Jonny & Ryan's Wedding
If you want your ceremony to be truly unique and individual, then choosing an ancient service from a rigid prayer book, one that's exactly the same for every couple, won't be right for you. Selecting Simply Ceremonies for your day gives you freedom of choice.
This is the most significant part of your wedding day and should therefore reflect exactly who you are, what you want to say to each other in front of your family and friends, and where you want to be - weddings can be held in woodland, by the sea, at a stately home, in your garden - the possibilities are endless.
You can incorporate readings, music and other elements such as traditional handfastings, with braid or ribbon, unity candles or sand, jumping the broom - whatever you want for your day.
Telephone: Landline: 01606 871 282 Mobile: 07800 572 127
Email: sue@simplyceremonies.co.uk
Visiting: www.simplyceremonies.co.uk
G Wedding Directory would like to thank Jonny & Ryan for allowing us to publish their story.
Many thanks,
Andrew & John.
I proposed to Ryan at Glastonbury Festival last year on Sunday night after the last act finished. Our friends were gathered for one final night of fun in the field when I got down on one knee in the mud. Ryan said yes, thankfully and there were cheers all round (including some from strangers we’d never met before). We both wanted to keep the exact same theme for our wedding day. It was to be a fun occasion with minimal formality.
Both Ryan and I work in the creative industries. Ryan is an illustrator and I am a photographer so we were very keen to create the look and feel of our wedding from scratch. We were also very lucky to have many friends who work in similar industries. Friends made flags to go around the edge of our marquee just like you would see at Glastonbury. My aunt is an expert wedding cake maker and made a stunning cake for us. She also made metres and metres of vintage looking bunting. Ryan’s mum made our table runners and my mum bought all 150 of the china plates, cups and saucers from charity shops throughout the year. My friend Charlie brought her band CeCe & The Scoundrels to Stoke-on-Trent from London for the day. With the help of family will built our own bar and got our friends at the Cocktail Caravan involved (thecocktailcaravan.com).
My aunt and uncle have the most amazing house in Stanley village, Stoke-on-Trent. They allowed us to take it over for the week as we prepared for the wedding on the Saturday. The garden was filled with a marquee for us to eat, drink and dance. Outside we created different areas for people to explore. There was a karaoke horse box and viewing area which I spent most of my evening in and which probably explains why i was a little hoarse the next day. I do believe many people gave some fine performances inside that horse box. We had a staged photo area where Sammy (my usual photography assistant and friend) would take photos of people once they had decided what they were going to wear from the dress up box. Bronwen Sharp another friend and colleague took beautiful photos throughout the whole day. We were keen not to have any over the top poses and everything she took was very natural. Her work can be seen at www.bronwensharp.com
For food it was important for us that we served a vegetarian menu. I wanted it to be so delicious that the meat eaters would not even mind missing out. That’s where Sal’s Catering (www.salscatering.co.uk) really did surprise everyone. Sally can do anything so a vegetarian menu was not a problem. Many of the guests said it was the best wedding food they’d ever eaten.
Our outfits were designed by us and made by a close friend of ours who runs his own clothing company (www.thisisfred.co.uk). Neither Ryan nor I wanted to wear a traditional suit. We are both creatives and our wedding outfits needed to reflect this. My style very much belongs in the 1980’s so I opted for a white jacket but designed to imitate a leather biker jacket. My tassels went down to the floor. It was unashamedly camp and finished off with my grandmothers broach in place of a tie. Ryan opted for a black cape which was reversible. Once “business” was done and the party was ready to start the cape was reversed showing a beautiful multi-coloured print.
The ceremony itself was wonderful and we are to thank our celebrant Sue Williamson of Simply Ceremonies (www.simplyceremonies.co.uk) for that. Sue really did work hard to create a service that was exactly what we were hoping for. She spent time with us in the lead up listening to our story and talking about ways we could make the service unique. As gay people we’ve been left out of this tradition for so long that I felt it was important to say and do exactly what we wanted to. The traditional ‘rules’ did not need to apply. We walked in together, our dog brought us the rings, no new names were taken, we did it all our way. Sue talked about how we met and what makes our bond so special. We had readings from two friends to help bring a tear to a few eyes as well as laughter and most importantly love from everybody in the room.
We both wish we could do the whole day again. Apart from the day we met, it was the best day of our lives.