A Welsh Beachside Wedding: Celebrating Love Where It All Began

Back in 2016, my now husband and I were two 22 year olds who just accepted two different jobs in two different teams on two different sites at one company that sold dog food on the internet. I had just moved to London from South Wales and Jonny, my now-husband, was living in his hometown of Ruislip, West London. For weeks, we knew each other only as ‘the other intern’ and saw each other only on screen in company meetings.

Then, the Christmas party arrived at The Bingham Hotel in Richmond and Jonny made a beeline for me to introduce himself. Over the course of the night, we discovered that we both shared a very silly sense of humour, a (great) taste in music and a spark that would only get brighter (and harder to ignore) as our friendship progressed. At the end of the night, Jonny realised that I had been completely sober the whole time because I was about to drive to the airport to fly to Edinburgh at 4am. He was not.

That spark grew into a friendship that involved spending every day at work messaging each other on Slack and consistently ending up in a corner laughing at inside jokes that no one else would ever get at the company’s monthly Friday Beers. And for years, friends was all that we were – I was still with my university boyfriend and Jonny dated other people too. But eventually, breakups and several (some drunk, some sober) confessions of long-harboured feelings followed and after four years of friendship, we went for a dinner that turned into a three-day-long accidental first date and that was it: we were together and couldn’t believe that anything else had ever made sense.

As soon as we started dating, it felt like we were making up for lost time. We immediately dived into life together with a, ‘why not?’ mentality. Why not cook arancini for dinner tonight, even though we have none of the ingredients, it’s 8pm and we haven’t yet realised we need to make an entire risotto (and cool it) first? Why not get takeaway pizza from both Pizza Express and Franco Manca so we can A/B test which one is the best, but get far too excited to wait so eat them in the car in the car park? Why not cycle to Windsor just to watch the football, put Jonny in charge of directions and somehow go via Hampton Court and arrive at Windsor in time for me to burst my tyre?

So, then, after four years as friends and three years together, why wouldn’t Jonny spend New Year’s Eve down on one knee on a beach in West Wales proposing, even though the tide is still very much coming in and you’re inevitably both going to get soaked? Then why wouldn’t we just get the ‘legal bit’ of deciding to be together forever out of the way in the most fun way possible by simply… flying off to Vegas without really telling anyone? And then wouldn’t we decide to celebrate getting married by immediately landing back in the UK and moving to Amsterdam for six months, while also planning a big wedding on a beach in West Wales exactly one year after tying the knot with Elvis?

So much of the time we’ve spent together, through our friendship to dating to moving in together, to getting engaged and getting married has been filled with fun, silliness and adventure. And so, we firmly believed that celebrating our big commitment to spending the rest of our lives together should be no different.

We did the important legal bit in the way we wanted to – all on our own terms, flying out to Vegas (along with our gorgeous friends Sam & Justin who flew in from Chicago) and making it about just us two. So for us, it felt like this celebration was for everyone else who’d supported us in our relationship so far. Over the last few years, we’ve experienced some fairly extreme difficulties with Jonny’s parents, and our family and friends showed up for us in incredible ways. So for us, it really was about making sure everyone who’d ever fed us was full, too.

We wanted everything to feel like ‘us’. We wanted people to see colours, design choices and details and say, ‘Of course they picked that. That’s that so Jonny and Em.’ So things were bright, surprising and fun – with a slight element of unpredictable chaos to it, too.

The reception was designed to feel like a festival, with outdoor games, cocktails (a Knapperol Spritz named after my now-husband, Jonny Knapp, and a CosmoPowellitan named after me, Emily Powell), live music and dancing under a tent.

Bridesmaids wore pink and orange, but I asked them to choose dresses or jumpsuits or suits that they felt their best in, and would wear again. They all looked gorgeous. The groomsmen were all in black tuxedos and they all looked hot as hell (again, we wanted them to have outfits that they’d feel like their best selves in, and would definitely wear again).

On tables, we had bright wildflowers in jam jars and tea lights in those glass pots you get with Gü desserts – all had been collected by friends and family. We’d also printed photos of good times we’d shared with everyone, and used them as place settings in the hope that they’d be conversation starters and things to take home. I’d just finished working for Tony’s Chocolonely, and the team had sent me 150 bars of chocolate as our wedding favours. I chose our favourite flavours (which also happened to be the ones in pink and orange packaging…) and every guest had one as a favour to take home.

I saw a friend for dinner last week and he told me that although he hardly saw me all day, he felt like he was with me all day because of what we’d created. I nearly cried when he said it – that’s exactly how I wanted everyone to feel.

I only went to one bridal studio in East London to try on dresses in real life. Their range was very cool, and very untraditional, and I really thought I wanted to just be a chilled bride, maybe getting married in a jumpsuit on the beach. I think realistically, most wedding dresses are impractical and I thought a big white wedding dress would just look stupid, having no business being on a beach. But nothing I tried on felt right.

But I’d seen the Paloma wedding dress online and fell for it immediately. The halter neckline is always my go-to neckline with any dress or top and I just loved it. It felt like the only long white flouncy dress they would ever make sense to me. The neckline was perfect, I loved the button details on the back, I loved the raised hem and slit at the front to show off shoes. AND THEN I FOUND OUT IT HAD POCKETS TOO. It was the most ‘me’ wedding dress I could’ve chosen.

I was right in my initial thought that it was impractical, though. On a very windy west Wales beach, the very fun slit seemed set on flashing my legs and (something blue) pants at anyone and everyone. But it didn’t matter. It only added to the fun and laughter of the day, which made it perfect.

It broke my heart to do it, but I did get some of the glorious train chopped off, plus a few other alterations too (like taking out the corset and shaping the waist). It just felt silly and impractical to have such a long train on a beach and in a pub garden. Even the shorter train I had immediately got sandy! I didn’t care though. It was the most perfect dress I’ve ever worn. I’m thinking about shortening it again and dyeing it so I can wear it again and again. I just need to get all the sand off first…

Being a bride on a wedding day is insane. It’s like being in a play where you have the starring role, and everyone else in the play’s job is to interact with you. Although I consider myself to be an extrovert, I was amazed at how hard I found it to be the centre of attention for an entire day.

I also found it so hard to have 130 of the best people in my life together in one place, but to be unable to truly spend quality time with them. It just feels very abnormal. When you do interact with people, they just want to ask you if you’re having a good time, tell you how amazing you look and say they’re having the best time. I found myself desperate for just some normal non-wedding conversation, so my advice would be to nominate a few key people to have normal conversations with to keep you sane.

Everyone says this too, but REMEMBER TO EAT SOMETHING. You won’t feel hungry because you’re too high on adrenaline, but you need to force yourself to eat. I didn’t listen to the numerous people who gave me this advice, and I crashed and burned at the end of the night with an adrenaline comedown, throwing up on an empty stomach (horrible) and Irish exiting my own wedding in a secret taxi with Jonny!

Honestly, this wedding was such a collaborative affair. So many of our friends and family made things, built things, designed things, organised things and really just worked so hard to bring our day to life.

Everyone at The Wiseman’s Bridge Inn was so accommodating, letting us use the beach and helping us to figure out logistics of what would happen where and when. And everyone at  The Old Point House, particularly Jonathan, the owner, and Kate, his right hand woman and events planner, was just unbelievable at listening to our vision and pulling out all the stops to bring it to life. We couldn’t have picked a better venue or better people.

Our photographers and videographers were unbelievable too. When we’d spoken to Amy, our lead photographer, ahead of the wedding, we’d said we wanted the photos to capture as much informal love and laughter as possible – and for the dancefloor photos to feel like the ones you used to flick through on the official Facebook album from your local Oceana after a big night out. She just nailed the brief completely and we couldn’t be happier with the photos.

VENUE:

@oldpointhouse and @wisemansbridgeinn.

PHOTOGRAPHER:

@amyfaithphoto.

VIDEOGRAPHER:

@wanderingfilmco.

CELEBRANT:

Our gorgeous best friend, Matt.

FLOWERS:

All from @pembspetals a local grower, Gill, who decorated our tables and our arch (made my by uncle) along with my bouquet, Jonny’s corsage and a collar for our flower dog, Gladys.

HAIR:

Done by my gorgeous friend, Meg.

MAKEUP:

I did it myself with @bobbibrown products, after a tutorial at @libertylondon. 

DRESSES:

From @lovestory.london (duh!) and altered by @thread.alteration.studio). My evening dress was @thevampireswife, which I’d worn to get legally married in in Vegas the year before.

SUITS:

All from @mossbros.

JEWELLERY:

My engagement ring and wedding ring was from @jessicamccormack, Jonny’s wedding ring was from Jonathan David (@jdavidjewellers), an independent jeweller in Cardiff and my earrings were from @lilyandroo. I also wore my gran’s ruby necklace underneath my dress – a gift my grampy had given her for their 40th wedding anniversary.

SCENTS:

I wore J’Adore by @dior and Jonny wore Y by @yvessaintlaurent.

LINGERIE:

I wore navy blue underwear from Implicite, via @thepantryunderwear.

SHOES:

My white heels were @stevemadden (I wore them for about 10 minutes!) and my flat beach sandals were from @reformation. I also briefly wore orange heels from @russellandbromley during my speech, and white Stan Smith trainers from @adidas to dance the night away.

STATIONERY:

I designed our table plan and place settings with @papier. Our custom table names (named after flavours of crisps) were designed and printed by our brilliant friend @shirleybasterd. We’d also sent out a newspaper ahead of the wedding, telling guests what to expect for the weekend. This was designed by our other brilliant friend, Kat Linger.

FAVOURS:

Every guest had a bar of @tonyschocolonely at their place setting. The wedding party had bottles of The Old Point House champagne or a bottle of @bartirum, produced by Jonathan Williams, the owner of the pub.

SUNGLASSES:

Mine were @aceandtate, Jonny’s were @rayban.