Bringing their musical love of musical theatre and colour into the day, Kayley and John were married at Deepdale Farm over the summer. They also had a number of very special guests, namely their pug, Frank, and a llama and alpaca who joined them for photos! All the decorations were designed and made by the couple themselves. Their particular favourites being the banners with musical quotes on.

“We bought a big roll of fabric, cut out each banner and acrylic painted the quotes”, Kayley explained. “We’ve got one up in our living room now to remember the day. We also created ‘theatre programmes’ for everyone who came to the ceremony which had ‘cast’ photos in (our families and wedding party), our story, a series of photos we had done at Sunderland Empire Theatre, and a collage of all the shows we have seen together. They also had a little bit explaining about the favours we had. We donated to the Mind charity to get sunflower seeds for our favours as mental health is a big part of our life and something we care a lot about.”

Their ceremony, held in the barn, was exactly how they wanted it to be. “Our ceremony was, in one word, EPIC!” Kayley continued. “Lou Starr created the most amazing ceremony all about our relationship and musical theatre. We had sound bites from our favourite shows to tell our love story (e.g. Can You Feel The Love Tonight from The Lion King, Man Up from The Book of Mormon). Lou changed costumes from a nun, to a bearded lady. She created a countdown conundrum of Les Miserables to give anyone time to object before we said our vows (and decided who was going first with rock, paper, scissors!). Finally, we had everybody up doing the Time Warp then a giant sing-a-long to We Go Together from Grease as we left the barn. Our pug Frank was ring bearer and was held up like in The Circle Of Life to a raucous applause.”

Not everything was smooth sailing though, and due to a leak in the roof, they had to move the band from the barn with the dance floor into the ceremony barn. It all worked out for the best though! “This turned your standard wedding reception into a bit of a gig with a crowd surfing couple, a mosh pit and an encore of Madness as everyone chanted for ska as the band finished their set!”

Of their £15,000 budget their biggest cost was hiring The Costa Sisters to video the day. “They shot our friend’s wedding and we fell in love with the footage. Their style is so rock ‘n’ roll; we love it and think they are worth every penny! Photography and video are so important to us to capture the day as it was and to have memories to look back on forever.”

“The generosity of our friends and family saved us so much money though. John’s mum made the cake, his dad and brother made the arch and cake stand, mys bridesmaid Sam and her husband provided the transport, and my friend Jo did the amazing portraits. Our besties, The Smiths, gave us our photography as a wedding gift too which was amazing and so kind of them.”

“It was the most perfect day”, Kayley concluded. “Even the hiccup of moving the band turned out to be the best possible thing to happen! Our advice to others would be don’t let other people ideas of what a wedding should be affect what you decide to do. The wedding is your day and a celebration of you as a couple so make it as much about you as you can. Oh and if anybody invents a time machine, we will be your first customers because we just want to do the whole thing again!”