The Lovettes: Introducing you to Khiley and David

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Hello lovely ones! It’s time for another evening update from one of our new Lovettes – our team of blogging brides. This evenings post is from Khiley, member of pin-up retro girl band, The Tootsie RollersThis is Khiley’s first post for Love My Dress so please join me in welcoming her on to our team! She is due to marry on 9th October this year at Hengrave Hall in Suffolk, so is already well underway with her wedding planning.

You will find more information about Khiley including her thoughts on her wedding, what marriage means and a link to her favourite Love My Dress wedding at the end of this feature.  You can also read all our other Lovettes features here.  Over to you Khiley!

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How would I describe my fiance, David Williams? He is a man. That may sound flippant, but it’s the word that reverberates inside my mind whenever I see or think of him. ‘Man’ by its most basic and absolute definition. I imagine, if you take the various attributes of masculinity and boil them down, you have my Dave. He is strong, steady and sure. He never plays games; he is wise and incredibly just. In fact, I call him My Caveman. Few things make him happier than a reasonably priced pint and the football. I feel 100% safe whenever he is around, physically and emotionally. He is a ‘looker-after-er’ – that’s my made up adjective for him, anyway 🙂

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Now that’s a very vivid picture I have just painted for you all, so here is the curve ball: Dave is a classical violinist. I get no end of joy seeing him dressed in his tux playing this beautiful delicate instrument. No one ever believes it is his job when they first meet him. However, it makes perfect sense to me.

So yes, he is ‘The Caveman’, but underneath it all, he is so caring. I just knew really early on that I wanted to grow old with him and that he would make the most wonderful Dad to our future children. You only have to see the way he dotes on our dog Charlie to know he would be an incredible father. I was working on fixing a broken heart when we met, so knew he had to be special for me to be able to imagine such a future with him. Family is simply the most important thing in the world to me, and now, he is family. He even embraces our crazy family Christmas’s with the 6am starts and hundreds of strictly adhered to traditions! He is intrinsically part of my life in the way I know he’ll never not be.

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We had been together just under five years when he proposed – in a hot tub, with champagne, overlooking Lake Windermere! We very quickly decided on the three most important things; the venue, the food and the music. I’m a performer with The Tootsie Rollersand Dave is a musician, so we are incredibly lucky that lots of our friends will be performing for us on the day, providing live music pretty much throughout the whole day.

We both wanted to get married in church, which kind of surprised us both as neither of us are particularly religious. However, we both wanted to say our vows somewhere that had the necessary gravitas that we felt ‘promising to love each other for the rest of our lives’ deserved. However, we also loved the idea of the day being all in one place, so we decided that these would be our criteria for our venue…

– church on-site
– somewhere with an historical feel and architecture
– everyone has to be able to stay at the venue

Deciding these three factors really, REALLY helped, as it cut the endless list of possibilities down to about 10 venues.

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We spent a weekend visiting several places, but just didn’t really fall in love with any of them.  That was until we arrived at Hengrave Hall! I hadn’t even left the car and my eyes prickled – I looked at Dave and he just nodded. In that moment it all started to feel real. I could suddenly imagine floating down the aisle to say “I do”, carried by the sound of a string octet. I could see Dave in his tails, my Gramps giving me away, my Mum making her speech and all of our wonderful friends filling ever corner. The venue just felt so ‘us’.

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Sadly, however, my wedding day is going to be something of a bitter-sweet occasion as I lost my incredible Nan three years ago. I grew up talking with her about what my wedding day would be like and I miss her in so many ways everyday. I just can’t believe that I’m getting married without her being there.

In homage to this wonderful woman, our wedding day is going to be held on my Nan and Grandad’s 50th wedding anniversary.  I love the idea of sharing that date with them forever more. My Mum, Gramps and Aunty T will be hands on all day, so the essence of my Nan will be so strong! My Nan is weaved into all the choices and decisions we have made. I know what her opinion would be on every aspect.

My Mum brought me up on her own, so it’s an extra big day for her too.  She is going to do the speech and I just know how incredible she will be. My Mum is my best friend in the whole world – my hero in every way.

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In many ways, Hengrave Hall has inspired much of the detailing for our day. We are just over six months to go and all the big details are sorted now, I’m just really excited to get stuck into the smaller personal details. The most important thing for us is that the day feels completely personal. Absolutely nothing cookie cutter, but still we want it to be traditional.  I guess this is the next step of the journey!

I’m so excited to be sharing it with you all

Khiley x

 

 

A little background on Khiley and David

As this is Khiley’s first post for Love My Dress,  we thought it would be nice to share some of her original Lovettes application with you all – to help you get to know her a little better.  We’ll be doing the same for all our new Lovettes when it comes to sharing their first posts.

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Khiley is due to marry David
Wedding Date: 9th October 2015
Location: Hengrave Hall, Suffolk
Photographer:  Richard Payne
Find Khiley at: Instagram (Khiley) +  Instagram (The Tootsie Rollers, Khiley’s band)

How they met:

Dave is a Violinist and I’m a performer. We met on a job called The Thursford Christmas Spectacular. It wasn’t love at first sight. I thought he was too grumpy! However, through out the contract we got to know each other better and bonded over our mutual name, distant welsh genes and out rosy “gnome” like cheeks! Still no romance. Job finished and that was that. Then 6 months later some friends of his needed dancers for a show. Dave gets in touch to see if I could do the job. I vividly remember walking up to the theatre on a hot summers day and seeing Dave leaning outside. He looked gorgeous…

I felt my tummy fizz! After the show in the bar Dave and I were inseparable and could not stop making each other laugh. Then leaning at the bar it hit me! I had a HUGE crush on him. By the end of that night we had shared our first kiss. Dave said he had the exact same feeling as I walked towards the theatre in a white summer dress. He said I took his breath away… I still have the dress I wore that night… Infact I still wear it on the final night of our holidays. That was 6 years ago.

Last summer Dave took me to The Lake District for a mini break. We stayed in The Samling over looking lake Windermere. Wordsworth lived in a cottage in the ground and the setting inspired much of his work. It was so beautiful. That night in the hot tub with a view of the lake he passes me a little ring box. Dave travels a lot with his work and two years ago he was on tour with George Micheal in Prauge. He said the city was so beautiful and chrismassy (I adore christmas!). It made him think of me and how much he loved me. So even though he wasn’t quite ready for THE ring he brought me the most beautiful traditional ruby love ring. Of course I adored it! Sadly one of the stones fell out. So Dave sent it back to Prauge to be fixed** He tells me he has finally had me ring fixed.

I open the box and there was my beautiful diamond engagement ring!! Just perfect

About their wedding:

We are getting married on the 9th October 2015. That date is so very special as it would have been my Nan and Gramps’ 50th wedding anniversary. My family are incredible close my mum is my best friend and my Nan and Gramps mean the world to me. We lost my Nan 3 years ago. It broke my heart. Ever since I was a little girl me and my Nan used to plan my imaginary wedding. The thought of the day with out was and is overwhelming. However I know she will be there every step of the and I know she would adore the fact we are marrying on their anniversary.

My Grandad will walk me down the aisle and my mum will do the speech. Its going to be a bittersweet day as she will be missed so very much but she will be weaved into ever decision made. I’ll also be wearing the headpiece she and all of her sisters wore on their wedding days. The venue search was tricky. Dave loves think with historical meaning. I wanted somewhere everyone could stay and we both want to get married in a church. We looked at lots of places but we hadn’t even got out of the Car at Hengrave Hall before we knew it was the one!! Its just perfect.

The most important things to us are the food and the venue, that’s where most of the budget will go. Everything else will have a very simple and classic theme. Blushes, creams and golds will be the colour scheme and that was dictated by the flowers. Hydreanga’s, Sweet Avalanche roses and Gyp. We intend to make most of the other details!

As a redhead, it would be pointless to try and opt for a boiling hot August day – I’m always the pale person sat under an umbrella anyway!

What does marriage mean?

I believe your wedding day to be is the gun shot at the beginning of lifes three-legged race. It always surprises me that people feel they’ve ‘done it’, when they tie the knot. It just the start. You’ve picked your team mate, you’ve tied yourselves together and now you’re off! Its a long but incredibly exciting journey. There will be downs but there will be the most unimaginable highs. And it’s all achievable because of that one person standing next to you.

Favourite Hollywood Icon?

Now I have thought long and hard about this question. I’m acutally in the vintage girl band The Tootsie Rollers. I’m ‘the Siren’ within the group and my onstage persona is inspired by Elizabeth Taylor. I feel like I’m cheating on my Icon as she isn’t the starlet that would inspire my wedding!!

Instead I choose Ava Gardner. I love her sense of fun but no frills. I want our day to be personal, classy, sexy & most of all debaucherous fun! Also this quote, its how I feel about Dave.

We became ­lovers forever, eternally. Big words, I know, but I truly felt that no matter what happened we would always be in love. (Ava Gardner)

Favourite Love My Dress wedding:

I have grown up watching the royal weddings with my mum and nan so they continually inspire me. My fave Love my dress wedding is this one!

Annabel

Annabel View all Annabel's articles

Founder of Love My Dress. Passionate Podcaster and Editor. Annabel lives in rural North Yorkshire with her husband and business partner Philip, their two daughters and menagerie of furry hounds. She loves photography, meditation, walking, being outdoors and star gazing. She is fierce when it comes to championing talent within the wedding industry and when she's not working on Love My Dress, she supports her husband Philip in the running of the family's sustainable flower farm and floral design business, Moonwind Flowers. In 2013, she became a published author.

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