Wedding, Pippins and Weather

Summer is always such a great time here in the gardens, we see so much going on and love the activity.

In the last couple of weeks it has been particularly busy with a big wedding on Bank Holiday Sunday and then a charity day on the Monday.

Rachel and Shane and their families have been visiting us a for while now and planning their marquee wedding.  In the two weeks leading up to the big day we were getting a bit concerned about the weather but crossing our webbed feet seemed to have worked and the day was gorgeous (but walking was hard!).

Shane, Rachel and Rachel's parent caught in between formal shots - Mum is never off guard though!

The bridal party arrived at about 4pm in two fantastic cars A Rolls Royce Phantom and Jaguar, (they had been married in their local church in Dudley).    Local Flutists - "Champagne Flutes" played beautifully outside in the gardens during their welcome drinks and canapes.There was also a chap drawing cartoon pictures of the guests - everyone seemed to like them too. They moved inside for dinner at about 6 o clock.  The sun was going down and was shinning into the marquee which was opened up so we could see the proceedings nicely - all very civilized with some lovely speeches at the end. Cake cutting and dancing followed

Champagne Flutes

It was a lovely day and better still they did not forget us - all of the bridesmaids had duck food for favours - so we got our wedding breakfast too!

Not quite as good as wedding cake but still appreciated!

The following day we had a lot more visitors - the local nursery Pippins (one of the JR charities for 2013) ran a fun day called "Laugh with Pippins" .  Magic Russ came along and did a great show for the kids, there were pony rides, bouncy castle and all sorts of garden games.  In the evening the laughing continued to comic Mick Martin, however this was not as well attended as the organizers had hoped.  

Half term followed and the rain came - by the time we saw the children that week they were a bit stir crazy and needed to run about --- we stayed on the water, until they brought out the corn!