Your Sussex Wedding - February / March 2021 (Issue 89)

My beautiful bridal bouquet fea tured pink and cream pampas grass and pink roses. I needed it to be light as I’d fallen off my bridesmaid’s e lectric scooter six weeks previously and broke my wrist! This didn’t make me very popular with Reuben but luckily my bright pink cast was removed after five weeks. We wanted our wedding to be intimate and all about the atmosphere, beautiful surroundings an d the food. After the ceremony we had two hours to enjo y the immaculate hotel grounds, while we were served ca napés. When the sun started to go down at 6pm it was time for our intimate dinner, which was held in the private dining room in the Churchill su ite. This was followed by speeches and cheeses. We had music playing an d drank plenty of wine. At around 10.30pm we went to the champagne bar and continued the celebrations. The stress caused by cancelling two weddings, two hens, two stags and two honeymoons was immense. Alongside that we were both working full time, me for the NHS and Reuben at a care home. But when Covid hit, it made us realise how lucky we are that our family and friends were safe and we knew we would have our wedding at some point. We had two large flower walls: Ella for our ceremony, which offered us fantastic photo opportunities, and Evangeline was the backdrop to our candlelit dinner. Our favours were bottles of Bottega ro sé prosecco to tie in with our pink theme and we had rose g old calligraphy place names. We all sat on one big table, wh ich Katherine Bly styled beautifully with flowers, candelabras a nd tea lights. It was great as it meant everyone could chat t o each other. REAL WEDDINGS 43 