My Wedding Day!

As a celebrant, I have the pleasure of officiating weddings and hearing beautiful love stories. But today, I want to share a different story, a personal one. This is the tale of my own wedding day.

A Little Background Info Rob and I have known each other since we were five. We lived around the corner (and later a few doors away) from each other, went to the same school and our mum’s, whilst not friends as such, were neighbourly. We didn’t really have anything to do with each other growing up, but we had an awkward chance meeting in our early twenties. I’d had my final ante-natal hospital appointment with my last child and was told to book a cab to go into hospital to be induced the following morning. I did that, but then went into labour naturally. At 6pm, there was a knock on the door – it was Rob, who was a cab driver at the time! The cab had been booked for 6am the following morning but the office made a mistake and sent him out that evening. I explained the situation and said that we’ll sort it ourselves as I was already in labour. He couldn’t get away quick enough! How funny to think that years later he’d end up being ‘stepdad’ to that baby! Fast forward fifteen years, and I received a Facebook friend request asking, ‘Is that Suzanne Brannigan from down the road?’ and the rest, as they say, is history!

The Proposal We’d been together for a year when Rob popped the question. We’d spoken light-heartedly about getting engaged and I casually mentioned that you couldn’t really know somebody until you’d been with them for four seasons. We were on holiday in Turkey during our fourth

season together. I knew he was going to ask the question but thought he’d wait for some romantic moment together. Instead, he panicked and wanted to get it out of the way, so when we were sat outside our (pretty awful) hotel on the first night with the drinks flowing way too easily, he rushed the proposal out! ‘Suzanne Brannigan from down the road, will you marry me?’ And that was that!

The Engagement We remained engaged for five years before getting married in August 2017 at the beautiful Tewin Bury Farm. I’m a bit of an ‘organiser’ and absolutely LOVED making plans for our wedding day! We both wanted to make the day as personal as possible and enlisted the help of a couple of family

members to create table decorations, favours and the table seating plan. And, yes, it helped to keep the costs down too.

I have to say that I also kept the Amazon delivery guys busy in the months leading up to our

wedding day as I ordered confetti, tiny buckets, bubbles, mini easels, lawn games, yoyos, fun signs, wedding guest book, card birdcage, wedding colouring books for the children, etc…

The Big Day Our day was beautiful. The sun shone, which allowed for our outdoor wedding and, as cliché as it sounds, it really was perfect being surrounded by our friends and family. We opted to have our own little family unit as our wedding party, which consisted of my three adult children from my previous marriage and my grandson, plus Rob’s friend as his best man. My two sons walked me down the aisle to ‘Amazed’ by Lonestar, my daughter was my bridesmaid, and my grandson was our ring bearer. It certainly made for a beautiful, intimate ceremony.

Our ceremony was led by two registrars who were lovely and did a great job. However, had I known about celebrant-led weddings at that time we certainly would have opted for one. One of the reasons for this is that we wanted to write our own unique vows but weren’t able to. Instead, we chose from options A, B and C for each section of the ceremony, including which vows we would like to use. As beautiful as it was, it wasn’t particularly personal. We did, however, have three special people read poems during the ceremony, a family member each and a mutual friend, which added some more intimacy to the day. The rest of the day was just as beautiful, with the staff of Tewin Bury Farm ensuring its smooth running. The lawn games, bubbles and yoyos were a hit with the kids (and a fair few adults) and a great way to keep them occupied.

One particularly fond memory from the day was my eldest son leading on a game of Mr and Mrs, with us using a shoe each of ours to hold up as opposed to coloured paddles. A great way to add humour, let the guests find out who snores the most (him) and who eats the most (definitely me!), and fill the time between the wedding breakfast and evening entertainment. Our first dance was to ‘Let’s Marvin Gaye and Get It On’ by Charlie Puth and Meghan Trainor, which was great fun. I love to dance, whereas Rob hates it! In fact, I spent the rest of the night on the dance floor – I hadn’t put together a fab playlist for nothing!

I hope you have enjoyed reading about my wedding experience and find inspiration for your own special day.

Wedding favours, table decorations, name cards by my step-mum, Lin, of LB Ceramics. Mirror seating plan by my son, Kyle, at Design & Print Signs.