Amy and Joel

Joel and I met in Edinburgh Scotland when we were both travelling and were staying at the same hostel, Joel had actually jumped on the wrong bus from London and was supposed to be living in Glasgow but decided to stay in Edinburgh when I arrived a few months later. It was love at first sight! I still remember what he was wearing when I first laid eyes on him.

Our home is our happy place. Joel proposed while we were at home and I was getting ready for bed. He lay some flowers on the bed and put the ring underneath, unfortunately, I didn’t see the ring so as I jumped into bed he had to scramble to find it before popping the question!

We really wanted to keep things as simple as possible for our wedding and I knew I wanted a picturesque venue as it would mean spending less on decorations and flowers. I first came across Cossars via a video on Facebook which detailed everything about how the venue was a family affair and it was just beautiful so it was the only venue we looked at.

The theme of our wedding was basically all of our favourite things coming together. I love greenery and earthy feels and fairy lights and Joel and the best man LOVE doughnuts. Our favours were tea cakes which were one of my mums' favourite things I used to send to her when I was travelling. My favourite detail of the day was the fairy lights under the cloches which were just magical. You can never have too many fairy lights! We didn’t do a lot of DIY projects, but I made the doughnut stand, the table numbers and the seating tags that were pricked into the favours. My Grandma who is 97 unfortunately couldn’t make it to the wedding but gifted me her engagement ring to wear as a necklace on the day which was very special. When they got engaged after the war and went ring shopping, there were only two rings to choose from!

Once we found Cossars most of the vendors (the caterers, band, celebrant) came through Cossars recommendations and David our photographer I went to high school with and simply love his work!

My dress came from Paperswan in Christchurch, I only tried on four dresses and I loved the statement of a full sequinned dress and the classic shape, Paperswan gave me an amazing experience and also recommended a seamstress to do the hemming and add in a button so I could pull up the train and boogie on our day. She was also a dream to work with as well.

It’s so hard to choose one favourite moment of our day, I loved every second! Getting ready at Redbarns with my closest girlfriends, sister, mum and dad was just a beautiful way to start the day, for Joel it was the best man’s speech which had everyone laughing! The speeches were such a touching moment. Joel and I are pretty terrible public speakers but it was so amazing to see all the thought and love put into everyone's words.

Our songs for the day were Resolution by Matt Corby as our entrance song, for our signing we had The Eagles Peaceful Easy Feeling and our second aisle song was Michael Buble’s version of Nina Simone’s Feeling Good and our first dance song was Lorde Huron The Night We Met.

If you were to ask Joel what marriage meant to us, his response would be ‘prison’ haha!

Our advice for other couples planning a wedding is to keep it simple and give yourself plenty of time to organise your big day. Choose vendors you enjoy and gel with and it will make for a relaxing and happy wedding day.