Hansley Beard

I noticed the beauty of the décor and the splendour of the Bandstand, and again felt blessed to have such good friends, and to have Jennie on board with such an eye for detail! The guests were sending such love and support it was intoxicating, as I walked past them all and up to Dave.

My Father gave my hand to Dave and Dave led me up the steps of the Bandstand to Becca to begin the handfasting ceremony. I glanced out and saw Danielle and Alison with tears in their eyes and quickly looked away so that I didn’t start. I could hardly follow what Becca was saying and simply gazed into Dave’s eyes, which were smiling immensely at me and it felt amazing.

The vows bit came round quickly and I choked up, but Dave held my hands tightly and I got through it without crying. I heard bits of Dave’s vows to me but again it was all so heady it was hard to take in. We wrote our own vows, which we kept secret from each other until the day. We felt it important to use our own words that meant something to us and how we as individuals felt about marriage and why we were marrying each other. To us the ceremony was the most important part, and having secret vows felt like the right thing to do.

Liz gave a reading on what marriage is before the legal part of the ceremony began, which was conducted by Registrar Shaun Thompson.

There had been a funny moment earlier when Becca had said a sentence wrong, so ended up saying Dave’s nose would support Sara, which we all giggled about.

We felt totally relaxed during this part of the ceremony and really enjoyed it. Finally we got to kiss after we exchanged rings and were pronounced husband and wife.

We then sat down on my friend Craig’s sofa to sign the register. Craig’s sofa from Sugarcane is famous, and is taken and photographed in strange and wonderful places – this was the sofa’s first wedding.

Our friends Sophie and Bryan sang and played one of our favourite songs, Al Green’s ‘Simply Beautiful’, whilst we signed the register and posed for photographs.

We had an aerial photographer waiting to take a large group picture, so we all stood and waved for that before walking back up the aisle to petals being thrown, and the feeling was amazing. There was lots of energy, love and support from everyone there.

After more photographs in the park, we moved on to the reception at The Harley Hotel.

The reception venue looked amazing!!! Again Jennie’s eye for detail was spot-on and we had no idea it would look so good. I held back the tears as I looked at the wedding cake our friend Sarah Cotton had made (her first cake ever); it was excellent and looked really yummy. Dave was suitably impressed too, but his tears came later on!

The band was set out, and the backdrop that Jennie and I had planned hung up beautifully. We were handed glasses of champagne and listened to all the speeches. Next up were the Best Men – we had 5 of them. They said as they were all musicians they decided to sing a song. The song had been especially written for Dave and was about how each of them knew Dave. It was brilliant and no doubt already on YouTube.

Dave then gave his unrehearsed speech, mainly thanking people, but he managed to miss out Jennie, our unsung hero. Really, it is a testament to Jennie that she stays in the background and quickly gets things done with no fuss, no drama, just perfect ease, and does not brag about what she’s done or draw attention to herself in any way.

We then cut the fabulous cake, which was made up of a fruit cake, two chocolate sponge cakes, with and without alcohol, and pork pies for Dave because he doesn’t have a sweet tooth.

Next I got to have a dress change, ready for the Motown party, and Dave and I went down for our first dance at 9pm. Our friend Tom Hogg sang our first dance song, ‘How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You’. Dave had no idea that many of our friends would be playing in a Motown band especially for us, and he was suitably shocked and totally overwhelmed by their efforts.

They did about six numbers, all classic Motown tracks, with two drummers and a brass section too. It was the highlight of the evening, which was great; as the Bandstand ceremony had been so good, it was great for the reception to have a real high too.

I continued to feel floaty, and also now very merry, talking to people and dancing a lot. Dave and I eventually left the reception at 3am to go back to our suite at Kenwood Hall.

We spent the next hour opening cards and being high from the day and eventually collapsed just after 4am!”