As I said on my home page, my name is Jo and I'm 32 years old. I have recently stopped being an A level student and will be starting an Open University course next January/February with the aim of getting a BSc. I had planned to go to university, but as I am expecting a baby on 12th July this year, I decided it would be too much to arrange child care around lectures.

I have known John since March 1998. We got engaged on my birthday in May 1999, and are hoping to get married within the year. We met in an AOL chat room and discovered we were very local to each other and shared lots of interests. I also discovered that his sister lives in the next road to me - small world!

I have three children - Jade, my eldest at 10, Scott who is 7 and Jemma (a real terror!) who is 3. As I mentioned earlier, my 4th child is being born (yes, I can categorically state that as a fact, seeing as it will be by Caesarean - my 4th!) on Wednesday 12th July 2000.

*********Update*********

We are getting married on 18th March 2000. Although it will only be a small wedding at Aldershot register office, we have decided to try and stick to tradition as much as possible. This means full morning suits for John and Scott, gorgeous bridesmaid dresses complete with matching hats, gloves and shoes for the girls, and a big fairytale ballgown in ivory for me! I am keeping the dress a secret from John until the ceremony and I have ordered him to stay at his sister's house the night before! We are all very excited about the wedding, even though it is not the first time for either of us.

********************Update 25.3.00*****************

Well, I am offiically now Mrs. Holness! We had a fantastic wedding day. We were really lucky to have good weather and everything was perfect. The run up to the day had been fraught with problems, but it all came together in the end.

The first hitch we had was about 2 weeks beforehand. We got a letter from the hotel we had booked for our honeymoon weekend cancelling the booking due to hotel refurbishment. Then, my dress did not arrive from Hong Kong on time. In the end, we had about a week between its arrival and the actual day to make all the necessary alterations - and believe me, given the detail on the dress, this was cutting it fine!

On the day of the suit fittings for John and Scott, Scott decided to play up and as a result we had to cancel his outfit. John's suit order had been messed up by an incompetant sales boy (who we found out later had subsequently left the shop). Luckily, the shop managed to get the right gear about 3 days prior to the wedding, but you can imagine how stressed I was getting at that stage!

As I said, the day was perfect. It was everything I had ever wanted or dreamed of as a child for a dream wedding. John looked gorgeous in his suit and I felt really good in my dress. The kids looked lovely in their outfits and were really well behaved considering that the previous wedding was running late by about 1/2 hour so everyone had to hang around outside. During this time, my Dad drove us into Tesco's car park to await John's phone call to tell us we could come to the register office. This was because I didn't want anyone seeing me arrive until I walked into the room itself. Can you imagine the looks we got sitting in a Jag adorned with white ribbons in our wedding outifts in the middle of a supermarket car park?! Click here to discover the story of the couple who delayed our wedding - they were certainly an interesting pair! Apparently, they had to send someone out to the bank to get the cash to pay for the ceremony - as if their story itself wasn't attention drawing!

Anyway, after the ceremony we went into the adjoining park for the photos and there was a tramp sitting exactly where we had planned to pose! No-one had the bottle to ask him to move, so we found another nice spot instead! The official pictures haven't been developed yet, but my brother has had his ones done, so that is what I am posting here.

Finally, we decided to spend our honeymoon night in a B & B in Salisbury. As it turns out we both spent the night being violently ill! We initially thought it was food poisoning, but none of the other guests were ill. We realised when we got back that it must have been a tummy bug caught from Jemma, who had been sick two nights running before the wedding day. Still, despite all of these hiccups, we will still regard it as one of the most special days of our lives!

Please be patient....this page may take a while to load!

The Bride and Groom.

Signing the book.

With both sets of parents and our children as bridesmaids and page boy.

Confetti throwing.

Our wedding cake - we opted out of the traditional white iced fruit cake (no-one likes fruit cake anyway!). Instead we had a chocolate and Grand Marnier sponge cake covered in delicious chocolate icing and decorated with sugar flowers and ribbons.

More pics...........

My wedding dress was supplied by Lisa at "Brides & Belles":

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Update 18.07.00.......

Josh has arrived!

Yes! On 12th July 2000 baby Josh entered the world at 12.15pm, weighing 7 lbs 6.5 oz (that's 3350g for all you metric people). He was 51 cms in length. He is a superb baby - never crying or whinging (lucky us!) and when he's not sleeping, he is an extremely alert little boy, taking in everything around him.

John was the first to hold him, and he was also the first person Josh opened his eyes to. Although I had a Caesarean, I went home after 2 days instead of the usual 5, and we are both doing really well. Pictures will be posted soon as Josh makes his internet debut!

Pix now ready. Click here.....