Our wedding date was on the 18th May 2021, but our original date was 29th December 2020 – but then of course we found ourselves in the middle of a pandemic!
We got married at Gaynes Park with special thanks to Aimee & Donna. We had our reception at Channels Barn, Brasserie, where we hired out their retreat, hotel rooms & lodges for our guests. We can’t thank them enough the team at Channels were amazing!
Scott and I met through my brother-in-law as they play cricket together and I met Scott at my sisters and brother in law’s wedding back in 2009, but we didn’t start to see each other until May 2015 and things just blossomed from there. Scott and I brought our first home together in 2019 and he took me to New York just before Christmas as a present. He proposed to me at Bethesda Fountain on 16th December just as it started to snow. He had asked my dad’s permission some months before - my dad was over the moon. It came as a pretty big surprise for everyone on Christmas Eve when we saw family, we had kept it a secret until then. We just didn’t think a text message was appropriate. Scott managed to capture it all on film, he told me we were having a photo, so it’s really lovely to have that moment on film.
Having worked in events most of my adult life I was keen on so many ideas for my own wedding. Scott kind of let me take the lead on this, but all the ideas we went through together and it looked lovely on our big day, even though our day wasn’t quite what we had planned due to Covid. As you can imagine it was very stressful, we had moved our date twice already due to lockdown and restrictions.
As for the wedding dress I had no clue as to what I wanted to wear. I went into a few shops and had been looking online. I felt overwhelmed and when I finally started trying on dresses, I really thought that princess ball gown was going to be what I what I would love, but it turned out it that style was not for me. I went to around 4 dress shops in the end, which were all really good at helping me. I think I tried on around 30 dresses maybe more.
I chose the Nadette gown by Ronald Joyce – style 69351. I went to Brenda Lorraine in Elm Park, Brenda & Paul are amazing, both my sister and sister-in-law have brought their dresses from them in previous years. Brenda knows all of our family I’d say pretty well now. I walked in (a week before our 1st lockdown) and I saw my dress out the corner of my eye. I tried it on and I just got that feeling. Everyone cried and I cried in the changing room, it looked stunning. The detailing is exquisite in the ivory and champagne colour. The lace detailing was beautiful, the long train, the mixture of fabrics too, it was just perfect. It was everything I wanted and more, I felt unreal in it.
The day went really smoothly as I wasn’t even aware but Scott actually forgot the rings! It maybe cliche but my best moment was when I walked down the aisle and it started to rain - apparently, it’s good luck when tying the knot, at the very moment it stopped, right on cue Scott turned round to see me and it was the most precious moment.
The small intimate wedding was also better than expected. I think you always dream of the day being filled with everyone you love being there. We had been over and over things about postponing to a later date so we could have more people but will so much uncertainty we just really wanted to do it. We’d made our VIP list and we stuck to that.
I would like to thank our florist Longacres Garden Centre in Chelmsford. The lovely ladies that work in the florist there are amazing - Georgia & Leah could not have done more for us. They have been very supportive and so easy to have work on our wedding.
Lastly, my final tip for brides would be to enjoy every minute because honestly time just flies by. Don’t sweat the small stuff, it’s the one day in your life that you must simply enjoy, things might go wrong but forget about it. You’re marrying your best friend & that’s all that matters.
Photography by Carly Brown.