Jon and I perhaps didn’t have the most romantic of starts to our relationship, we got handcuffed together on a cops and robbers theme night at university. However, fast forward 14 years and we are atop a snowy mountain in France and Jon was on one knee in the snow with a sparkling ring (not the snickers bar that he had me believe he was about to offer, but I got over that quite quickly).

We started planning the wedding for May 2020, thinking carefully about the best time to have the marquee wedding we wanted. Little did we know that rain would be the least of our worries! Luckily my parents agreed to use their garden for said marquee so securing the venue was easy, so we re-booked the wonderful Carron Marquees who we used for my sisters wedding and the planning officially began.

After so many years together and my stint as a wedding & event planner we had the luxury of going to many weddings and knew some of the suppliers already. We knew we wanted the amazing medley band Truly Medley Deeply who we had seen at a friends wedding and also the most delicious and beautiful cake from Nina at Erzulie Cakes. Designing (and sampling) our cake was so much fun although I had no idea Jon would have so many opinions on cake!

Food events, who I used to work for, were the obvious choice for our caterer and despite Simon the owner selling the business, he came back to work alongside the new owner to help make the most delicious food for us and our guests, the canapés were out of this world! We also had the Tin Roof Pizza serve incredible authentic pizza as evening food too.

I started dress shopping about a year before our planned wedding day and despite a bit of a hiccup on our part (accidentally turning up an hour late for our appointment) Emma was so accommodating and freed up some time later that day so we could come back. She was so helpful throughout the process, it was so much fun trying on all the different styles and it was also reassuring to know she would also do the alterations herself. I found my perfect dress ‘Betty’ as Emma had named her, which felt like it was just meant to be, as that is nickname of mine. I couldn’t wait until my dress was ready!

It was about 2 weeks after my dress fitting almost a year later that the reality of Covid was hitting home. There wasn’t going to be a wedding, not in May 2020. It was heartbreaking but we consoled ourselves by fulfilling another dream, getting a sausage dog puppy, Darcey who kept us occupied for the long lockdown summer! We we made the decision to move the wedding back a year to May 2022 and put the planning on hold for a while.

I think the hardest part of planning was what followed in February, the road map announcement that freedom day was in June. Did we get married with 30 people or hold out a month? It felt like a big decision as the June date seemed like it could be too good to be true and we weren’t sure that all the suppliers would be available. However, we found one date that everyone could do, 23rd July 2021 so we booked it in and kept everything crossed.

It was about a week before the wedding when we realised that it was actually going to go ahead, in fact it was the first weekend that restriction free weddings were allowed. So it was full steam ahead to get everything ready, decorating the marquee was fun but also a lot to think about, especially given it was at home and my mum had also agreed to do the marquee flowers! It was amazing to see the vision come to life though and it looked amazing on the day.

Our amazing photographers Collette and Greg (Aurelia Allen photography) captured the day perfectly for us, a pleasure to have around and they provided the perfect amount of subtle direction.

It’s hard to pick one favourite moment, it was lovely to have a bit of time just the two of us after the ceremony on the short drive back to the house, but also amazing heading into a huge welcome with over 100 of our favourite people, after waiting so long to get everyone together and being able to finally celebrate.

We also had a lovely surprise in the evening when everyone was asked to head outside. My dad is a pilot and had arranged a rather special air display with a pyrotechnic glider, it was beautiful to watch and a great way to start the evening celebrations!