Your Devon and Cornwall Wedding - January/February 2021 (Issue 29)

We used log slices and jam jars collected by Howie’s mum for our table centrepieces. I had originally wanted blush pink blooms because we’d planned to have a September wedding before the Covid-19 restrictions kicked in but we ended up mixing these in with more autumnal colours to reflect the month of October when we married. Some of our big-day flowers were sourced from the local business The Veg Patch, based in Kennford, who grow their organic produce. Because we are incredibly lucky to live so close to the church and pub, and because we had no rain on our wedding day, I had the precious experience of walking to the church with my dad. We also live just five minutes from The Ley Arms. Kenn is a wonderful village and being our local pub, which is well-known for its delicious food, we are friends with the owners so we wanted to host our wedding reception there. It has a lovely atmosphere inside with open fireplaces and beamed ceilings which added to the look and feel of our day. The head chef created a special set menu with delicious options for us made using locally sourced ingredients. We had a three-course dinner with prosecco followed by our wedding cake. S am and Howie met on Tinder when Sam had just moved back to the local area after living in Brighton and she wanted to meet some new people. “Howie and I share a similar taste in music,” Sam tells us. “He is a musician who plays the bass guitar and we both collect vinyl records as a hobby, so music is something that we bonded over.” The couple became engaged on Howie’s 30 th birthday. “He is a big fan of steam trains so for his birthday, I treated him to an experience on the Braveheart steam train at the Dartmouth Steam Railway and River Boat Company,” Sam tells us. “When it returned to the station, he called me on board to take a look around and suddenly got down on one knee! It was a complete surprise and a lovely way to ask me to marry him.” Here, Sam tells us about their blush pink, copper and burgundy- themed day. We live two minutes from St Andrew’s Ch urch, Kenn, which is so beautiful and we hear the bells chiming from our house every day, so we couldn’t think of a more perfec t setting for our ceremony. 34