It came very naturally to Zoë and Gav to have a day that reflected their true personalities and to make choices that felt right to them. “I’ve never understood why girls who have never set foot in a national trust in their lives suddenly want to get married in a stately home,” said Zoë. “Maybe its just nice to be someone else, someone more fancy and regal for a day?”
Working in a banqueting department of a hotel as a teenager probably didn’t help with Zoë’s frame of reference for traditional weddings – seeing the same puffy dresses, Abba medleys and enough royal icing to survive a nuclear war week-in, week-out would be enough to make anyone ensure their own day was fiercely unique to them, a celebration of both of them as individuals, and their joint lives together.
Their ceremony was held at the bandstand in Myatts Field Park, London. Zoë and Gav spent seven years living right by the park and walked their dog in it every day, so it was a poignant place for them to say their vows. “I purposefully used a gate quite far from the bandstand so we’d have a really epic aisle to walk down,” continued Zoë. With both her mum and dad walking either side of her and her multicoloured bridesmaid and bridesman squad walking behind, they made quite the powerful entrance to their guests eagerly waiting at the bandstand!
“As all my squad are amazing, inspiring, independent women, I wanted their outfits to reflect their individual personalities, so I gave them a colour palette to work with and told them to pick out something they felt incredible in. We had a trouser suit, some ASOS dresses and jumpsuits and a long sold-out velvet jumpsuit scored on eBay. We got to do this epic stomp through the park to the bandstand and they all looked so amazing!” Zoë also did different flowers for them all too instead of bouquets – some had hair garlands, wrist corsages or lapels.
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