The Most Beautiful Civil Partnership and Handfasting Celebration

The atmos­phere on the day must have been won­der­ful: an out­door cer­e­mony, the air filled with live music from friends and a tra­di­tional hand­fast­ing before friends and fam­ily. Cat and Joce­lyn have writ­ten all about their day to share on Eng­lish Wed­ding blog — so I’ll hand over the reins to them to tell you all about it.

If you have a wed­ding or civil part­ner­ship to share on Eng­lish Wed­ding blog I’d love to hear from you. All the info you need is here: Eng­lish Wed­ding submissions

Who pro­posed, and how?

Joce­lyn pro­posed over a pint of stout in my favorite pub ‘Call­nans’ in Cork, Ire­land on a very wet night in Sep­tem­ber 2008

Wed­ding venue:

Leighton Moss Nature Reserve, Sil­verdale and the Long­lands Hotel, Carn­forth.

Wed­ding photographer:

CT Images, Cope Tay­lor Pho­tog­ra­phy. We were over­whelmed by the pho­tos we got from Cat and Suz. They cap­tured the day so accu­rately and beau­ti­fully. We hardly noticed they were there yet they man­aged to por­tray every moment and in exactly the way we wanted.

How would you describe your wed­ding style?

Nat­ural, colour­ful, fun, infor­mal, music filled!

The cer­e­mony:

Civil Part­ner­ship & Hand­fast­ing ceremony

Which read­ings did you choose?

2 Son­nets by Naruda read by Cat’s brother Denis O’Hora, a sur­prise read­ing writ­ten and read by Amelia Jones with Bjork song quo­ta­tions & an Apache Bless­ing read by Jossy’s Mum, Maggy Light­foot

What did you both wear?

We both wore beau­ti­ful, white, organic & vegan, bespoke wed­ding dresses hand­made by TAMMAM in Lon­don. As we had cel­e­bra­tions over two days we decided to go all out and get two party dresses made by TAMMAM also so we could dance the night away in style! All of the dresses were so beau­ti­fully made. Lucy summed up our per­son­al­i­ties and sub­tly linked our dresses in the most stun­ning way. Thank you Lucy!!

Mem­o­rable moments:

So many!!!! I (Cat) adored the pro­ces­sion through the woods led by our gor­geous nephew Fred­die (21months) wheel­ing our rings in a wheel­bar­row and our adorable flower princess Ella Gaynor (2 and a half years) throw­ing ivy leaves from a bas­ket along the path­way, the cer­e­mony was so spe­cial and the hand­fast­ing divine. I also trea­sured see­ing my friends per­form songs they had pre­pared for us in the open mic. Incred­i­ble days!

I (Jossy) sec­ond all of those things! A very spe­cial moment for me was dur­ing the hand­fast­ing, whilst tied to my new wife my dad spread some of my Grandad’s ashes, who unfor­tu­nately died in Novem­ber into the lake we were stand­ing on. It was won­der­ful he could still be a part of wel­com­ing Cat to our family.

We also organ­ised a guided walk up Warton Crag over the places I (Jossy) lived and loved grow­ing up. Beau­ti­ful! It was great see­ing all our friends and fam­ily in walk­ing gear before they glammed up for the evening fes­tiv­i­ties!!

The recep­tion:

What were your highlights?

The story teller, the open mic, the mor­ris danc­ing, the chaotic ceilidh, the surge of energy and excite­ment when our final 9 piece band hit the first note of their set!

The incred­i­ble wed­ding cake made by Jossy’s sis­ter Brid­get and her part­ner John Hutchin­son: Fruit cake with home­made marzi­pan and icing sur­rounded by shed loads of amaz­ing tasty fresh fruit. Yum!! And of course Lan­cashire cheese to top it off!

For our favours we com­mis­sioned felt flow­ers for all the guests made by won­der­ful local artist Maggy Light­foot (Jossy’s Mum)! They dou­bled as our place names with sil­ver hand­writ­ten names on leaves from the gar­den (thanks to Cat’s sis Nell for her beau­ti­ful Librar­ian handwriting!)

Venue styling and details:

Infor­mal seat­ing, party/festival feel, colour­ful flow­ers, pot­ted hyacinths (that we grew from seed), lots of can­dles and hearts on the tables

Music and entertainment:

As we’re both musi­cians it was really impor­tant to have a big fes­ti­val type celebration!

Fer­gal O’Connor sang ‘Sea of Love’ & ‘All I Want is You’ from the sound­track of the film ‘Juno’ with gui­tar dur­ing our cer­e­mony in the bird hide, Marja Gaynor played Bach on baroque vio­lin dur­ing our hand­fast­ing out on the pond, Tony Finn told two won­der­ful sto­ries before desert in the Nature Reserve, a string quar­tet of our friends Ilse de Ziah, Una Pal­liser, Amelia Jones, Marja Gaynor and the bride Cat joined in too dur­ing the recep­tion, Horns Aloud Horn Quar­tet star­ing the other bride Jossy played dur­ing the recep­tion, An open mic with per­for­mances by many of our friends and fam­ily, a ceilidh band led by fab fid­dle player Emma Sweeney, a Mor­ris dance per­for­mance by Crook Mor­ris & last but not least the bril­liant ‘Bad Ass Brass’ (short­listed for the Lon­don Jazz Award www.badassbrass.co.uk) raised the roof!

Wed­ding day advice:

We made colour­ful sched­ules for our wed­ding party. This worked bril­liantly as every­one knew what they needed to do and so could enjoy the rest of the time cel­e­brat­ing and kept away any poten­tial ‘bridezilla’ moments!!!!

A steam iron was very handy for the dresses.

Cat is from Ire­land and a lot of her fam­ily had not met Jossy’s yet so we decided to have an infor­mal gath­er­ing the night before the wed­ding so all could meet. This made us much more relaxed for the cer­e­mony day.

Jossy’s sis­ter Rowena made baby and kid­die favours that con­sisted of a lovely lit­tle bag of age related treats. The babies and kid­dies were a big part of our cel­e­bra­tions and their enjoy­ment was essen­tial too. They loved the treats and their par­ents agreed that this was a great idea. No tears!

It’s also a good idea to brush up on your par­ents’ mid­dle names to avoid any last minute pan­ics!

Rec­om­mended wed­ding suppliers:

www.ctimages.co.uk — won­der­ful photography

www.tammam.co.uk — divine bespoke wed­ding dresses

www.rspb.org.uk/reserves/guide/l/leightonmoss/ — dream­land wed­ding venue

www.justind.co.uk/ — bespoke wed­ding rings, recy­cled & beau­ti­fully made

www.weddingtonboots.com/ — bril­liant wed­ding wellies

www.toms.co.uk/- per­fect as wed­ding slip­pers & a good cause too

www.amoremusic.co.uk — our own string quar­tet, avail­able for wed­dings and civil part­ner­ships! Comes highly rec­om­mended!