‘ Sarah made a beautiful poetic statement about true love... I promised to care about the football scores and cheer whenever she took me to Villa Park.’
ZOe AnD SARAH
We had a tight budget so we designed and printed the invites on our own – there’ s loads of helpful stuff online and printing companies offer great deals for people doing their own invites. Our wedding stationery was all very basic and quite obviously hand made. We joked that it was shabby chic but actually it suited us and our relaxed attitudes perfectly. It also led to many happy hours spent with an ink pad and stamp!
We made the favours ourselves too. each person had a small organza bag that was filled with a‘ survival kit’ for our wedding, including a rubber band to hold everything together and a marble for those that had lost theirs. We also saved money by having amazing friends who baked the cakes for us and made our flower arrangements. My best friend spent months gathering Agatha Christie books before dismantling them and creating beautiful handmade paper flowers for our bouquets and table decorations. They looked really special and were a big hit with all our guests.
‘ Sarah made a beautiful poetic statement about true love... I promised to care about the football scores and cheer whenever she took me to Villa Park.’
We both wore traditional wedding dresses which turned out to be a similar style, even though we didn’ t see each other’ s dress until the big day. Sarah saved a fortune from our wedding budget by finding her perfect dress and paying just £ 50 for it. A friend of ours used to have a wedding / formal wear shop and was doing a boot sale to clear old stock. Sarah fell in love with the first dress she saw and bought it immediately. She then had it altered by a seamstress who is an old family friend and charged her just £ 10. I, however, let my dad buy me a £ 900 dress!
There was nothing outlandish about our ceremony. Sarah’ s sister-in-law started proceedings with a reading that we had all chosen together. We had a wonderful registrar who injected fun and laughter into the ceremony alongside the very important and romantic parts. We wrote our own vows secretly to each other. Sarah made a beautiful poetic statement about true love. In my vows, I promised to care about the football scores and cheer whenever she took me to Villa Park.
Our friends and families were heavily involved right from the start; everyone supported us and helped in every way we asked them to. For our wedding party we each had a bridesmaid, Sarah’ s sister-in-law and my best friend, and each had a best man, Sarah’ s brother and my youngest cousin who was 12 at the time. My goddaughter was our flower girl and Sarah’ s brother and my sister were our witnesses. We also had Sarah’ s three nephews dressed as 1920s gangsters acting as ushers.
48 » pink weddings magazine