WEDDINGS, PANDEMICS & LOCKDOWN – OH MY!

Posted in Personal, Wedding Before Lockdown

Soooo… I recently got married (woohoo!!), on a Thursday, in Liverpool, during a global pandemic!

This was quite possibly one of the most stressful, anxiety inducing experiences of my life – I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Planning a wedding can be stressful enough, without the added complication of a pandemic on the go, but somehow… we did it! And I am proud to say, I am now Mrs Ijada!

Bear with me, because this is an absolutely huuuuge blog post, but hopefully it helps those of you who are knees deep in your planning! You don’t have to read the whole thing, just skip to the section that might be helpful.

THE WEEK LEADING UP TO THE WEDDING…

The reports concerning Covid-19 were going from bad to worse, with further restrictions announced, leading to confusion. I was like an anxious banshee, veering from feeling fine to TOTALLY freaking out!

We started receiving messages querying if the wedding was going ahead. We explained to everyone that unless the government specifically cancelled weddings, or one of us got sick, it would still go ahead. This was purely because our wedding insurance would not cover us if we ourselves cancelled, without government intervention, and we would stand to lose all of the money we had paid.

As it got closer to the wedding, we had more and more guests cancel on us. With so many guests pulling out, it destroyed what little motivation Darran and I had left. While we understood why some of our guests were not able to come, we were also receiving excuses that felt to us, trivial. That might be unfair to say, but I know that if we were in the same position, the only way we wouldn’t have attended, is if one of us had the virus.

The day before we travelled to Liverpool, we had a further eight guests cancel. We were now down to 49 guests, from 75 that had originally confirmed. That entire evening I was in floods of tears, and Darran was fuming because he could see how upset I was.

People were telling us not to take it personally – which is very hard to swallow, when you’ve had 30 or so guests pull out within the space of a few days. We also had numerous people telling us that we should just cancel the wedding, including members of my family. This was infuriating, as we had already explained that we just weren’t able to do so.

I think the thing that upset me the most, was that by the time it got to the day before the wedding, every single member of my extended family had dropped out. None of them attended.

In the midst of feeling very low, a call from one of my best friends (and Maid of Honour), Sarah, helped us to re-focus. She took the time to talk through everything with us, and asked us what WE wanted to do. I explained that the reason we had originally planned the wedding so quickly in the first place, was because of my mum being unwell… and we had wanted to make sure she could definitely be involved.

After speaking with Sarah, we decided that we would press on with the wedding, unless we were specifically told it would need to be cancelled. Our thinking was, that even if they restricted numbers at weddings, or our venue cancelled on us, we could always go with our closest family and friends to the registry office in Liverpool, and have a larger wedding later on. From then on, it was (kind of) full steam ahead – we both packed everything we needed to take with us to Liverpool, with the smallest amount of motivation possible, haha!

I was due to get my nails done a few days before the wedding, but the nail salon decided to close. Not a big issue in the grand scheme of things, but on top of everything else… I had to laugh, or I would cry! Luckily, my amazing sister Ashton stepped in and did my nails for me, the day before the wedding.

THE WEDDING DAY – WE BLOODY MADE IT!!

The wedding day finally arrived, after the longest week in history. I can’t explain to you the immense feeling of relief I felt – that it was actually going ahead.

Unknown to me, on the morning of our wedding, Darran had received calls and messages from 5 more of his friends, saying they were dropping out. So, while I was getting ready, my poor fiancé had a crazy amount of upset and stress to deal with.

It was funny, everyone kept asking us whether we were nervous… our response was – not at all. We were just so bloody happy and excited that everything was going ahead, and we would be marrying each other, that any ‘normal’ nerves brides and grooms might experience, completely paled in comparison to everything we had been through during the week leading up to the wedding.

The day started off with the bridal party having our hair and make-up done. As the ceremony wasn’t until 3pm, it was a really relaxed morning with no rushing about. I sent my dad and brother off on a mission to buy lots of Tupperware… my Maid of Honour Sarah had had the genius idea to ask our caterers to save any leftover curry, so we could take it home! We still have about 30 containers full of curry in our freezer, excellent!!!

The time came to get into my dress, and for us to leave for the ceremony. It was an interesting drive there… we had decided to travel in our own cars rather than get taxis, just to minimise any risk due to Covid-19. I always thought my car was quite big (it’s a Ford Focus), until I had to sit in the back of it wearing a wedding dress, haha!

It was hilarious when we arrived at the venue, for some reason Darran kept walking past the door as I was walking around to the side entrance. Everyone I came with kept shouting at him to go away, and they all huddled around me to hide me while I crouched down. I was absolutely wetting myself laughing at how ridiculous we must have all looked, haha!!

We managed to get inside safely without Darran spotting me (a miracle on its own!), and I spoke with our registrars to confirm all of the details that they needed.

A small note on the registrars – they were so lovely! Some of the friendliest registrars I have ever had the pleasure of meeting.

Now, the song that I walked down the aisle to… I kept this a secret from Darran. He is a massive Liverpool FC fan, and for those of you that aren’t football fans (me included!), they have an anthem that they always sing called ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’.

I had the idea fairly early on, and listened to the song, originally by Gerry & The Pacemakers, to see what the lyrics were like. It was a surprisingly beautiful song, and I thought it would be perfect to walk down to – as it means a lot to him.

As I have now seen, from our wedding video that our friend Tony very kindly surprised us with, as soon as the song starts playing, Darran’s face just crumples, and he is in tears, haha (my well intentioned yet evil plan had worked!!!). As I walk down I can hear him saying “I’m going to bloody kill her, why did she choose this song?!”.

I knew he would get emotional, but didn’t realise to what extent, haha! I think it was a combination of the craziness we had endured throughout the week leading up to the wedding, all of the stress we had gone through with my mum’s health the year before, and the fact that we had somehow made it to the wedding day… the words all meant so much more.

It’s normally me who is the one to get emotional/teary of the two of us, but when I walked down that aisle, I had the hugest, happy smile on my face I have ever seen or felt. I had found the person that I was meant to be with, and now I was getting to marry him.

The day went as smoothly as can be expected in the situation we found ourselves in. Later that evening we found out, a few hours earlier the government had limited weddings to just five people. We also discovered that from this point forward, our venue had cancelled weddings… so we were literally the last wedding to go ahead at our venue before lockdown!!!

We had a seriously amazing day, all of our suppliers were fantastic and made our wedding so special – despite us having a large number of guests drop out.

This whole situation has really cemented who is important to us, and what really matters when it comes to getting married. It’s not the venue, the food, the entertainment, or having hundreds of guests there (although these things are nice)… at the end of the day, this is just material. All that matters is that you have your closest family and friends around you, and of course your significant other! We felt so much love from the people that attended, despite the crappy circumstances… and we will never be able to thank those people enough.

Honestly, from both Darran and I… thank you from the bottom of our hearts. You made our wedding day bloomin’ marvellous, and we are so happy that you chose to celebrate with us.

One thing I will say to future couples…

Our wish from the start was to have an unusual, non-traditional wedding. All I am going to say is… BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR!!! It may come true! Our wedding was definitely unusual, but not all for the right reasons! Here’s a few photos from the day, taken by the amazing Frances Sales Photography!

Hungry for more?! Below I cover each element that made up our wedding day…

VENUE HUNTING & CATERERS

We already knew our wedding would be slightly more complex. Our family and friends are mainly based in Oxfordshire, but we decided to get married in Liverpool. This was purely because, with me being a wedding photographer and shooting at so many local venues, I knew I wanted something a little bit different for my own wedding.

We actually found it really difficult to find a funky, slightly unusual wedding venue! Check out the list I have compiled, at the end of this blog, of venues we found while we were searching. Hopefully it helps you, if you are trying to find a venue that is a bit different!

We eventually stumbled upon Sefton Park Palm House. As soon as I saw photos of the venue, I absolutely fell in love with it. It’s a Victorian glass house, filled with beautiful, tropical plants – what’s not to love?! We spoke to Rosemary, our soon-to-be wedding coordinator, and arranged to visit the venue. We were kind of half-hoping that we wouldn’t like it, as it’s a 3.5 hour trek from Oxford (to Liverpool), but as soon as we stepped foot inside the Palm House, we were doomed, haha! Both myself and Darran had an immense feeling of calm wash over us as soon as we walked inside. It was so peaceful – quiet except for little birds chirping.

We viewed one other venue in Liverpool, but it was literally nothing in comparison to the Palm House. We knew then and there, that we had our venue sorted. It was one of the best decisions we could have made, and Rosemary was absolutely fantastic throughout the whole process. We seriously cannot thank her enough for everything.

We decided to go for a Thursday in March (much to everyone’s annoyance, I’m sure – sorry!) because it was much cheaper – due to being an off peak, weekday date. This was the only way we could afford such a beautiful venue, especially with the catering and further costs on top.

We could choose from two recommended caterers when booking the Palm House, and we decided to go with Coriander. Coriander is a leading Indian wedding caterer based in Manchester. Our coordinator was Natalie, and she was absolutely brilliant in the lead up to the wedding, and on the day. We went for a half meat/half vegan menu, so that we could cater for all of our guests.

The food was absolutely delicious, and they very kindly gave us the leftovers as well (Sarah = legend), some of which is still in our freezer – we are having one curry a week to make it last as long as possible, yummmm!!

THE IMPORTANCE OF WEDDING INSURANCE… SERIOUSLY

We were one of the “lucky” couples to have taken out wedding insurance prior to everything kicking off. I had convinced Darran that we needed to book insurance about 5 months before Covid-19 was even mentioned on the news.

A lot of couples don’t tend to consider wedding insurance when planning a wedding, but I cannot stress enough the importance of getting your cover sorted early on. You should be booking it as soon as you have your date set in stone.

To be fair, I only know how important this is because I have known couples in the past – that have had to claim on their insurance, because of a fire at their venue, or their make-up artist didn’t turn up on the wedding day.

We personally used Weddingplan Insurance, but there are lots of companies that offer this service, even John Lewis and Debenhams.

Having said this… during the Covid-19 outbreak, our insurance would have only covered us for the following:

  • The government specifically cancelled weddings
  • Me, Darran, or one of our immediate family members got sick.

Make sure you read the fine print of any policy you take out.

Luckily, we ended up not having to use our wedding insurance, but it was definitely peace of mind that we had it for the worst case scenario!

OUR BLOODY BRILLIANT PHOTOGRAPHER!

Obviously, photography is very important to me… so we allocated a large chunk of our budget to this, to ensure we could have amazing photos.

I first ‘virtually’ met Frances through a Facebook group for photographers we are both on. Originally, I got in touch with her to arrange a photo shoot for us while we were in Malta (while she was there too). We absolutely loved the photos she took, and knew from that moment on that if we ever decided to get married, Frances would be the photographer for us!

I have personally dubbed her the ‘Goddess of Light’, as she seems to be able to find the most amazing light for photos, even when it is overcast!

A little while before our wedding, Frances moved to France with her partner. This however, didn’t stop her from travelling all the way to Liverpool for our wedding, even with the risk of France closing it’s borders!

We literally cannot thank her enough, and we are so glad she made it back home safely, just in time before they locked everything down.

*EXCITED SQUEAL* – DRESS SHOPPING!

I searched online and found a few dress styles I liked the look of, but typically, I kept gravitating towards the more expensive dresses – which were totally out of my price range. I decided that the best thing to do, would be to book an appointment at a bridal shop to see what was available. Again, being awkward, I wanted something that looked different to everything I had previously photographed – quite a tall order… or so I thought!

The first shop I went to was Proposals in Witney. The ladies that work here are so unbelievably nice, and helpful. I felt totally at ease from the moment I stepped inside.

I visited the store with my mum and my Maid of Honour, Sarah. Val, our adviser extraordinaire, let us all pick out a few dresses for me to try on first (I hadn’t anticipated liking so many dresses!), and then Val picked out a few as well.

I was very honest about what I did and didn’t like with each dress, which really helped Val to understand what kind of thing I was looking for. She pulled out two dresses which were ‘wild cards’, both of which ended up being my favourites!

I asked Val to talk me through the scope for alterations and the cost of each dress, then left for the day to have a think.

In the second shop I visited, I had a totally different experience.

This time I went with my two sisters, Caari (my sister in law to be), and Karen (one of Darran’s best friends… also a sister in law as far as we are concerned! She has also now dubbed me ‘BFF in law’ ha! God, this must be the longest bracket in history!!). We traveled for around an hour to get to this specific shop – as they were having a sample sale. My thoughts were to go and have a look, as I could have found something amazing, for a much lower price.

We arrived at the shop about 5 minutes before my appointment, we were then asked to come back in around 10-15 minutes, as another bride was finishing up.

When we returned, they led us through to a small room at the back, and then I was taken out to the shop floor to pick out what I wanted to try on. Looking at the dresses on the rails, I did not see any in the kind of style I had loved at the previous dress shop, but I decided to try a few anyway. Sometimes you can’t tell whether a dress will look nice until you have seen it on.

The strangest thing about this shop was that I had to strip off (up top) in front of the shop assistant, which I didn’t feel totally comfortable with! In the previous dress shop, they had hung the dress in the fitting room, waited until I had stepped in to it, then came in to zip me up. In this shop, I was trying to cover my boobs, and get the dress on at the same time, haha!!!

Soooo, lessons learnt from going to this dress shop that will hopefully help someone else:

  • If you don’t feel comfortable getting undressed in front of the assistant, say something. For some reason I was shocked in to not being able to mention anything… and I am usually quite vocal, haha!
  • Research the style of dresses a shop has before visiting! They may not have the kind of thing you are after.

After trying on numerous dresses in the second shop, and my sister saying the now famous line “You asked me to be honest with you – it looks shit, take it off!”, I decided that it wasn’t working out, ha!

Returning to ‘Proposals’ in Witney…

A week later I went back to the first dress shop, Proposals, and tried on my favourite dress again. I fell in love with it all over again, and knew that would be my dress, woohoo! I did have a few alterations done – one layer of tulle was taken out, as I didn’t want it to be as puffy, and I had the train cut off as I knew it would annoy me! Behold… the chosen dress, and my accessories!

DARRAN’S BESPOKE MADE WAISTCOAT… OF COURSE HE WANTED THIS!

I’m sure you have all heard of the term ‘Bridezilla’ before, but throughout the whole year of planning I think I had one Bridezilla moment.

Darran on the other hand… well, let’s just say he is probably the pickiest groom I have ever, or will ever come across! His favourite phrase throughout the whole process was “It just needs to look cool”, or if he saw something, it wasn’t deemed good enough unless he made the following noise:

‘URRRGGHHHH!!!’

Haha! So, obviously, a traditional waistcoat/suit was not going to cut it. After trawling around suit shops in Oxford with me, his sister Caari and best friend Karen, with no success, he started thinking about having a bespoke waistcoat made. I got on the case and started to investigate who might be able to help. I originally messaged ‘The Couture Company Designer Wedding Gowns’. They very helpfully came back to me and let me know that they could create a waistcoat, but they do not make tailored menswear. They suggested that I got in touch with Karlus G Tailor, (who are based in Birmingham) to see if they might be able to help.

‘Karlus G Tailor’ is owned by Karlus and his sister Hilary. They have been making clothes for private clients for over 20 years. I had a look on their website and social media channels, and could see that they had brilliant reviews, so I decided to get in touch.

Everything went so smoothly, I explained what kind of thing Darran was after, and arranged to go and meet them at their studio in the Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham.

Hilary even let us know about a few different fabric shops we could go to while in Birmingham, to try and find the kind of fabric Darran was looking for. We went to four shops in total, and the last shop – ‘Barry’s Fabrics’, had an amazing piece of material for the bargain price of £10!!! We pretty much skipped back through Birmingham with glee, both of us elated that we had managed to find some fabric!

Darran had three fittings in total – one to try on a template, and two to make the adjustments needed. We were meant to go back a fourth time to pick the waistcoat up, but Karlus being the absolute legend that he is, said that he could make the adjustments and we could pick it up two hours later – rather than trekking all the way to Birmingham again, woohoo!!!

We would both highly recommend Karlus and Hilary if you are looking to have a suit or waistcoat bespoke made, they are so friendly, helpful and talented.

DARRAN’S SUIT… GROOMZILLA RETURNS, ARGGHHH!

Something to know about Darran, is that he has a strange obsession with anything that is velour, or velvet. Originally he was thinking to have a dark green velvet jacket, but after having his waistcoat made, decided that black would be better.

When searching for non-traditional suits, we kept coming across two brands that stood out to us – Cavani, and Marc Darcy.

The suit jacket he went for in the end was a beautiful, soft, black velvet jacket imprinted with an abstract paisley type pattern. It looked amazing with his waistcoat, and he ended up pairing it with some dark, black velvet trousers from ‘Moss Bros’.

His shirt, he managed to get from ‘Shepherd & Woodward’ in Oxford. He was picky with this too – he wanted a shirt with pleats, but didn’t want cufflink cuffs! He found one in the end, obviously, haha!

Accessories wise, we came across a really beautiful lapel pin in a second hand shop in Witney – The Old Pill Factory. It was an ornate sword and scabbard, which looked great against his suit jacket. He also found a gold-faced, vintage, wind up watch in The Ballroom in Oxford.

If you are after a non-traditional suit, the best thing to do is have a rough idea of what you want in mind, but be prepared to alter it slightly. Unless you have a suit completely bespoke made, it is quite difficult to get exactly what you are after. Mixing and matching is definitely the key to putting together a slightly alternative, funky suit!

THE DIY BITS WE CREATED… WHY DID I DO THIS TO MYSELF?! HAHA!

We made tons of stuff ourselves, here’s a little list of some of the things we created:

  • Invites – my sister Parvin is a graphic designer, so I told her what we were after and she created something infinitely more amazing!
  • Woollen pom-poms – we had these instead of confetti – much cheaper and more fun! We basically bought two pom-pom makers (about £3 from Amazon), and over the course of a few months we made over 150 of them. It was a team effort between, Sarah (my Maid of Honour), Darran (who made about 5, haha!), Darran’s dad, Jai and myself.
  • Our centrepieces – for these we had a photography/music theme. We went to Brighton for the weekend and purchased 10 vintage cameras in a second hand shop (Brighton is brilliant for this kind of thing!), we found 10 small vinyl records in another second hand shop (in Oxford), ordered some old microphones on Ebay, and we found the leaf base in B&M for £2.99, what a bargain! Armed with a glue gun and some gold spray paint, we assembled them together over the Christmas break, and voila! Centrepieces complete!
  • Wands for the flower girls and my bridesman – I saw some really nice ribbon wands on Etsy that I wanted to purchase for our flower girls and my bridesman, but they were quite costly – £20 per wand. Being a creative person that likes to make more work for myself, I decided to make them instead! All I did, was buy some dowels (£1.50 on Amazon), a pack of multi-coloured ribbon (£6.99 on Amazon), and a large sheet of glitter felt (£4.00 from a craft shop), and there we have it! I ended up making 4 wands for just £12.49!
  • Table plan – I wanted something unusual for our table plan, but we just didn’t have time in the end. So we basically found an opulent looking mirror, which was £4.00 in B&M, and sprayed it gold. Parvin designed the table lists for us to stick on to the mirror, we then just used removable sticky dots to attach them. Doing this means you can use the mirror again – it now sits proudly in our downstairs hallway!
  • Mexican tile place names – Parvin helped me make these when I visited her in Bristol one weekend (while Darran’s stag do was taking place, I escaped!). We had these tiles left over from a table we made, so all I had to do was buy some orange card and blue thread.

THE INEFFABLE SPIN DOCTOR, DJ COAST2COAST!!!

Finding a DJ was one of the things we found most difficult. We knew we wanted someone that was willing to play a mix of music (Darran is into underground Hip-Hop, I like Heavy Metal music, and we wanted to play some well-known stuff for our families & friends). We didn’t want anything cheesy played at our wedding, but we found it really hard to find someone happy to do this!

After searching different wedding directories in the Liverpool area, I decided to expand my search to Manchester.

BINGO! DJ Coast2Coast came up. I went on to Nkosi’s website, and straight away I could tell that both Darran and myself would get along with him. I popped across an email outlining what kind of music we wanted played, and also mentioned that Darran and his friends were hoping to do a rap performance, and this was his response:

“Oh my days this sounds like a DREAM!  I CANNOT WAIT to be a part of this!  Sure we can throw in some Heavy Metal twists, mixing in hip hop and 80s… it’s going to be fun!!!”

As soon as we got this reply, we were sold! We liked that he sounded so excited, and that he has amazing reviews on his website and social media.

On the wedding day, he didn’t disappoint! It was such a shame that we had less people there, but that didn’t stop Nkosi from doing his thing! He even played a very strange song request that I asked him to play, which me and my two best friends used to listen to at University – LEGEND!

If you are looking for a DJ, DO NOT HESITATE to give Nkosi a call. You will not regret it!

HAIR & MAKE UP – A.K.A SUPREME BEAUTIFYING SORCERESSES OF WONDER!

Jen was another supplier that I found – based in Manchester, after finding it difficult to source a Liverpool based artist that I liked. When I came across Jen’s work, I absolutely loved it.

I got in touch with her immediately and arranged to book a trial that would coincide with us visiting Liverpool for Darran’s 40th birthday.

I was so impressed with the outcome, especially after my quite confusing explanation of what I was after for my hair (classy Viking inspired)! I rarely wear loads of make-up, I normally just wear the basics, so I was pleasantly surprised that Jen had made me look and feel a million dollars.

On the wedding day she was absolutely fab, as was her colleague. She did everything exactly as I wanted, and made all of us feel so at ease. If you are looking for a brilliant make-up artist, look no further!

FUNKY ARTISAN FLOWERS

I have seen soooooo many beautiful flowers at all of the weddings I have photographed. This made choosing flowers for myself quite tricky.

I started hunting around on Etsy, and eventually found FlorenceAndFlowers. These guys create beautiful, dried-flower bouquets. There was one style in particular that I fell in love with, that had a slight ‘Viking’ feel to it. I got in touch with them to ask if they could make something similar, but with a few changes, and they agreed without hesitation.

I received the flowers around three weeks before the wedding (as they are dried, they keep really well), and they were absolutely beautiful! I highly recommend them.

OUR FRIEND, THE MYSTERY GUEST (AKA OUR SURPRISE MAGICIAN)!

We originally struggled to find entertainment for our wedding. Again, as was becoming a pattern, we wanted something a bit different, and I didn’t want entertainment that I had seen before. At one point, we looked at Contortionists and Flamenco dancers, but sadly they were a lot more expensive than what our budget allowed!

I came across Stephen when visiting the National Wedding Show in Birmingham, with my sister. He was one of a few magicians there, but he instantly stood out, when we stopped to watch him perform.

Not only is he a magician, he can do hypnosis too! He created a back story around who he was to us, a very convincing cover if questioned, ha! This was used as an icebreaker with our guests… then he would surprise them with a trick.

Everyone at the wedding told us how brilliant he was, and he did a special trick for us after we returned from having our photos as well. He is based in the midlands, but was more than happy to travel. If you are looking for a magician, go for Stephen!

A LIST OF OUR AMAZING, LEGENDARY SUPPLIERS

Everyone on this list was so brilliant at keeping in touch, and reassured me that they would still be there – unless they got sick themselves or the government enforced a lockdown. It took a huge amount of pressure off our shoulders.

UNUSUAL VENUES WE CAME ACROSS DURING OUR SEARCH

As I said, we found it really difficult when searching for unusual wedding venues! Here is a list of venues we came across while looking for ours:

If you are getting married at any of these venues and are still in need of a photographer, let me know! I would LOVE to shoot at these beautiful places!

THANK YOU TO THE FOLLOWING LOVED ONES & FRIENDS

My parents – for helping us financially and emotionally throughout this whole process, even when you have had your own problems to deal with. You have always been an amazing support to me, and I will be forever grateful that you have welcomed Darran in to our lives right from the start <3. Also, to my dad for FINALLY creating a picture with me that has been 30 years in the making (it has been a running joke), haha!

Jai – for helping us financially, for keeping us calm when we were panicking, and for painting us the most beautiful picture and signing board ever. We will treasure them, always.

We couldn’t have had the wedding we had without our parents’ help, so thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

Parvin – you are a superstar, and a bloody amazing graphic designer! Thank you for painstakingly designing our invites, changing the table plan about 5 million times, and helping me make our tile place names.

Ashton – for trekking with me to my dress appointments (I really appreciate your no-nonsense approach and honesty, and your sense of style), and for saving me from a wedding nail disaster, haha!

Caari & Karen – thanks to both of you for coming with me to dress appointments, and for trying to calm me down when I was having all those freak out moments, in the lead up to our wedding. I must have gotten right on your nerves, but you still did everything in your power to calm me down, and I will be forever grateful to you both <3.

Karen – thanks for organising a brilliant stag do for Darran, and for him getting home, with eyebrows intact!! Ha!

Emily, Lilah, Jessica & Isabelle – for being our beautiful flower girls! Thank you so much for lighting up our day. We love you all, and can’t wait to be there for you on your wedding days!

Sarah – I couldn’t have picked a better person to be my Maid of Honour. You helped us so much with everything, planned an absolutely epic hen do at ‘FEST Camden – The Birdcage Cabaret’, and for being the voice of reason when we were panicking! I will never forget everything you did for us, we both love you lots.

James – for being a brilliant Bridesman, and for going along with our crazy idea of waving a fairy wand when walking down the aisle!

Tony – for secretly deciding to film bits of our wedding. We will literally never be able to thank you enough <3.

A ‘PHEW’ LAST THOUGHTS… WELL DONE FOR MAKING IT THIS FAR!!

Well… sorry for the absolutely HUGE blog post! It actually feels good to write everything down! I am sure I will forget certain things as the years go on, so to have a record of it like this is nice.

I hope you enjoyed reading this, and for any couples currently stressing out about the Covid-19 situation… just breathe. I totally understand the stress you are going through – believe me!

If you have any questions at all, that I might be able to help with, please do get in touch. I can’t promise that I will have an answer, but I am really happy to try and help out in whatever way I can!

If you are after a photographer for your wedding, who has literally been through it all, get in touch! I would love to hear from you.

Love,

The new Mrs Ijada (eeeeee!!!)

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