A Wonderful Wedding Weekend – Part 2

So this is where I left you yesterday

Mr Monster and I had safely arrived at our reception for the festivities to begin. Unfortunately I don’t have many photos of the reception until the official photos arrive but I will fill you in as best I can.

We chose our local bowling alley which just happens to be on a retro theme with checked floors, rockabilly styling and the best alcoholic milkshakes I’ve ever had. We’ve had a lot of good times there throughout our relationship and when we approached them they were really excited about the idea of throwing a wedding.

The world over, Bristol is known for its graffiti. It’s not all about Banksy, we have so many talented artist who daub our city with colour and humour. Our reception venue is located on a street which every year is the focus of a festival called ‘See No Evil’, a massive celebration of street art where the walls and pavements are plastered in graffiti, some of it hundreds of metres high.

We were excited to use the street art as the backdrop for our formal photos to really capture the spirit of our city. We have to wait a few weeks for our professional photos but we have one as a taster (top of the next batch), and I’ve managed to round up a few others taken by guests whilst we were posing.

Mr Monster and The Monsters in-law

Mummy and Daddy Monster

Best Man and Father of the Groom

Formal photos done, it was time to have some fun. A toast of sparkling cider (we are in the West Country after all), a buffet of burgers, and time to get bowling. We had all the lanes open for free for the night, table football, pool tables and a karaoke room, all of which were well used throughout the evening and it was lovely to see guests who had never met before teaming up and getting some competitive spirit going.

We had beautiful cakes on stands made by my mum, and card and advice boxes made by the mother of the groom, both of which I’ll show you in another post.

The speeches were heartfelt and funny, everything a good speech should be, and there were quite a few damp eyes around the place by the time Mr Monster took to the stage to perform ‘our song’ for me. We didn’t really fancy the idea of a first dance and instead decided to do a first song. Mr Monster is a talented musician, I however…am not. We only decided which song to sing four days before the ceremony, so our rendition of ‘You’re my best friend’ by Queen was not without its flaws but I like to think that it had a certain charm about it!

Happy to make way for the real musicians, Mr Monster’s band SplinterBox wowed the guests for a bit with some original songs, before the band we saw the night we got engaged hit the stage with some filthy jazz. To round the night off, a friend and his band played us out until the wee small hours. The bowling lanes were busy until the very end, the delicious barbecue went down a storm and I’m sure that everyone had a good time.

Exhausted but elated, Mr Monster and I checked into the honeymoon suite, popped a bottle of champagne and collapsed into the jacuzzi bath. We had pulled off the wedding which on paper could have been a disaster, but in reality was a personal, emotional, and exhilarating rollercoaster of a day. It was perfect for us, and will be a day we will never, ever forget.

Beautiful Bristol

One thing I love about my adopted home-town of Bristol, is that new street art pops up all the time. You can never get bored when your walk to work is constantly changing with the addition of new and innovative ways to brighten up the urban landscape. This is the latest to tickle my fancy. Combining yarn-bombing with ‘clean’ graffiti done with a pressure washer on the outside of our old central police station. It’s been there a little while now and is surviving so far. I felt the need to take a few snaps and share it with you lovely people. What do you think? (I would encourage you to click on the top picture to enlarge it to get a feel for the details.)

Yarn Bombers of the World, I Salute You.

I only became aware of the phenomenon that is Yarn Bombing this very week when on my way home from work I bumped into this.

One of the trees in a prominent place in Bristol’s Castle Park had a little stripy crocheted jacket. Even though I was keen to get home after a looooong day at work, I had to stop and take a good look.

I do that same walk many times a week and am always on autopilot just dying to get home to my man, my cats, and my tea. When I spotted this woollen wonder, it shook me out of my post-work daze. I had a good walk around the tree, took some photos, walked away with a smile on my face and found myself actually LOOKING at the park I had been taking no notice of for the last seven years. Not bad for a piece of crochet?

There was a tag attached to the piece with a web address www.knitdiss.blog.com so obviously I had to have a look when I got home (still smiling). It turns out that the work was done by someone doing their MSc dissertation on ‘Yarn Bombing’. I had no idea what this was but after browsing through the blog it didn’t take too long to figure out.

Also know as Guerilla Knitting, Yarnstorming, or Graffiti Knitting, this form of street art has been growing in popularity since it originated in Texas in 2005. Bristol is a mecca for graffiti artists the world over, thanks largely to the work of Banksy making its way into the public eye, so seems the ideal place to expand the scope of street art into other media. The beauty of Yarn Bombing being that it does not cause any damage to public or private property and is completely removable, although lets hope it is allowed to remain. Oddly it is technically illegal although I doubt that any charges would ever hold up and I hope that the law-makers would turn a blind eye and appreciate the dedication and creativity involved in such an art.

Whoever you are at Knitdiss, thankyou for brightening up my journey home and I will be keeping an eye out for your future installations.

Have a look at some examples of Yarn Bombing from around the world, projects large and small are all equally fabulous.

Apparently part of an advertising campaign