Lynette and James’ wedding was quintessentially ‘them’. They were married with just the bride’s brother, the groom’s mum and their two children as guests. Their son wore a dragon onesie and their daughter fluffy ears and a tail. The bride wore leopard print leggings under her dress. After their short ceremony they all went to a local restaurant for lunch together.
“Our wedding was unplanned, smiley, full of love and dinosaurs!” said Lynette. “We just wanted everyone to enjoy the day and be happy. We spent less than £500 too. We were pretty impressed with ourselves. We are not materialistic people and the whole day was just about us and the fact we were getting married. We just invited the children and James’ mum. We just wanted minimum fuss and the whole day to be about us, our love and getting married. We wanted the day to be special to us and to only have each other and a couple of guests made it a much more intimate and special day in our eyes. Plus, now we can spend the money we saved on travelling and adventures!”
The short ceremony was held at Cockington Court in Torquay. “My son Kai, who’s 12, wanted to dress as a purple dragon for the wedding. He gave me away. We had a few minutes wait before we went in, and we had a little mum and son chat. He told me he was really proud of me and that he thought James was amazing. He said he was really happy and that he thought we had a really amazing little family. It was a really special little moment between us. Kai is autistic and sometimes finds it hard to talk about things, so this really meant a lot to me. We had a little hug and we walked into the ceremony room together.”
The couple’s only big expense was the registrar fees, “You have to pay them though!” the bride laughed. “We saved in everything else. Our ceremony venue didn’t cost us anything because I’d designed a logo for Cockington Court House and they kindly gifted us the space. Our reception venue was also technically free because we just went to a restaurant for lunch. My dress was from very.co.uk and my jacket and shoes were from eBay. We also made the bouquets ourselves from foam roses and our cake was a birthday cake from Asda! Our ‘entertainment’ was my brother, who gatecrashed our minimal wedding. He flew over from Dublin as a surprise dressed as a 10 foot t-rex dinosaur!”
“We were also so lucky to do a trade of skills for our photography from Emma and Rich (I’m a graphic designer so I did their branding). They were absolutely amazing photographers. They drove all the way from Scarborough, and then literally spent 12 hours chasing us about all day… They were incredible and really non-intrusive. It was just like having a couple of extra friends for the day.”
