Ella + Charlie | July 2023
“Sarah was simply INCREDIBLE - I am so glad we found her to be our celebrant for our wedding!”
Ella and Charlie were the second wedding booking I ever received, passed my way by my super-encouraging Academy of Modern Celebrancy mentor Tara. I remember feeling blown away that she would trust me (mid-training) enough to recommend me, and that the bride and groom would trust me enough to book me. A second wedding safely secured in my diary and I thought: maybe this career is going to work. Maybe this will be my thing.
From the outset I loved Ella and Charlie’s energy - perfectly-matched party animals who clearly adored each other. They had a real vision for their wedding - chic, fun and epic - and boy, oh boy if they didn’t pull. it. off.
The venue was Brympton House in Somerset, an exquisite estate with manicured lawns and grand rooms. The plan was to have the ceremony on the lawn, and that was where we held the rehearsal the night before; but on-and-off heavy rain (the British summer of ‘23 that will go down in history as the dampest of squibs) had left the grass too boggy for bridal Jimmy Choos. It felt like a win-win to me: outside on the huge lawn would have been memorable and spectacular, but inside in Brympton’s 1350AD medieval chapel would be better acoustics and an intimacy that’s harder to create outdoors.
Breathtaking editorial-style imagery by Jessica Lily Photography
The ceremony was one of my favourites I’ve done - a heady mixture of emotional (Charlie was tearing up before Ella even arrived) and hilarious; they’d been kind enough, in the lead up to their big day, to arm me with stories that would - and did! - bring the house down. It was a first for me (and potentially a last) to tell the gathered guests, dressed in their finest garb, a tale of the groom’s unfortunate experience with a bum-based cyst that hospitalised him, had his future wife realise she was falling in love, and had his future brother-in-law (a doctor) see a photo of his arse before a photo of his face. It’s a genuine pleasure when a couple share so much of themselves, and so freely. I led Ella and Charlie’s ceremony feeling like I really knew them, and that makes marrying them even more special. Warts and all.
We opened a bottle of rosé at the end of the ceremony and the couple toasted to their future together, and then danced off down the aisle to Lauryn Hill’s Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You. We all poured out of the historic chapel and into the sunshine for confetti-throwing and cocktails. I was thrilled for them that the weather remained kind for the rest of the day: the optimistic party pair had asked for the wedding breakfast to be outside, the white-draped tables and glassware glittering in the sunshine.
An exquisite wedding of style and substance. Everything was beautifully planned, beautifully executed and everyone involved was distractingly gorgeous but the love story was - and is - the real deal.
“She provided a ceremony which suited us down to a tee (we have had so many comments about how brilliant it was from our guests)”