The Planning

As the calendar rolled over into 2023, we'd just about managed to decide on a venue for our wedding: Tournerbury Woods, Hayling Island, Hampshire. We'd been down to see it in November and had completely fallen for it (Alison in particular). Neither of us had ever been to Hayling Island before, but you could look across the water from the venue and see where Alison's grandparents had lived as she was growing up, and from the other side of the island you looked out to the Isle of Wight and a stretch of water that I'd sailed on with my own grandparents during my childhood. It somehow felt very familiar. Very right.

The venue was a large, green space carved out of a coastal woodland, with an Iron Age site hidden off to one side in the trees, small beaches and moorings around two others, and farmland on the final edge, all tucked neatly into a nature reserve. Within the clearing itself you'd find a small cottage that we could use as accommodation, a raised wooden platform with a stretched, canvas roof – referred to as a "safari tent" – that was fully licensed for wedding services, and a large marquee, plus plenty of outdoor space for parking, an area reserved for overnight camping, and lots and lots of green. After that initial visit I'd written in my journal:

This feels like the first place which ticked every box.

And luckily, that feeling stuck. We'd ultimately visit again several times throughout the first quarter of the year, and with each trip we'd explore the area and fall for it a little more. Between the copious opportunities for birding (and some excellent sightings of Brent geese, greenshanks, and marsh harriers), the wide selection of traditional pubs, and the excellent fish'n'chips options, we were both very happy making the journey down from London as often as necessary... and maybe a few more times on top 😉

The one issue we had was availability, as we had enquired a bit late for the 2023 season. Luckily, after a bit of back-and-forth around when family and key friends would be available, we settled on a Sunday in August that worked for everyone. Booking a Sunday had one major benefit (asides from complex calendar calculations), which was that we could take a two-day venue hire, with the campsite included, at a significantly lower cost than if we'd gone with a Saturday/Sunday pairing. And so we started the year with the where and the when locked in. Well, almost.

We'd been told that planning a wedding was rarely a straightforward affair, but our venue being involved in a court case to determine whether or not it would have its business licence revoked had not been on our "wedding stress" bingo card 😅 Luckily, the case was effectively indefinitely postponed, and our booking (along with everyone else's for 2023) was given a court-mandated confirmation that it would be allowed to continue, regardless of any further legal shenanigans. Phew!

I'd love to say that the rest of the planning was a total breeze – no stress at all! – but obviously that was never going to be the case. At this point, we'd already asked Adrian to be our Best Man back during that eventful "blizzard" weekend in December, and Tom and Charlotte had been confirmed a few days later as Master of Ceremonies and Maid of Honour respectively. Deciding on the exact quantity and arrangement of bridesmaids and groomsmen was a little trickier, but again, no real curveballs here. Tessa very kindly agreed to be our Celebrant (which the venue was thankfully fine with) and Jo probably deeply regrets agreeing to help organise and arrange our music, but agree he did. The venue had a solid almost-in-house catering partner who won us over with their incredible BBQ train (yes, a literal train that you BBQ on, see below), and we'd seen some photographers at the 2022 London Wedding Expo who we really liked and who turned out to live about 30 minutes away from Hayling. Deciding on a florist took a little more finagling, but mainly because we'd found two excellent options and couldn't choose between them. We even found a local company for tent hire who'd worked at the venue before and had surprisingly good availability, given the time of year we needed them for. So, as March rolled around, we were feeling fairly confident; all of the people were slotting into place.

Unfortunately, the rest of the organisation was proving a bit more of a headache. In particular, we were both struggling with our outfits. I'd been around various suit shops but couldn't find anything that I really liked and had come to the reluctant conclusion that I was going to have to go relatively custom, but this had only opened up a new can of worms. Honestly, I've never been told by so many shop assistants that the thing that they sell, which I actively want to buy, is basically not something they want to sell me^[1]. I'd walk into a store, ask if they have any green fabrics, pick out one that I liked (if they had any at all), and then subtly be redirected to the blue swatches. It was infuriating 🤦‍♂️ Alison had an almost inverse issue, in that her choices seemed to be nearly infinite, but as she drilled down into them very few actually fit or otherwise made sense. Suffice to say, this absorbed a significant amount of our free time for the first half of the year!

And what did we do with the rest of our free time? Well – for me, at least – most was taken up with another wedding task that proved much larger than initially expected: our website.

We'd started out strong, returning from our time with my parents in the North and pretty much immediately commissioning some absolutely wonderful drawings – including a logo and wordmark – from Alina, one of our extremely talented friends. I'd dutifully set up a new codebase and begun dabbling with site structure and layout. But as March neared and the pressure began to mount to get this project locked down and sent out to people, the scope just kept on ballooning. In short:

• Getting hand drawn images into web-compatible formats remains very tricky and time consuming, but Alison was an absolute star and managed to work out some combination of tools, techniques, and black magic which made it possible;
• And mapping out the logic needed to handle all of the choice combinations for a wedding guest, and then turning that into code, was a huge pain in the ass 😂

Of course the latter was entirely our own fault for having such a modular, customisable wedding. Some people were invited for the evening only, others could make the Sunday but not the Monday, people had kids who we also needed to capture dietary and other requirements for, but who we didn't know if they were bringing or not. Parking, camping (were they renting a tent from us or bringing their own? Sharing or solo?), arrival times, accessibility needs, transportation requirements, RSVP status... it all adds up!

With a lot of help from Alison and our various beta testers (thank you all so much! 🙏) I just about had the site ready before our trip to Mallorca at the end of March, but we waited until we were back at home to pull the trigger and launch it at our own .wedding domain. Which of course, then meant sending out email invites, and I'm not even going to get started on the delight that is HTML email formatting. Suffice to say, if I had one piece of advice about wedding planning it's this: there are plenty of totally free wedding website hosts out there, just use one of them 😉 (Although, I will admit, I really like the site we ended up with, and I do love that it's "ours". We've already modified it after the fact as a living record, and we can keep it online for however long we want. So, y'know, it was kinda worth it. Almost. In hindsight.)

Compared to the website and the clothes, most of the rest of the planning largely worked itself out. We had quite a bit of back-and-forth with various vendors; spent an enormous amount of time trying to decide on the music we wanted (and when we wanted it – again, huge thanks to Jo for managing all of this!); took several evenings and weekends to talk through how the ceremony would work, what we wanted our vows to be, etc. (also a huge thanks for all of the incredible coaching from Tessa!); and were still thinking of tasks we'd let slip through the cracks right up until the week before. Who'd have guessed that planning a two-day event for over a hundred people, with multiple contractors, and a highly bespoke sequence of ceremonies, catering, and entertainment would be a huge amount of work? (Everyone, everyone would guess this; hell, I used to do this as a job and so I really have no excuse 😂)

Still, ultimately, it all came together, we had no major fallouts or blow-ups – with each other, with our families, or even with our vendors – and we did end up crafting a pretty amazing day, so all of the planning and stress was definitely worthwhile.

The Final Preparations

The days directly before the ceremony had been busy but not all that stressful. Both sets of parents were around to help with transportation and organisation, which was super helpful, and despite some fairly intense weather on the Saturday – thank goodness we hadn't had the option to book the Saturday! – and a few hiccoughs around timings and transportation, everyone ultimately got to where they needed to be, by the time they needed to be there, with the things they needed to have.

For us, the weekend had begun a couple of days early, having taken some time off from work. That had enabled us to save quite a bit of money by being our own couriers, and I'd largely spent that time driving around and picking up decorations, table dressings, and all manner of bits and bobs, before transporting them down to Hayling. Thankfully, my parents had rented a small house for the week, which meant they had a spare room or two we could fill up; they even ended up coming back to London with me for the final run so we could load up their car as well and save me some time. This ended up saving us twice over, as the extra time I gained was super useful for dealing with the sudden revelation that the shuttlebus that we'd booked months earlier had no record of our booking! 👍 Alison swung into gear and we both rang around various options, finally managing to source a local driver that could help us out 🙏

Alison, of course, had her own list of chores, which was dominated by spending most of the Saturday at my parents' rental property assembling our wedding cake, which she'd pre-baked several months earlier and had her parents store/transport up with them from Devon. We'd also roped in Charlotte to help finish off the bunting that Jackie had been making. Nothing like last-minute crafting to really stress-test an organisational plan! 😂

I'd love to say that everything went to schedule on that last day-or-so, but that would be a little white lie. We managed to drop in on the Champernowne/Wills family gathering on the Friday night, as well as briefly see my grandmother in the hospital; we got all of the decorations to the various drop-off points on time; we liased with everyone in the wedding party to ensure they were checked in to their rooms/hotels (which didn't quite work as intended, but ultimately everyone had a bed, so all's well); and were only ten minutes late to the pre-wedding meal on the Saturday evening – which Alison had thankfully been able to rearrange at the last minute from a fish'n'chips picnic on the beach to being indoors, seated, at the chippie. The weather really was awful! ⛈

We'd planned this meal as the official "start" of the celebrations; a chance to sit down with our parents, bridal party, and a few of the groomsmen and relax into the weekend. But a couple of chores had unfortunately slipped into overtime. So whilst it was a really lovely break from the hectic prior week, and definitely helped ground us both significantly, we did have to sack off the pub session afterwards. Instead, we all sloped down to the beach for some champagne as the sun set (and the clouds finally parted) – all holding thumbs that the weather was finally improving – before Alison and I went back with my parents to finish icing the damn cake^[2]. Oh, and then we figured we should probably get around to writing our vows!^[3]

We did manage to sneak in a quick whisky with Adrian and Boox back at the hotel before Alison and I officially parted ways, both under strict rules not to see each other again until Alison was walking down that aisle. Crikey, it was all getting quite real 😬

The Set Up

A favourite phrase of both of ours is "start as you mean to continue". As this was – in the traditional sense – the first day of the rest of our lives, I find it particularly fitting that Alison got up super early whilst I was allowed a bit of a lie-in 😂

To be fair, this was mainly a logistical choice. Before the wedding could really begin – and because we didn't want to pay a bunch of money to get this done "professionally" – we first had to set up the venue. During early wedding discussions, we'd always said that we would need access to the site before the big day itself but, alas, that was just not what fate had in store. Tournerbury had weddings booked for both the Friday and Saturday, so we had no access until early morning Sunday. Luckily, the Saturday wedding hadn't wanted to hire the cottage or any onsite accommodation, so we could at least get in ASAP. But that still meant someone had to be on-site as early as possible. Because Alison needed longer to get dressed, and because we couldn't both be in the same place at the same time (yes, for superstitious reasons, which I wanted to do mainly because I like the pageantry), she had to take the early shift. So, with only a handful of hours of sleep, she'd found herself driving down the bumpy forest track with Nat and JK to help her parents, Lorna, and a few others begin decorating. Ribbons were strung around the marquee; the bunting that Jackie and Gill had made – and which Charlotte had spent the previous day writting little messages from people who couldn't make it – was hung up around the deck; and everything began to take shape.

My parents were next to arrive with the cake and another round of decorations (including their wonderful flower displays and bathroom kits), deliberately timed so that Alison could help arrange her utterly delicious masterpiece just before heading back to our hotel, ready to begin the whole bridal transformation. In the meantime, I'd packed up my stuff, left a few things in Alison's room, and loaded our car, before grabbing the available groomsmen and checking out. Apparently, we did actually cross paths with the girls heading back, but our various friends ensured we didn't realise and therefore didn't spot each other 😉

Arriving at Tournerbury, I made the classic mistake of thinking that we were ahead of schedule, so spent a little too long walking through plans with Tom, Adrian, and Boox. By the time Barr, Callaghan, and Pearson had turned up, we were now behind and feeling a bit of a time crunch, but luckily the extra bodies helped put us back on track – just about. We finalised both ceremony areas, unloaded our honeymoon stuff into the little cottage (and sprinkled a few rose petals around to be cute about it 😂), and turned our attention to the main marquee... which had descended into utter chaos. The catering team had vetoed some of the table decorations as in breach of health standards; the florists were still battling the rigging to get our floating displays in place; and despite all of my best, carefully laid plans and ordered boxes, no one (not even me) could easily decipher the placesettings. With all of the groomsmen on it and a few early guests helping out, we were getting close to being done, but the time was disappearing rapidly and we kept losing people so they could go and get changed. Crap, I needed to get changed!

I had hoped to be able to shower and preen myself a little bit, but in the end it was a dash upstairs, gobble down a sandwich, throw off my clothes, and about midway through getting my shirt buttoned up I was interrupted by the final call for the Registrar's interview (a legal requirement that Alison would do later, directly before the ceremony, but which I needed to do much earlier). I ended up grabbing the remaining garments, apologising, and just continuing to dress whilst they asked me to confirm my identity in various ways. It definitely wasn't the calm-and-collected chat that I'd been promised 😅

Despite it all, everything did, ultimately, get done on time. I didn't greet many people, which was a shame, but the groomsmen were stars and just managed the parking, vendor questions, and everything else around the edges without me. And so, in no time at all, I found myself pinning the last feather button hole onto someone and standing, nervously, in front of an ever-growing crowd 😬

The Legal Bit

My head was still rattling through a dozen to-do lists, searching for the next task, when Andrew ran up and firmly told me to turn around and face the other way. Confused, I did so, worried about what was behind me... before I realised that this likely meant Alison had just arrived, and it wouldn't be the done thing for me to spot her getting into position (considering the platform we were stood on had no walls, this was a genuine concern).

The crowd hushed, and Tessa took her position. "Welcome, everyone". It had begun.

After a quick introduction and explanation of the order of events, the Registrar joined us at the front of the decking, and our wonderful little band – made up entirely of family and family friends – began to play A Tale as Old as Time. First came the Maid of Honour, Charlotte, flanked by Nat. They were shortly followed by Lorna and Julia, all beaming from ear-to-ear and looking stunning in various floral dresses. Finally, hidden until the last second by our rows of standing guests, I saw Richard, with Alison on his arm. Stunning doesn't begin to describe her.

According to my smartwatch, this started the longest period of high-intensity exercise that I underwent for the entirety of 2023. In an average month, I manage around 30-40 of what Garmin calls "intensity minutes". On the 6th of August, 2023, I wracked up 897 of these "intensity minutes". My heart rate peaked several times throughout the day, particularly just before the first dance, during the confetti tunnell, and later on when the beats dropped at the after-party. But the most anomalous shift is that which occurred just after 1pm. A steadily rising heart rate suddenly crashes, momentarily, dropping by almost 50 bpm for around a minute. I can't know for sure, but I'm taking this as evidence that when Alison walked down that aisle, my heart literally skipped a beat or two 😉

After taking an eternity to walk a dozen or so paces, we were suddenly stood side-by-side once again, and the ceremony properly began. There was no "giving away" (such a weird idea) and we'd cut the legal proceedings down to just the bare minimum, but this still included some rather well-crafted words from the Registrar, the swapping of declarations ("I do solemnly swear..." etc. etc.) to ensure we were legally allowed to get married – which includes that wonderful moment of comedic tension when those "gathered here today" are asked to speak of any "reasons" why it would be unlawful for us to wed, in which there were no outbursts, thankfully 😁 – and, of course, the big "I do". And so in no time we were enjoying our first kiss and then being taken to one side for the signing.

Neither of us particularly like this slightly awkward moment where the wedding guests are effectively told to just pause whilst we go over some legal contracts, but you can't really avoid it, so we'd tried to keep things at least a little light by having the band kick back in with a combination of Concerning Hobbits (obviously, what else was I going to choose) and Fair Phoebe And The Dark-Eyed Sailor (a traditional folk song which, as I'm writing it's title now, I'm imagining wouldn't have been as appropriate had it not been an instrumental). Charlotte and Adrian were brought up to witness the signing, and we then all posed for a few "candid" (utterly staged) photographs, which actually came out much better than I'd expected.

And with that, we were done. Well, at least in the eyes of Her Majesty's Government. In reality, we still had the bulk of proceedings to come, including a whole second ceremony, but the Registrar's part in the show had come to a close. So with some final remarks, they handed the reigns back over to Tessa. She, in turn, gave the floor to Rhea, who stepped up and led us through our one and only song. We'd always agreed that whilst we didn't want a religious wedding, we did want music – and song in particular – to be a big part of the day. Actually picking a song, though, had been a lot more troublesome than we'd thought. There are so many things to consider:

• Will enough people know it?
• Will it be allowed?^[4]
• Will the vocal range vaguely work for most people?
• Are any of the lyrics surprisingly sexual and/or depressing and/or secretly just about drugs?

Seriously, that last one really knocks out a lot of the "obvious" options 😂

In the end, we'd settled on Ain't No Mountain High Enough. It's a song we both enjoy, it's on the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack (which sounds mildly ridiculous to include, but we both love that album and the film has quite a special history for us), it's fairly simple in terms of arrangement and lyrics, and we were happy that most people would have at least some idea of how the chorus goes^[5]. We'd even prepped people ahead of time via email, if they had wanted to practice. Whether or not that helped, I have no idea, but we certainly raised the roof on the day 😁

The Heartfelt Bit

Not that the legal proceedings weren't also heartfelt, but this was the part of the day that we'd really taken time to make entirely our own. Whilst we were generally okay with most of the traditional set dressing and order of events that people have at weddings (in the UK, at least), there were a few sticking points. For me, it was important that the vows be given a larger spotlight, as they're the heart of the day in my eyes^[6]. For Alison, she wanted to provide space for her dad to give a speech, but wanted it to happen as early as possible. And both of us wanted some part of the day to be outside, near the coast, particularly given the beauty of the venue.

However, legally, you can't get just get married anywhere (although the rules around this keep changing) or do anything in the ceremony (particularly if it's non-religious, like ours), so it was simplest to do the legal bit in the fully-licensed safari tent and then have a totally DIY additional ceremony straight after. This meant we'd pushed the vows, speeches, blessings, and rings all out of the legal ceremony and into what we termed the "commitment ceremony".

Of course, the first stage was getting everyone from the safari tent and out to the seashore, where the groomsmen and I had set up another seating area earlier – with enough seats for those that needed them, and a dozen or so picnic blankets for everyone else. After a little brain storming between Tessa and ourselves, the plan we'd settled on was to "flock" there (everyone kept coming back to "birds" as a core theme; I can't imagine why 🙄), and to make this work we'd roped in Chloe and the bridesmaids earlier in the year. Chloe had been tasked with creating a blueprint for a paper bird that could be easily mass-recreated, attached to a small bamboo stick, and that would quite naturally "flap" in the wind. This blueprint was then translated into various materials by Jackie and Richard, before being delivered to us in time for Alison's hen do, where the bridesmaids and other guests had spent the morning cutting, sticking, gluing, and assembling a hundred or so of these things.

On the day, we had them neatly arranged in baskets near the exit of the safari tent, and as the legal ceremony came to a close, various groomsmen began handing them out. I've got to say, the birds worked really well. They gave the kids something to play around with; a little dose of fun and whimsy between the two periods of quietly sitting and watching. And the adults looked excellent all walking along, waving their new friends. As these were being handed out, we took the lead and escorted everyone around the side of the little cottage, down a gravel path, and out to the coastal field, whilst Tessa, Barr, and a few others chivied everyone along at the back.

Whilst everyone was taking their seats, Detta performed some truly beautiful Japanese tunes on her wooden flute. Tessa directed Alison and I to just have a breather, a quick chat, and mentally prep for the next bit. Eventually, we were pulled back in and positioned either side of Tess, sandwiched between our friends and family, and the Hampshire coastline. And so the commitment began.

Tessa kicked things off with another introduction and quick bit of an explanation, before Richard took the stage. He gave a lovely speech, as we both tried to hold our composure. Next up was my dad, as we'd never really understood why the groom's family are let off from participating in the ceremonies. This was just as heartfelt and well crafted, and nicely balanced Richard's words about Alison with some about me. I think this was the closest I got to fully cracking throughout the day, and had that in-the-moment realisation that perhaps we hadn't left enough time between the speeches and our vows, but I thankfully salvaged my composure in the end 😅

Which was good, because next, it was my turn. First one, then the other, we read our vows and made our commitments to each other. It was an incredibly touching, meaningful, beautiful moment; stood under a blue-grey sky with the waves audibly lapping against the sand and stones, birds singing from the trees, surrounded by so many of our closest friends and family, and yet utterly focused on the person I love most in the world. I wouldn't change a second of it.

After a brief moment to let it all sink in, Adrian was invited up to present the rings. We'd written a set of joint vows that we could each speak as we presented the other person's ring, prompted by Tessa to ensure we didn't forget our lines:

With this ring, I promise that I will confide with you;
I will be kind to you;
I will accompany you.
All that I am, I give to you,
And all that you are I will care for.

Again, whilst it might have been a lot of work, on the day, I can't stress how great it was that Tessa had forced us to really think through these parts and make each moment as meaningful as the last.

But now, our part was done. The register had been signed, the vows spoken, the rings given. We were married. But before the party could begin, Tessa closed out the joint ceremonies with a lovely blessing, ending in a big cheer from everyone and an instruction for all guests to grab some confetti and line up along the woodland trail back to the marquee. Groomsmen once more sprang into action (as planned), revealing some carefully hidden baskets of recycled flower petals, and as we stood off to the side for a quick photoshoot, the tunnel was formed.

And so we walked away from the shoreline, into the woods and towards our future, together, through a corridor of cheering, grinning faces, each taking their turn to shower us in petals – some a little more forcefully than others (looking at you, Aunt Tina 😂).

The Feast

Alison and I paused at the entrance to the marquee and greeted everyone as they made their way inside. This had the dual effect of allowing us to finally say hello to most of the people who'd travelled to be with us, and meant that we could be the last to actually enter. We hadn't really been bothered by that second part, but I'd enjoyed announcing Tom and Julia at their wedding, so we'd asked Tom to do the same at ours. And so, with a "Ladies and Gentlemen" and another set of cheering, we made our way to our seats.

Right from the start of wedding planning (and, honestly, many years earlier), Alison had been clear: she wanted to have a grand picnic as the wedding breakfast. As a result, the food was already laid out along the tables^[7]: tiers of cakes; sandwiches piled high; bowls of carrot sticks, cucumber, and dips; pork pies, sausage rolls, and breadsticks. All ready to be shared out, wolfed down, and polished off with jugs of Pimms and Devonshire cream teas. We'd also arranged for hot drinks and various flavoured, cooling waters to be made available at a drinks station near the back of the marquee – because you never can trust the British weather!

Indeed, almost as if to prove the point, whilst we'd had brilliant sunshine for most of the morning, barely a breeze for the ceremonies, and only a few clouds scattered around as we entered the marquee, during the meal and speeches I looked over to see rain coming down. It was light and short-lived, and I think many people missed it entirely, but the timing was on point.

Back in the marquee, Alison and I had found ourselves weirdly uninterested in food. I tried just about everything around me, but despite the excitement and general lack of breakfast, I just wasn't hungry. Instead, I spent the time chatting with those nearest to us, and silently steeling my nerves against the next part of proceedings: the speeches.

Adrian had one rule for accepting our request for him to be our Best Man: no public speaking. And with the two "Father of the..." speeches taken care of during the commitment ceremony, most of the traditional slots had already been taken. But we still wanted to have some fun, so had asked Tom and JK to give us a couples speech. Honestly, given how close we all are, it should have been a no-brainer, but it wasn't until we'd seen them do an impressive double-act at their own wedding that the idea finally clicked into place. Thankfully, they had been more than happy to oblige, and carefully roasted us for about ten minutes, before throwing in a few compliments at the end 😂

That only left our own speeches. Again, the tradition here is for the groom to do the whole "thanks for coming, here are some messages from those who couldn't make it, aren't we all blessed, thank you to the parents, isn't my bride beautiful" paint-by-numbers affair, which seemed a bit boring. Instead, we both took the parts of it we wanted to do – special thanks for some people, general acknowledgments, and a quick aside for those with us in spirit alone – and tackled them together, going back-and-forth to cover all the bases. This culminated in two secret speeches to one another, that largely functioned as a way to expand on some of our vows and throw in a bit more levity than the ceremony had allowed for. Hopefully it wasn't too boring for everyone else, because I thoroughly enjoyed it.

At any rate, the final part of our joint speech was the announcement many had been waiting for: the bar was open! And what's more, there was a real ale section of speciality beer totally on the house, because of course there was. We'd selected three beers in particular:

• Otter Bitter, brewed just down the road from where Alison grew up and a firm favourite;
• Pangolin Table Beer, a discovery from our trip to Arundel, brewed just along the coast, and which donates all of its profits to wildlife conservation, mainly in Africa;
• and Kiwi IPA, from Durham Brewery for obvious reasons, as the place where we met.^[8]
  

I'd been a little concerned that we wouldn't get through it all – a warning that our catering team had echoed. Well, I shouldn't have worried. The Otter was gone before the band started playing; the Pangolin ran out an hour later; and the IPA disappeared so quickly I'm not actually sure either Alison or I managed to try it!

The wedding breakfast officially concluded with one final ceremony: the cake cutting. So following our speech, we walked over, took up positions, and, well, cut a cake. This remains a tradition I don't really understand, but it was fun enough and I was happy to have Alison's excellent decoration given the spotlight it deserved 😄

The Folk Festival

We'd wanted the afternoon to be fairly low-key, partially so that we could actually mingle a bit, and partially because we needed some time for organising photos. But we also wanted to get the party atmosphere started. To try and accommodate both plans, we'd arranged with Jo to have a small folk band perform, with several of the ceremony musicians and a couple of others placed up on the safari tent deck, looking out over the grass towards the marquee. The groomsmen were sent to gather up the picnic blankets from the shoreline and scatter them around, whilst a large teepee-style "play tent" that we'd had erected was opened up to give the kids a space to just do whatever they wanted with. Tom's final duty for the day was to gather out some lawn games we'd bought^[9] and set them up. I think this combination worked well, giving people something to do if they wanted, and plenty of spaces to chill and just chat.

Unfortunately, we didn't manage to get to do much of either. Pretty much as soon as the cake was cut, our photographers began setting up for the group photos. We'd tried to keep this a small, short list, but ultimately when you have a combined family headcount of over seventy people (with lots of young kids), it was never going to be an easy task. The parents were simple enough, and with some help from a few friends, we managed to get the family photos done, then the wedding party shots ticked off, and finally an (almost complete) shot of the Durham friends.

Photos were followed by a surprise performance by Alison's niece, Frieda, and John (her dad), who joined Detta and Tash for a wonderful set of music, which ended up leading us directly into the first dance. For this, we shepherded everyone back up the ramp and onto the safari deck, had the band reassemble, and as a circle formed around us, a live cover of Coco and the Butterfield's Astronaut began to play. We'd rehearsed our routine dozens of times and I think I just about did it justice, but really my job was to get out of Alison's way and let her look good, before inviting everyone else to come along and join in. The band surprised us by looping the song and performing it twice, but it still ticked all of the right boxes to herald the end of the afternoon, and start of the party-proper.

Although, first, we had to get the "big one": the whole-party photo! With everyone already gathered, this had felt like the best time, and so with the camera on a long pole and the congregation piled around at the base of the ramp, we finished the group photos for the day.

The Party

Whilst the guests all went back to the marquee, Alison and I were shepherded off once again for even more photoshoots. I had a playlist queued and Jo was already getting the evening band set up, so we weren't really needed anyway, but so much for that break. We were once again very lucky with the weather, getting all of the photographic advantages of golden hour in the woods, followed by ominous clouds – and even a rainbow! – over the bay behind us whilst we remained in sunlight, and a few final images in dappled light under the trees, before getting back to marquee just as the band kicked off... and the heavens opened! This was a short-lived but torrential downpour, but at this stage the photos were all done and the party was firmly undercover, so no one really minded. The adults laughed from the safety of the marquee, and watched on as an ever-growing gang of kids went charging out, clothes flying off, to enjoy the rain. By the time we next needed to all head out, the evening sun had returned, the water had drained away, and the weather remained clear for the rest of the night. What ideal timing, once again!

I will say, the one thing I'd do a bit differently would be the evening music. Don't get me wrong, the band were fantastic; worth every penny! They played a brilliant set list of classics and some of our suggestions, people were up and dancing (particularly the kids), and Jo did a fantastic job arranging it all. But after a day without any breaks, I just needed some time out, and Alison was the same. I wanted to talk with a few people, enjoy a couple of beers, and catch my breath. So whilst we were both in and out of the dancefloor, I wish we'd either started the band later, or made more of a space for them somehow, so we could have enjoyed it a little more. Perhaps we'd tried to have our cake and eat it too.

Speaking of which, the end of the band's set was the cue for the catering team to swing into gear again. Huge gas-fired pans were rolled out and an evening selection of loaded fries, fajitas, and the now-cut cake – with everything-free Bad Brownies for those few who would have been otherwise without dessert – all served up to general happy grumblings. Any concerns here about it being "too soon" for another meal were swiftly put to rest as the queue formed and the pans thinned out. Personally, my appetite had fully kicked in by this point (and the cummerbund had come off) so I very much played the "groom card" and came away with a hefty stack of treats. We also had a few slices of each tier of the cake put to one side for us to enjoy later, which was a very good move.

The Rave

With the bar running dry and the plates all cleared away, DJ Ross took the stage and got the dancefloor pumping once again. I was really happy to see an almost totally different mix of people being drawn into our final act of the day, because that's exactly what we had hoped would happen, though I'll admit to once again finding myself more intrigued by the fire pit (now with flames a-blazing) and the people gathered around it. The bar crew and venue had both strung various lighting fixtures between the small copse of pine trees near the entrance of the marquee (which is also where the fire was situated), which gave the whole place an outdoor-park-bar vibe which felt very cosy in the balmy evening heat.

Ross ended his run on a sequence of incredible picks, and we transitioned back into our painstakingly crafted Spotify playlists. Shuttle buses had already been running for an hour or so, but we were rapidly approaching final call for taxis. Thankfully – and despite the major headaches of the previous day – everyone that needed a seat had been given one and we found no stragglers stranded come the end of the evening.

With the last of the off-site guests headed off, we returned to the dancefloor with the campers, only to find ourselves quickly shut down. I still think the venue changed their policy on us, but apparently we had to call it a night a little earlier than expected with the music. So much for that playlist!

Still, they were happy to allow us to sit around the campfire, and whilst the bar had long-since closed, the soft drink station kept us topped up until midnight, when Alison and I bid the remaining party goers a fond farewell and headed off to our cottage. What a wonderful way to start our married life together!

The Braai Train 🚂

But this wasn't the end of the celebrations! We still had the Monday ahead of us, and I'm so very glad we did. From the very start of wedding planning we'd been absolutely set on having a two-day event. If we were going to make people travel from all over the country – and all over the world! – to somewhere, we wanted to be able to offer cheap accommodation (camping ✅) and a place to relax and unwind the day after the wedding (also ✅). Obviously, we also wanted to spend more time with everyone; all of our friends who had been married before us had said they hadn't spoken to enough people at their wedding, and we didn't want to feel the same. As we woke up on the Monday morning, we couldn't have been happier with that choice, as we really didn't feel like we'd seen even half of the people that had come the day before.

Of course, not everyone could take a Monday off, so the numbers were down from the evening event, but for the most part people had stuck around. We rolled out of the cottage around 9am, rested and showered, and found various groups from the campsite exploring the woods and beaches. The venue had left the chairs out overnight at the second ceremony location, and Flex, Lydia, James, and a few others had set up shop there, watching the changes of the tide and enjoying the morning sun.

After a while of basking, we left them to it, and wandered back to check on the marquee, rescue a few of the lawn games, and scatter the picnic blankets back out. The catering team had arrived, bringing with them their pièce de résistance: a four-metre long, cast iron replica steam train, with a fully working grill built in that vents the steam and smoke directly out of the chimney 👩‍🍳😘 We also opened up the cottage so that people could use the extra loos and help themselves to tea and coffee in the kitchen (which the caterers were also providing in the marquee).

Over the next couple of hours various family members and other guests began turning up. Some had even walked from nearby accommodation, making the most of the calm weather. We did the rounds, chatted to people, and enjoyed the kids – now seemingly all firm friends – playing hide and seek, cricket, and all manner of other little games.

Around 11am the brunch-braai opened up, serving burgers, ribs, various side salads, and other treats. Once again, our guests ensured we had no leftovers 😂

And then, somehow, it was all coming to an end. People started saying goodbye and heading off to get on the road or check out of hotels. Alison and I went and packed our bags and began loading our little car full of the things we didn't need for the honeymoon. Her dress went off with her parents. The picnic blankets were given to new owners. The florist turned up and began de-rigging the marquee, whilst a few stragglers and family members found themselves put to work taking down bunting, decorations, and generally assisting in tear down.

Within no time, the clock chimed three and we found ourselves changing into flight clothes. My car was handed over to my parents, who'd offered to drive it back to London in exchange for the use of our house whilst we were in Scotland. The last of the guests were gone, the tents were all coming down, we'd loaded the few remaining bits into various friend's cars, and then off we went as well; taxi'd away to Southhampton airport (again, by my parents), ready for our flight up to Glasgow and subsequent trip to Islay for a week of whisky and walking.

It had been an absolutely incredible couple of days. Here's to a lifetime more 🥂