If you’ve picked up a copy of the new issue of the magazine, you will have seen Jessica and Huw’s incredible Festival of Love meets Romeo + Juliet wedding which is featured inside. They didn’t want to go a traditional or people pleasing route, and Jessica is here to share more about how they did it.

If you’re in your thirties right now you will know what I mean when I say we are a generation who have seen both sides of the coin of many societal changes. The Internet, for instance. The shift from Nescafe to Flat Whites. The rise and fall of Woolworths, to name a few.

As a result, we are somewhat generationally sandwiched between past and future, and this becomes never more apparent than when planning a wedding. Weddings are very different now to how they were then. The stag night was the night before the wedding (what a terrible idea), the wedding was in a church followed by a lunch and reception and then people went off on their honeymoon that very same night! What a nightmare! Thankfully we now live in an age where this can all be spaced out over at least a year.

Our parents and grandparents’ generations are from a different time entirely and may view weddings quite differently to modern couples. Your big day is probably going to be just as bigger day for them and something they have also been waiting their whole lives for. If they are financially contributing to your day, then this may become even more of a pressure.

On the flipside, you also have all your friends to consider, those who see weddings as a rare chance to arrange childcare, let their hair down and drink half a bottle of tequila, those who may regard you as the ultimate party people and who also have high expectations of the kind of show you are going to deliver.

Your wedding day is the most bizarre day, the only day in your life (apart from perhaps your funeral but you won’t exactly be very conscious for that) when everyone who is important to you from every crevice of life, past and future, are all in one room. How on earth then, do you keep them all happy?

The first hurdle we met when planning our wedding was deciding the guestlist. Many people will have opinions on who should and shouldn’t be invited and it’s almost impossible to navigate this without ruffling some feathers or suddenly becoming a millionaire. In the end we decided that we would not be able to accommodate people’s children, (to maximise the adult fun time and also the number of our friends who could come), that unless people’s partners were also close friends with us they would only be invited to the evening party and that second cousins twice removed who we haven’t spoken to in years and know nothing about our lives would not be included. In the end, we figured that if we didn’t even have someone’s number saved in our phone then they probably shouldn’t be invited to our wedding.

Parent’s may have a tough time working out why you don’t want to get married in a church but do want to wear a white dress, or why you want your dad to give you away but you’re also a fierce feminist, just for instance. It can be minefield. We opted for a big bash in a country house with 200 people and a humanist ceremony with some Pagan elements designed with our friend who also happens to be a professional celebrant, but we still incorporated some traditional aspects such as having groomsmen, bridesmaids and a flower girl, my dad escorting me down the aisle and rose petal confetti at the end. We also made sure our photographer did the traditional family shots alongside the more fun, natural and un-staged ones.

Our sit-down reception dinner followed traditions of named place settings but the food was all sharing plates and didn’t require complicated pre-ordering. We also let anyone who wanted to do a speech to have their moment but we limited each speech to five minutes maximum. We also did this before the food and more drinks came. No one wants to hear a drunken Uncle Bob waffle on for 20 minutes.

In the early evening we put on a cabaret show mostly consisting of all our friends talents. We kept it clean and granny-friendly and afterwards had a three-hour long rave-up in one room (complete with surprise tequila shot trolley at midnight), while next door there were tables and chairs for people to sit down and chat and we served the wedding cake, cheese stack and grazing table. Most people had booked a room on site which meant people could have a nap if they wanted to or go to bed whenever they wanted.

Prior to all this, we got officially hitched in Hastings Town Hall. We originally tried to keep this very casual but I ended up in a big white vintage wedding dress and we put on a lovely lunch for a few family and friends afterwards, this was an excellent time for our parents to meet each other and form a bond before the chaos of the big day a few weeks afterwards and followed a more traditional schedule of events.

At the end of the day, your wedding is all about you and your beloved and people should be open-minded and flexible around your dreams and hopes for it. Your day should be a reflection of your life as a couple and not a mish mash if different people’s expectations.

So don’t worry about everything being perfect or what people think. Don’t be afraid to be firm. We were so worried about telling people they couldn’t bring their children but actually, everyone was pretty pleased to have some time off. Lay out your intentions beforehand. We had to communicate that there would be no free bar and we also had to pre warn Great Aunt Mildred that she might be about to see some men in high heels and dresses. Needless to say Aunt Mildred had the time of her life.

About Jessica

Jessica is the owner of Smoking Gun Vintage, a vintage clothing store which can be found in Brick Lane Vintage Market and in George Street, Hastings where she lives with her husband Huw and Chihuahua called Biscuit.