Go the whole hog on your wedding day

It'll be our 8th wedding anniversary in September and when I look back, we had such a great day as we did things our way, choosing what we wanted at the time to make it a personal, special and memorable day for us and our friends and family. Just the way it should be! You want to splash out on some super heels? Do it! Hubs-to-be wants a full hog roast and all the trimmings? Go for it!

* Collaborative post

Your wedding day is something that should be all about you, and whilst there's always going to be some compromises along the way - be it accommodating a distant relative or doing a few things yourself to save some pennies - it's important to remember that it is your special day, so if you and your partner want to make something happen, then there shouldn't be anything holding you back.


We had our wedding at a hotel in Solihull, and spent the day with all our family and friends from all over the country and even the world, as my half brother, who at the time I had never met, flew over from Australia with his wife especially for the occasion.

We went for a movie theme as we met at Blockbuster when we were students, back in 2004. We played movie music throughout the day, with 'Come What May' (Moulin Rouge) and 'Grow Old With You' (The Wedding Singer) playing at the end of our ceremony and 'I've Had The Time Of My Life' (Dirty Dancing) as the last song of the evening, naturally (but without the lift!). 

We had popcorn in old fashioned paper bags as nibbles, clapperboards as our table centrepieces, cinema ticket stubs as notecards for our guestbook and even gave mini Oscar awards to people during the day for being the 'best supporting male' and so on. The tables were named after our favourite romantic films, we had a quiz for our guests that was full of movie trivia and we had a special themed cocktail menu too.

We spent a lot of time putting a personal touch on every part of our day and had such an amazing time enjoying every moment together.

I would love to do it all again. I love the things that we chose and what made up our day, but of course with time and more money, there's always new ideas or things to think about. For instance, I didn't actually get a bite of the evening nibbles (think we had hot sandwiches and wedges) so if we were considering things now, we'd probably go the whole hog and have a hog roast. Many hotels offer these as they are quite a popular choice, for a BBQ edge over summer or the perfect autumn feast, but did you know you can also find hog roast machines to hire? Some people we used to know got married the year before us and very much planned their wedding and every detail themselves, as they went for an alternative kind of menu, and a hog roast was something they did themselves to add to their day, and it was pretty cost effective too.

Food is one of the big elements of your big day, so whatever you want, remember it's your wedding and you should be able to have your cake and eat it.