After going out for more than a decade, Ollie and I decided to rush into things and get married - it's all going too fast! I thought I would write a short blog post about our engagement, talk a bit about how we got together and share some of my favourite photos of us! This blog post will mainly be for us, as I think it will be a lovely thing to look back on in years to come, but if you're like me and love a nosy into peoples relationships - read on!
Ollie and I met when we were 17. We used to go to the same school together but were in different years, so didn't know each other despite having friends in common. We discovered our paths had crossed several times - we had sat back to back in our art block for a few months during sixth form and had even been on the same school trip together when we were 15/16. It was only after we had left school that we properly met at a mutual friends 17th birthday party - who is actually going to be Ollies best man! My friends used to tell me all about how great Ollie was and that we had so much in common. I don't know about you but when somebody tells me to watch a movie because it's brilliant and 'I'll love it', I make a stubborn point of not watching it. This is what I said to myself about Ollie at first - I wasn't going to like him just because everyone said I would! The two things I remember from our first encounter were - we had a brief conversation about bands we liked, then he played a drinking game and was very, very sick everywhere which was maybe not the best first impression but it was certainly memorable! We bumped into each other more and more after that, and I realised that everyone was in fact right, he was kind of great. He had mad blonde hair, a really sarcastic, dry sense of humor and we liked all the same films, T.V shows and music. We had a really good friendship for about a year, but the kind of one where you not so secretly fancy them quite a lot. He used to kiss me on the lips and tell me he did that with all his friends who were girls - can't actually believe I fell for that one! New Years Eve 2008 we officially started 'going out' and he stopped having to make up lies to kiss me.
Here are a few of my favourite photos of us over the years...
We both look so young here! This was taken at our friends house about a week or two after we started going out. Probably around the time we decided to get matching tattoos... a bit mad I know but it's a quote from a book not each others names, we're not that daft! Six months later we moved into our first flat together in Brighton before we moved to London to go to university.
I studied Fine Art Drawing at Camberwell and Ollie went to Wimbledon and studied Sculpture. They're both UAL (University of the Arts London) campuses so we got to graduate together which was nice! The next photo was taken on the night of my degree show private view. We both look like we should be living in Sweden but we were sitting on a pavement in South London!
This was when we lived in a house share in Elephant & Castle with some of our best friends. We threw Ollie a 'Day of the Dead' birthday party where we ate Mexican food and dressed up as spooky ghouls. We lived all over South London for about 5 years before we got fed up of paying the extortionate rent and moved back to Sussex.
We spent the next few years trying to find our feet and figure out what we wanted to do. We bought an old Volvo and went camping round France, lived with our parents for a bit and then moved back to Brighton where both of my sisters lived at the time. Last July we decided to move once again and bought our first home together in Hastings. We came on a day trip to here and immediately loved it. It's full of great cafes, restaurants, independent shops and creative people! Here is my little family on the Hastings Pier, looking happy in our new home!
So I'm sorry to disappoint but the proposal wasn't very romantic! We spent the day at the Hastings Museum which is just down the road from where we live and had a great time looking round all the weird things on display. There is a whole section dedicated to a man who was originally from Hastings but moved to Canada to live as a Native American called 'Grey Owl.' Towards the back of the building there is a beautiful room with wood carved paneled walls and an amazing ornate ceiling. There was a big sign saying you can hold a wedding ceremony there. Later when we were in the pub having an afternoon pint and we got chatting about getting married. Ollie said I should email the Hastings Museum and ask how much it would be to hold it there. So I said if I'm emailing venues, does that mean we're getting married? Yes as it turns out!
We're hoping to get married next year but haven't made any solid plans about when or where yet. For now we are just enjoying being engaged. I'm looking forward to all the planning and to having a good excuse to get all our close friends and family together. Most of all I'm looking forward to our future together. I know it will be full of pints down the pub, true crime documentaries and lots of laughing.
