeling a little homesick I had decided it was time for a break…in England. The Corfu Exclusive  and Corfu Wedding Planner team were happy for us to postpone the wedding until later in the month and we booked a flight back to Blighty for 2 weeks.

In the blink of an eye we were back on our home turf and rushing to visit our families and friends. Of course, nothing runs so smoothly, after a long day flying home we went to collect our hire car, which, we had diligently booked online.

We handed over our booking number and asked for proof of address that matched our credit card. Of course, we don’t have any such thing, we don’t receive post in Peggy and they wouldn’t accept an online statement.

It is so strange to watch a person who just cannot comprehend that we live outside the realms of the BS British rules system. Its like seeing a robot shut down and a digital display flickering over their eyes reading ‘cannot compute’. We argued the toss but to no avail, they wouldn’t give us a car.

We did the rounds of the car rental companies asking for quotes, 3,500 pounds was a little out of our budget, as was the price that we eventually paid but without a car we were going nowhere! We were quoted 160 pounds online for two weeks and ended up paying twice that price for half the time. Alex was furious and threatened to get back on the next plane out of the UK.

Living in England it is impossible to see how many ridiculous rules that are imposed upon you on a day to day basis. Stupid jobsworths creating rules to create meaningless jobs to create revenue to tick boxes to label you and to make you do as you are told and not to stray outside of the lines that are carefully put there for you. Don’t you DARE get out of your box!

Anyway, I digress, I somehow managed to stop him getting on a plane and we drove home. We spent two weeks catching up with family and friends. Whilst away we had been nominated for the Wedding blog Awards with UK Bridal magazine leader, Wedding Magazine and our good friends Michael and Andrea from Bohemian weddings had gone along for us in case we won and to drink our share of the champers! We didn’t win (but thanks for all of your support and votes) but they came all the way up North from London to share the industry goss with us and to join us for dinner with some old friends.

We hung out with our parents, my Nanna and my sisters and nephews, stayed with friends all over the place and even went along to a networking do for Halloween! We partied with the Creme-de-la-creme of the UK wedding Industry at the first ever Wedding Hour Live hosted by Brides Up North (yes that is Alex in a wedding dress, it was his turn!) and The Wedding Affair.  Jonny Draper Photography, Love Bridal Boutique, Howard Wing, James Jebson made the night one to remember and we had a total blast being totally ridiculous! We also managed to catch up with Jeff Wood and got up to our usual shenanigans with him and a great group of friends!

We were non-stop but it felt SO good to be around such wonderful friends and family, old and new. It was a relief just to be ourselves and for no-one to be surprised! We are always ourselves but we are always with new people, new friends and there is always that initial pressure. Will they like me? Will I say something offensive (unintentionally….I have been known to have a DRY sense of humour)? Will we get on? Do we have anything in common? All the usual feelings when building new friendships.

So being home and with friends that know us was AMAZING! I could be dry and insensitive and think I was funny, Alex could have the banter he so misses with his friends without upsetting anyone and we could all get drunk together and not care! It was bliss!

Of course, all of this made it even harder to leave. We had our last two European weddings to go and then we were into the middle east which we were both excited for. To get our teeth into something new, culture and traditions beyond our own and roads less travelled…but all leading us further from home and the comfort that we find there.

We were so discombobulated that we almost missed our flight back to Corfu, Alex thought it was at 5am Saturday but it was 5pm on the Friday! We found this out just in time to make it to the airport in time but then found ourselves locked in our friends house! its another long story but we made it and as we landed back in Corfu so did the sunshine.

The storms had passed and the island had regained its calm demeanor. It calmed us too and reminded us why we were on this crazy emotional roller-coaster and got us ready to enjoy our 62nd wedding!