Monday 12 July 2010

The Nihill-Rider wedding

Round 27: Spring 2026
Steve Rider is 31 and Olivia Nihill is 29.

It's 4:40am and there are several hours before Steve and Olivia's wedding. Steve is still sound asleep but Olivia is already up and ready to go.

She's not nervous, just excited. And a little inspired. Might as well take advantage of the quiet.

Steve and Olivia were both worried about rain but when they get to Central Park, it looks like a gorgeous day.

Olivia had resigned herself to the likelihood that the wedding probably wouldn't be perfect but so far, it was shaping up pretty well. Everyone was even on time!

Well, Asha and Luc were cutting a little close (and looking pretty pleased with themselves for it too) but they made it!

Lia and Ione have been at the park for almost as long as the soon-to-be newly weds, to help with general preparations.

Groomsmen Gordon and Evan came along early too, though Gordon has spent most of his time complaining about how it's way too hot to be wearing a tux. Lia's been hearing it all morning and is silently praying he'll shut up.

The ceremony has begun though and Steve and Olivia are deaf to all the fussing.



It's important to Olivia to carry on her family name, so Steve has agreed to become a Nihill.

After the ceremony, Gordon seems like he's in a much better mood. Maybe it was all that praying from Lia.

He's not usually the whiny type and Lia's glad to see him back to his sweet self.

The bride's niece and flower girl, Jessica, sat next to Ione during the wedding and now has a new favourite person.


Jessica's parents, Max and Zaria, are just a few metres away. With any luck, Steve and Olivia will still be as in love with each other as Max and Zaria are, once they've been together for almost 25 years!

Really, they never stop!

Approximately 10 minutes into Olivia and Steve's marriage: so far so good!

Olivia is still mildly uncomfortable with the idea of her mother marrying another man. But it meant a lot to Caterina and Julian that she still wanted to include him in the wedding.

Caterina liked Steve the minute Olivia first brought him home. That was 9 years ago now, so she's thrilled for him to finally be officially a member of the family.

Max is keen to welcome his new brother-in-law to the family as well, and does so with a toast to the newlyweds.

Max isn't really an orator, nor is he as sentimental as Olivia...

...but the effort is very much appreciated.


After Max is done, the guests start clinking their glasses. Of course, they want to see a kiss from the newlyweds.

Steve and Olivia are only too happy to oblige!

Not that these two have ever needed any encouragement to engage themselves in a little PDA.

They're supposed to be greeting their guests and mingling but for most the day, Steve and Olivia have been glued to each other's sides.

They do occasionally manage to pry themselves apart to talk to other people. Olivia's cousin Owen is keen to offer his congratulations.

Owen's wife Naomi is something of a mentor to Olivia in her career. She was one of the few people permitted to see Olivia's gown before the big day.

Steve chats to Gordon, who is hopefully not regaling him with any more terrifying twin stories!

Max, a chef, made the cake himself to Olivia's specifications and from the looks of it, he's done a great job!

And it doesn't taste bad either!

Soon, everyone is enjoying the cake, except Naomi, who has inexplicably chosen salad instead. Maybe she's watching her figure?

And Tatiana and Jonas, who still act like newlyweds themselves, much of the time.

The success of their home study so far must have put Joanna in a great mood; she's being much more genial than usual!

Seriously, what's gotten into her? Or Kirstin, for that matter!

Seems like Joanna's crankiness has (hopefully temporarily) been passed on to Julian. Who knows what poor Asha said or did but Julian doesn't seem happy!

Sullivan's curmudgeon-in-training, Elspeth, has decided to gate crash this shindig! She is pissed that she wasn't invited to this wedding, so she's come to check it out for herself anyway.

Steve has zero idea who this girl even is, so while she rages, he stares at her blankly.

Elspeth being Elspeth, she doesn't much care what Steve has to say about things. She's just going to sit down and help herself to some gelatin.

Olivia is all too familiar with Elspeth and finds it's just best to let her be, as long as she's not getting into any trouble!


And so Elspeth is allowed to stay!

Meanwhile, Jessica has discovered the little bottle of bubble solution Olivia slipped into the pocket of her flower girl dress as a surprise. Weddings are not particularly exciting for kids, even if they did get to be flower girls, so Jessica is thrilled!

Ewww, that's not for drinking!

See? Now you've gone and made yourself sick!

That's it, just stick to making bubbles!

There's at least one person who was excited to see Elspeth at the wedding - Olivia's nephew, Josh. He might have just the tiniest crush on Elspeth.

Not that he's been game enough to say anything to her about it.

Now that everyone has finished lunch, the bride and groom share their first dance...

...and are soon joined by most of the other guests.

Most! Some guests would prefer to go around the tables and eat other people's leftovers.

Leftovers that have been sitting out in the sun for a couple of hours are, unsurprisingly, rather unappetising. So Jessica instead decides to go and nose around at what her brother is doing.

He's studiously ignoring her, is what he's doing. Jessica doesn't care if Josh and Elspeth won't listen to her. She'll just keep smiling, laughing and interrupting every now and then, hoping they'll include her.

Josh finally gets sick of his little sister and takes Elspeth to that most romantic of places- the patchy grass behind the toilet block.

They don't anything other than hold hands and look at each other goofily, so perhaps even if their parents did catch them, they wouldn't get into too much trouble!

Not that Olivia and Steve care about any of that!

They've loved every second of their wedding day and are looking forward to tonight's sort-of honeymoon.

Seeing they're saving for a house, Steve and Olivia have put off going away for a honeymoon and will be spending the night at the Vista, on Evan and Ione's recommendation.

They already had champagne in the limo ride to the hotel but seeing the staff have left a complimentary bottle in their room, why not have another glass?

They did just get married, after all!

There must be something in the water at this hotel! Evan and Ione left expecting their twins Justin and Xavier and now, Olivia and Steve will become parents in nine months' time! Baby Nihill is due in Winter 2027!

Wedding spam:
As usual, I went nuts with the posed pics after the wedding. I took twice as many as usual, because it was sunset at the time. Each picture has a sunset version and a regular daylight version - the sunset ones turned out too dark, so I'm glad I thought to do the daylight ones!

First time I've ever used the bouquet prop for wedding pictures! I didn't realise you could recolour them once the Sim is holding them but you can, so yay!

I'm playing around with layering poses and mixing poses from different boxes in the one picture. I think Olivia is using approximately 11 different poses here. ;) Not really, but quite probably three or four.

Mother of the bride, Caterina, with the newlyweds.

Olivia with her big brother Max. They actually look far more alike that I realised.

Olivia and bridesmaids Ione and Lia. Lia's baby bump is so cute!

I had meant to take a picture like this of Joanna and her nieces and nephew when she and Rose got married but I forgot. Remembered this time!

Steve with his groomsmen, Gordon and Evan. He's friends with Gordon through work and with Evan through Olivia's friendship with Ione.

And the whole bridal party!

Notes:
  • I think this was probably my smoothest running wedding ever. No lags, no crashes, no weird headless Sims!
  • I only just figured out what all that glass clinking was! The newlyweds kissing every time the guests clink their glasses thing has only happened at one wedding I've been to (mercifully, as it gets fairly irritating in real life!), so that's my defense! It's so cute in TS2 though!
  • Okay, so I have no idea what trait decides whether the Sim will smush the cake in the other's face or feed it to them delicately with a fork. I thought it was a neat vs. sloppy thing but Olivia is a pretty big slob and she used the fork.
  • I think it's really cute when non-Family Sims get wants to interact with relatives. I like to imagine they're thinking about marriages or babies - Olivia had a bunch of family wants when I loaded up their flat. So I guess it was only fitting that they tried for a baby the second they got the chance.
  • Baby Nihill is on the way! I'm so excited! I'm hoping for a red head, which is a possibility - Olivia's grandfather Cedric had red hair and she carries a recessive gene for it. I think it'll be a cute kid either way but I'm kind of hoping for one that looks like Olivia, because my God! How cute was she? She looked a lot like her dad Ben, who was also an adorable toddler.
  • Elspeth just wandered onto the lot and started sneering at Steve. Who knows what's up with that girl? As for Josh, I was expecting romance between these two but not so soon! I heard that "falling in love" music and looked around and saw them both with red and pink hearts floating above their heads. They were already BFFs, so it wouldn't have taken much. They haven't kissed yet, so it must have been a flirt or a hug that did it.

13 comments:

  1. Ahh young love at a wedding, it's no wonder that Josh and Elspeth fell for one another there.

    I adore all the posed pictures, and Jessica drinking the bubble solution! I'm going to keep my eye open for that now. And oh my goodness! I did not know you could recolor the bouquet!! I'm going to check what colors it has for my next wedding. It just looks so much better with flowers in hand.

    They really didn't waste time to make a little baby nihill! I wonder who it will look like and I'd love it if the baby had red hair, so cute.

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  2. Yay! I've been waiting for this wedding as long as Caterina :P

    A baby..or two. When I first read the sentence, I thought you said that they were expecting twins. I will admit that I thought they would have waited a bit longer considering how long they waited to get married.

    As always, your posed photos are beautiful and the wedding was beautiful.

    I think that the game ran smoothly because it too wanted to see these two get married ^_^

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  3. Awww, the wedding was gorgeous, as are all of your weddings! Lol, I just got Olivia's dress and was planning to use it for an upcoming wedding possibly too :P

    Lol at Elspeth crashing the wedding, that seems right up Elspeth's ally. She and Josh look cute together, but I'm not sure how long it'll last.

    Lol, I see your messy sims not using birth control thing is taking effect rather quickly. The way these two go at it though, they're going to have a full house before long!

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  4. Okay, Elspeth, LOL!! What was she doing? Funny how that worked out in the end. I can't wait to hear from her or Josh and see where this goes.

    The whole wedding was so beautiful! It looked perfect. I loved all the shots, and the posed ones at the end too.

    I think I heard that the cake smushing thing was actually dependent on niceness. Meaner sims will will just shove. I'm pretty sure that I wasn't even aware of sims being able to feed a piece of cake sweetly with a fork because all my sims are so mean, lol.

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  5. What a lovely wedding. Looks like everyone had a wonderful time.

    I forgot to recolor the wedding flowers for my wedding, so I'm mad. LOL And another thing I didn't know could happen, if you wait a few hours after the wedding you can't cut the cake. :(

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  6. Gotta love the young love happening at the wedding. Too cute! And so funny that Elspeth decides to crash the wedding in the first place... and to sneer at the groom to boot! That girl is going to be fun to read about LOL.

    The wedding was beautiful, as always. Glad it went off without a hitch. I love that color green and the cake was so pretty. I'll have to see if I have that one. I know I have some of the others you've used.

    Lia looked adorable with her baby bump and Jessica was too cute as the flower girl. And I love the lot you used for their wedding. So pretty! Is the bouquet part of the props hack?

    Lastly, YAY a baby! I can't wait to see him/her/them! It would be cool if the baby had red hair and I hope they look as cute as Olivia was as a toddler (I forgot how gorgeous she was even as a tot). Oh, and is Caterina dating her sister-in-law's husband? Did I get that right? I was clicking thru their profiles and I was like wait... what? Because I kept coming back to Ben Nihill from both of their profiles lol.

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  7. I always thought the cake-thing had something to do with serious vs playfull, but I never paid much attention to it ...

    The wedding looks great, as usual! Olivia is a very beautifull bride, and Steve is so handsome!
    Yay for a baby!!

    Elpeth really has a flair to make it all a little bit more interesting! Even if it really isn't about her, and even if she's not invited!

    How do you do it exactly, putting everybody in their poses en putting the in the right place? Do you let them buy the lot, so it enables buy- and build-mode?

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  8. What a lovely wedding! Everything looked so lovely.

    I love the posed pics, especially the one where Olivia is holding the bouquet. I gotta try layering and mixing the poses from different boxes too, it looks wonderful.

    I suspected they'd get pregnant soon, although I thought it would take a little longer. I hope the baby is a redhead.

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  9. Oh, I love their wedding! It turned out so well. I'm glad they found a bridesmaid dress that worked for Lia's baby bump. LOL at Elspeth crashing the wedding! She and Josh are cute together. And it's cute that they're still just in the hand-holding stage. :)

    And yay for a baby! I can't wait to see what their baby looks like!

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  10. Thanks for your comments, everyone! I'm glad you all enjoyed the wedding.

    Maisie, LOL, yes, Josh must have been inspired by the proceedings to take that first step. I don't know if either of them would be allowed to date, especially not Elspeth! Max and Zaria are younger and I picture them being a bit more laid-back than Henry and Araminta.

    I never use the blow bubbles interaction but Jessica's fun was so low and all the adults were busy! The poor kid really was bored.

    The bouquet has quite a few colours (including some I would have used for previous weddings, had I known!) The ribbon, which you can't really see in Olivia's picture, is recolourable as well.

    Apple Valley, Caterina didn't have to wait as long for this one as she did for Max and Zaria! Ten years is like a whirlwind romance compared to those two!

    LOL, I think this is definitely only going to be the one baby! Neither Steve or Olivia have the family benefit, so unless Olivia orders cheesecake at a restaurant when I'm not playing her, I may be safe! They still have to move though. This place is only one bedroom.

    Ha, I bet the game was keen for Steve and Olivia to just get married already!

    Tessa, oooh, can't wait to see whose upcoming wedding you possibly use this dress in! I've had this picked out for Olivia for a long time, maybe even before she rolled a marriage want.

    Elspeth and Josh have very high chemistry and they've got a good grounding for a relationship, seeing they've been friends for a few years now. But they're very young, so we'll see.

    LOL, yeah, I'm going to set Steve and Olivia's ideal family to 2, I think! I don't see either of them wanting more kids than that!

    Lunar, man, I don't even know what Elspeth was going on about! Sims will do that after they get robbed (and I don't actually remember the Romillies getting robbed) but mean Sims seem to do it way more often! But it worked out well for my little update. She's the type to crash a wedding. But I'm updating the Romillies next, so we'll hear Elspeth's opinion on the events! I'm sure she has one! ;)

    I thought the cake smushing depended on niceness too, but Evan proved me wrong with that. He's got 10 nice points and he smushed the cake into Ione's face at their wedding. He's only got one neat point, which is what made me think it must be a slobby thing. Maybe it's just random?

    Riverdale, I think they all enjoyed themselves, as did I. I didn't scream at anyone to DO AS I SAY, like I normally end up doing during my weddings!

    I bet if you use allmenus on, you can cut the cake whenever you like. ;) It lets you get married when you're already married, so I can't see that cutting the cake a little late would be a problem with that cheat.

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  11. LOL, reached the comment length limit for the first time ever!

    Danielle, and behind the toilet block, of all places! It'll be an Elspeth update next and I'm planning on having her narrate it (haven't actually written it yet!)

    Yup, the bouquet is part of the props hack. I think the default flower colour is red, which wouldn't have really worked as well here.

    LOL, yes, Caterina was married to Ben and Julian was married to Collete, and Collette and Ben were brother and sister. My neighbourhood will always be slightly incestuous, I think!

    Tanja, hmmm, serious and playful is a possibility too but Brandon Kirby had 8 playful points and he fed Leontine the cake with a fork. So I'm thinking it might be random now!

    Ha, yes, Elspeth somehow makes herself the centre of attention, doesn't she?

    No, I don't buy the lot. I use InSim to enable buy/build mode. It's an option when you click on the ground with that mod installed. You can also use boolprop dormspecifictoolsdisabled false to enable buy/build mode on a community lot. Not all pose boxes are categorised for community lots though, which is a bit lame. I still have to go in and edit some of them.

    Sari, layering is really fun! I've done it before by accident and I had arms going into stomachs and silly things like that. But if you choose the poses carefully, you can get some more natural looks!

    Steve and Olivia have been trying for a baby for a while but I didn't realise she was still on InTeen birth control, so it wasn't happening for them! But I'm so hoping for a redhead! My last redhead was Caitlin and the last one before that was Victoria!

    Shana, I found a few bridesmaid dresses with pregnancy morphs, actually! If this ever happens again, I'm set!

    I'm pretty glad Josh and Elspeth didn't kiss. Elspeth's not as keen to get going as Finn was, apparently! I never even wrote it in because I think Finn and Victoria kissed almost as soon as they became friends (Finn was originally only friends with Claudia), which is pretty bold for 12 year-olds, though I'm sure it happens!

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  12. Oh, so pretty! Olivia's gown was beautiful! Lia was an adorable pregnant bridesmaid, and all the pretty dresses! I especially loved Zaria's dress! You find the best CC!

    OMG, LOL @ Elspeth!!! She reminds me of my Fiona a bit - such a sweet-looking girl, but totally not, lol! Well at least Josh got a date out of it! Yes, mean Sims can just seethe at the world for no good reason at all. Fiona does it all the time.

    Oh wow, a baby already! Though I guess it's really not soon for them at all, as long as they've been together.

    Yes, I totally need to edit my pose boxes for community lots too! Like immediately! I keep forgetting to do it and it drives me mad every time I get in there on a community lot and don't have it!

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  13. Laura, it all turned out quite nicely, didn't it? I love Zaria's dress (it's from All About Style) but it does make her look pregnant from some angles!

    Ha, yes, I can see the similarities between Elspeth and Fiona! Such sweet looking girls and the complete opposite once you get to know them!

    For some reason, I was surprised that Steve and Olivia tried for a baby, though I shouldn't have been. As long as their ideal family number hasn't been reached yet, they tend to try constantly.

    I edited a bunch of my pose boxes for community lots a while ago but that was before I went on my downloading spree and got even more. So now I feel very limited. Today!

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