Elisa + Deano at Kingscote Barn | October 2026
“Just could not have wished for a more perfect wedding ceremony. It was totally us and that’s because of you.
...the tears and laughter touched all our guests; they’d never experienced anything like it.”
Elisa and Deano are fun, fanatical, wear-their-hearts-on-their-sleeves people. Probably why they work so well together.
Elisa is the biggest fan of her little dog Clio; Deano is the biggest fan of West Ham. And then - above and beyond that - they are most fanatical about family. Life is about each other, their kids and their grandchildren. The best days are the days they are all together, eating and drinking and dancing and having a good time.
And so their wedding was reflective of all of that: the eldest of their sweet little grandsons was Ring Security with sunglasses and a briefcase, Deano’s eldest son (“more a best mate than a son”) Lewis was his best man, cousin Bonnie wrote a poem she read in the ceremony, Clio the dog - Elisa’s baby - got her own entrance down the aisle in a white tutu dress, and family came forward to share in a collective champagne toast. Their fun, loud, supportive, blended family.
Then, for our die-hard Hammers fan Deano? The couple had organised bubble wands for every guest, two little bubble machines prepped and ready either side of the aisle and it was bubbles instead of confetti as they walked back down the aisle, as I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles played loudly over the speakers. And everyone, especially the West Ham fans in the room, was on their feet, singing at full volume, arms high, cheering for the bride and groom and the fun of it all.
Photos by Marcus Rice Photography
I made sure I made plenty of references to West Ham, and oddly (it was a coincidence, I checked) as I looked out over the sea of giddy guests, most appeared to be dressed in blue or claret. Including myself. They’d asked me to wear my light blue suit but I hadn’t clocked ‘til I arrived at Kingscote Barn how perfectly Hammers-sky-blue it actually was.
Deano - Elisa’s teddy bear of a man, hard on the outside, soft as pie on the inside - isn’t a fan of formality. And the nerves were real - not only on the day itself, but all through the lead-up. I have a process where my nearlyweds fill in a quiz with answers about their relationship, but for Deano it felt more natural to send whatsapps, as and when things occurred to him. So we did that.
I am not married to my process. No pun intended. I want to work with my couples how they best communicate, how they want their wedding to be.
I like to think I helped calm some of Deano’s nerves, reminding him that this was his and Elisa’s day: it didn’t need to look or feel like anyone else’s wedding. It didn’t have to be serious and formal and inauthentic for the sake of tradition. It could be fun.
And it was. Oh my goodness, I did not stop smiling and laughing. The room was absolutely electric with the joy of the day and love for the bride and groom.
One of my favourite elements of the ceremony was the live music from epically-named and multi-award-winning wedding ensemble Tux Fizz. Before guests arrived I had the treat of hearing them practise K-Ci and JoJo’s R&B classic All My Life, the song the bridal party would walk into ahead of Elisa. I once read that the songs which were huge the year you turned 14 will live with you forever. The “baby, baby, baby…” of All My Life does exactly that, it transports me right back to underage nightclubs and school discos, and I turned 14 the month after it was released.
But this wedding wasn’t about me. As my husband likes to remind me.
It was about Elisa and Deano and the process of getting engaged, planning a wedding and then letting their hair down at that wedding helping them feel more a family than ever before. And it was an absolute honour for me to celebrate their family exactly as they wanted, bubbles-n-all.
“wow thank you sooooo much - you looked after me from the first second to the last. People never seen anything like it [and] going on to the wedding All the staff said never seen anything like it & they do them 3 times a week.”