2022 bride

my honeymoon tbr!

2023, books

Hello!

Ever since booking our honeymoon back in January, I’ve been umming and aahing about how many books is a suitable number of books to bring with me (as I had zero plans other than ‘reading in the sunshine’).

So after a lot of deliberation (and finding some fantastic titles on Kindle unlimited) – here’s everything I have the potential to read on holiday (but I will absolutely not get through all of them).

Starting with the physical books I brought – these are my priority because otherwise it will feel like a complete waste using some of my luggage allowance on bringing them:

📚 It Ends With Us – Colleen Hoover
To briefly explain; when we got married, we asked our guests to gift us a copy of their favourite book, so we would have a collection of our favourite people’s favourite books. In an endeavour to read them all, I ‘created’ (thought up) the Roberts’ Book Club where my husband and I take it in turns to choose one book a month. This month was my turn and I thought holiday would be the perfect place to read my first ever CoHo book! I’ve heard very mixed reviews but I’m intrigued enough to want to form my own opinion.

📚 It Starts With Us – Colleen Hoover
So basically when Waterstones had their half price hardbacks sale in January, I got overexcited about no longer being on a book buying ban (which then lead to putting myself back on one) and bought the sequel because it was there, it was pretty and it was half price! It only makes sense to read both of these books together, right?

📚 Horrible Histories: Groovy Greeks – Terry Deary
Yes, I do mean those non-fiction books from when we were kids that had a fantasy CBBC TV show. This one, surprisingly, is also linked to our wedding – my husband and I are massive nerds, so when we were considering what to name our tables at the wedding breakfast, we thought the Horrible Histories books would be fun, very ‘us’, would fit our bookish theme and make cute centre pieces. See:

When thinking about what books to bring on holiday, I was then struck with the idea of reading each of the 20 books in the box set in the relevant location – so Groovy Greeks has come to Kos! I don’t think there’s a better place to learn about it all to be honest.

📚 God’s Behaving Badly – Marie Phillips
Another Greek themed book for our Greek holiday – technically, the little strip of paper with this title on it is currently still in my tbr jar but I thought it would be thematic, so whenever it does come out the jar I can pop it straight in the ‘read’ jar which will also be satisfying. I love a modern retelling of the Greek Gods so I’m really excited about this one.

The next books, I choose out of my tbr jar because I was worried I would run out of books to read. Yes, I am an overpacker.

📚 Eleanor and Park – Rainbow Rowell
I was so excited to pick this reread out of my jar – I first read this book when I was in South America in 2015, so this book is already well travelled! I thoroughly enjoyed it the first time and I’m looking forward to absolutely devouring it again.

But knowing this was a reread, I wanted to pick another title out the jar… which is when I pulled out:

📚 Things We Never Got Over – Lucy Score
But I recently found both this book and the sequel, Things We Hide From The Light, on Kindle Unlimited so I didn’t need to waste the luggage weight on the physical books. So I picked another title out the jar…

📚 These Hollow Vows – Lexi Ryan
And having picked my sixth physical book, I felt content that I had the right number of books. This one I picked up relatively recently from The Works but I’ve seen lots of people talking about it on TikTok so I’m excited to get stuck in.

But alongside the physical books, I also have my Kindle – when we left the UK, I’d just finished reading Crescendo by Becca Fitzpatrick (the sequel to YA fantasy romance ‘hush, hush’) and I had the third and fourth books, Silence and Finale, lined up to read next. Considering I’m writing this on our third day of our honeymoon and I’ve already finished Silence, I’m planning to get through Finale just as quickly.

The other Kindle books I have downloaded are:

📚 Things We Never Got Over – Lucy Score
📚 Things We Hide From The Light – Lucy Score
📚 Twisted Love – Ana Huang
📚 The Cruel Prince – Holly Black (also on Audible)
📚 Zodiac Academy – Caroline Peckham and Susanne Valenti
📚 The Serpent and The Wings of Night – Carissa Broadbent
📚 We Were Liars – E. Lockhart
📚 Edinburgh Twilight – Carole Lawrence
📚 The Keeper of Happy Endings – Barbara Davis
📚 Gates of Thread and Stone – Lori M. Lee (also on Audible)
📚 The War of the Worlds – H. G. Wells
📚 The Best Friend Bargain – Crystal Kaswell

I am absolutely not going to get through all of these, but the perks of the kindle is that I have 12 books downloaded and it’s not effected my luggage allowance at all!

But if somehow I need something else to read, I also have Audible – I’m currently listening to The Golden Enclaves, the third and final book in the Scholomance series by Naomi Novik, but I also have some other fantastic titles downloaded and ready to go. Rather than listing them all, here are the ones I’m most likely to choose if I finish The Golden Enclaves.

📚 After I Do – Taylor Jenkins Reid
📚 Wings of Ebony – J. Elle
📚 Circe – Madeline Miller
📚 Legendborn – Tracy Deonn
📚 The Man Who Died Twice and The Bullet That Missed – Richard Osman

So I’m definitely not going to run out of books, that’s for sure!

Our first few days in Greece have been very grey and rainy, but hopefully the storm is going to blow over tonight and I can start lounging by the pool in the pretty new clothes I bought with my book and drinks on tap tomorrow!

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx

In 4 Weeks I’ll Be A Wife!!

2022, lifestyle, wedding

Hello!

If we flash back to January 2020, before we knew what social distancing was and knew what it was like to spend months away from our families, my boyfriend and I picked a wedding date in what was potentially the most anticlimactic (but most us) engagement ever and this moment felt a million years away.

Even now, I don’t think it’s properly settled into my brain that I’m going to be married and have a husband in just under a month. I’ll be the one wearing the gorgeous white dress, we’ll have said our vows and signed the paperwork! How mad is that??

With four weeks to go, all the planning is done, but there’s still a fair bit to do in terms of centre pieces, favours, name place cards, crafting signs and letterboxes, making sure everyone’s on the same page with where they need to be and when etc. It really is exciting and although it sounds worse than I intend it to, I’ll be so glad when the day comes so I won’t have to do anything else!

The main thing on my mind at the moment is the more exciting aspect of marrying my best friend – our wedding day is our seven year anniversary and I honestly can’t believe that 1) it’s been seven whole years we’ve been together and 2) it’s only been seven years, when I feel like I don’t really remember a time when he wasn’t there and we didn’t experience life together. I’m excited to read my vows to him (I’m really pleased with what I’ve written), I’m excited for our first dance and I can’t wait to see him in his suit and spend all day being sappy and no one rolling eyes at us!

I love our venue, I love the choices we’ve made in decor and clothing, I love the people we’ve chosen to be part of our day and although I’m still a little overwhelmed by how much there still is to do, I’m trying to focus on the part where I’m excited.

The pros of suddenly being unemployed mean I have plenty of time to get everything done (whilst the cons mean my mental health has taken a nose dive and I often don’t have the motivation to do anything… it’s a fun game). Even just glancing at my list of what still needs doing it’s predominantly really specific questions for our coordinator, lots of logistical organisation, and crafting, but I do have a habit of making my to do lists really detailed so even though it’s currently a very long list, it’s all actually very achievable.

Whilst he was at work the other day, my fiancé was given a work phone (he’s been banging on about wanting an iPhone for weeks, so it’s nice that he’s been able to scratch that itch, not that the hyper fixation has worn off!) and he was very proud to show me when he got home that he only set up one contact – he’d added me in with his surname and it was actually quite shocking, I didn’t recognise that it was me! The name thing still freaks me out a bit – it will definitely take some getting used to, but I’ve got the rest of my life to do that!

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx