RMW Real Bride Diary {Vicky & Oli: The Proposal}

Just a quick note from me to introduce our latest Real Bride :) Vicky is a Team GB Cyclist who suffered a serious injury in a crash during a race last year. Luckily, Vics is well on her way to recovery and is getting married this year in Norfolk with Katherine Ashdown as her photographer...

Hey all you lovely RMW readers! Can I firstly just say I literally CANNOT wait to share my wedding planning with you all, and am thrilled to be a real bride for 2017. I’m relatively new to blogging, and have only really blogged about sport. So, for me this is even more exciting as I get to talk all about love, pretty things and what happens after you get that beautiful ring on your finger! I hope to show you all some stylish and unique ideas and most importantly give you an insight through the journey of a REAL bride. To begin with I will take you back 5 years to when I was 18, where our romance started...

Our Story

It's not very often that people say they met in the gym, but with both of us being professional sports people, it was no big surprise that this was where we found our perfect match. As our hometown of Norfolk is relatively small, it actually turned out that we had the same gym coach, Chris. We initially caught each others eye simply by chance, as Oli’s session was booked in after mine. This became a regular occurrence, but of course neither of us said anything, just eyed each other up. Instead, we both pestered Chris for the lowdown on each other (he was playing a real life cupid and loving it!) After finding each other on Facebook, things moved on and we had a few dates. We shared a love for sport, food, and morning walks, our personalities were quite different but fitted together really well. Oli is super chilled and easy going, whereas I’m pretty energetic and fast moving. I know its a bit cliche but they do say opposites attract, which for us was very true. I’m still not sure how I didn't manage to scare Oli off with my non-stop chat! The months went by and neither of us had made a commitment, even though deep down I think we both wanted to. Despite this things carried on, and on Valentines day he took me on an incredible weekend away to a luxury lodge. With some dutch courage, he finally asked me to be his girlfriend - to which of course I said yes and haven’t looked back since.

The Proposal

Like many other women I'm sure, I was getting to the stage where I would point out numerous rings whilst out shopping, just to make sure Oli knew my preferred style when he did come to buying a ring. I mean who I was kidding, he is better at dressing myself than I am, so I was in very safe hands! The year had already been amazing for us, as we saw two new additions to the family: Bella and Milo, our adorable dogs. So I guess you could say Oli wanted to stick to the traditional fairytale with the rule of three, and decided to finish off the year off on a high. I know Oli is very much a family man, but I also know he doesn't like ‘audiences’, which is why I was clueless when the proposal happened. He really is unpredictable which is what I have always loved about him. The proposal was at Oli’s Dad's house, on Christmas Day, with all his closest family there. He was being really weird all day, and his box of Maltesers still wasn’t empty at 8pm so I knew something wasn’t right. Oli came into the lounge and was stood in front of me calling my name. I had my head down and was so absorbed in a magazine that I actually said hang on a second (how embarrassing!) When I finally looked up he was down on one knee - cue the floods of tears. I was overjoyed with the ring he placed on my finger - a beautiful round cut brilliant design. I was soon put straight as he said that the ring was actually a temporary one and he was waiting on a diamond to come from a friend at De Beers Diamonds in South Africa...WOW! The diamond arrived a few weeks later, and Oli booked us into a jewellers to go and have the diamond fitted into a platinum band. We designed the ring together, and I ended up with a dreamy bespoke engagement ring. I was well and truly spoilt!

Our Wedding

Both our lives were so busy that we didn't actually start even thinking about planning the wedding until about 6 months later. All we knew was we wanted to have a beautiful summer wedding in the countryside of our hometown, Norfolk. I would love to hear how you all met your perfect match, a childhood sweetheart? Or maybe a whirlwind romance? So if you fancy it please comment below! Speak to you all very soon with more exciting planning details! Love Vicky x