The wedding theme for Catherine and Tom’s summer celebration was simply all their favourite things coming together into a colourful mish-mash. This translated to colourful flowers, homemade cakes, high street outfits and a fun-filled barn reception. They tied up lots of greenery from the woods with ribbons along one wall of the space and because the barn didn’t have lighting, they strung up loads of festoon and fairy lights for the evening.

The day started with a humanist ceremony in the woods (they were legally married at the register office the day before). Catherine explains, “We were married under a gorgeous gnarly tree that we later climbed. After Liz, our friend who lead the ceremony, welcomed everyone, two friends read poems, a John Betjemen poem about jellyfish that seemed to perfectly describe the day we got engaged, and the other, I Carry Your Heart by E.E. Cummings, which was a favourite of mine from a book that belonged to my mum. Then we read promises to each other and exchanged our rings, which we had had made from family gold and had Walk with me Always engraved inside. We hung a hoop to the tree and invited everyone to tie a knot (the fabric we’d used for our bunting) to create a colourful rag wreath that we can use to remember the day. Then finally we all sang Wild Mountain Thyme, a folk song that Tom and I have many happy memories of singing together. I played guitar (very amateurishly) and our friend Ali played cello (very professionally).”

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