Acknowledgement. Picture by www.smcelebrant.au

You’ve heard of popup supper clubs, popup shops, popup food stalls.  How about a popup wedding?  Not all weddings are planned to the last detail, pinned down to the last marquee peg and choreographed to the last dance step.

If you want to organise a wedding in a hurry, let me know. As a Humanist celebrant I can generally respond quickly.  I have a long list of recommended providers – food stalls, simple flowers, event organisers, one-bud buttonholes, sunshades, wellies, venues, bunting, caterers, owls, horses, cars, trucks, campervans and just about anything you need I can source.

If you just want to get wed and you want to do it next week or next month – on the beach or in your house or in the park or on a hill, then give me a ring. Together we can sort it and it will be fabulous. Simples.

The fabulous visionary and inspiring couple Anna and Dave – what a couple! They are renovating their cottage and planning a new garden and the small matter of a wedding in August.

Anna and Dave have had a whirlwind year….  and as Dave said with a bit of awe and wonder in his voice, “we feel like we have lived our whole lives in one year”.

Convinced of their love they thought ‘why wait’?  So off they went……. and now, one year on, they have a wonderful rural cottage in the midst of renovation, .75 acres of land, best friends living next door, a cat called Charlie, 4 geese, fruit trees, an abandoned late  C19th railway carriage with its own smoking booth, a  Skoda buried under brambles and a 40 year old campervan called Clarence.  But underneath all this fun and adventure  is a deep philosophy and commitment “Our job is the house and the garden and our life is what we develop – seeing the future in the land, being together, getting our priorities straight”.  That sounds like a pretty sound start in life to me.

I said I’d go to theirs and stay for an hour just for an informal conversation and I set off on a very frosty, icy, sunny morning into the depths of Suffolk.  Nearly 4 hours later, we were still sitting curled up on sofas, chilly toes tucked right in.  We’d changed the world a few times, toasted our toes on the woodburner, inspected the building work, shared ideas and surveyed the outdoor wedding site in the orchard.

Clarence the honeymoon campervan

The railway carriage cocktail bar

The buried Skoda photobooth

Skoda photobooth

skodaphotobooth

Anna has a vision of a cocktail bar

This is where the booze is

This is the smoking booth

Reflections on a winter landscape

but dreaming of August

It takes a bit of vision imagining an August outdoor wedding whilst standing in our wellies and hats and gloves (and fully clothed!) in a leafless orchard with noisy geese, an inquisitive cat, a brave pheasant and a skulking Muntjac deer and in temperatures hovering around the freezing point.

Anna and Dave had it all in their heads though – the lanterns, the lights hanging from trees, the kids tents under the trees, the ceremony within the shade of the trees, the straw bales, the sunshine, the laughing guests.

The Skoda would be unearthed and made into a photobooth, the derelict railway carriage would be the cocktail lounge and Clarence the campervan would be dispensing teas, coffee and squash for all he was worth before he whisked them away on their honeymoon.  It’s going to be wonderful. And what a life they’re going to have.