Lucy + Florin | July 2025
“Everything about the ceremony was just perfect, thank you! We had so, so many lovely comments about how special and emotional the ceremony was, it was the perfect mix of heartfelt and funny!”
I prepare for all my weddings, of course: reminding myself who important friends and family are to say hi to, practising my words, getting any props ready, umm-ing and ahh-ing whether this wedding I should be brave and try some elaborate hairstyle that’s trickled down into my middle-aged, middle-of-the-road algorithm.
But for this wedding (the European meet-cute where English bride Lucy met German groom Florin while Spanish dancing!) my preparations involved delving into the 20th century corner of my brain and brushing up on my GCSE German. Which is not particularly sehr gut.
But it was important to me to make sure Florin’s side of the family felt as welcomed as Lucy’s, so I popped a few words and phrases into my script. Don’t go thinking I’m being humble here and coyly hinting that I am bilingual and translated the entire ceremony into German and performed in both languages. I’ve just counted and I said a grand total of 18 words.
The floral displays were by Lucy’s lovely friend Charlotte and, combined with Wylam’s beautiful high ceilings and hardwood floor, and the touch of multi-coloured, draping ribbons on every chair, the whole room just POPPED. I had Wonka’s Pure Imagination running through my head when I entered the room.
It sets the tone for a fun wedding when it looks like THIS
It was my first time doing a wedding at Wylam Brewery and I loved three things:
the venue itself (spectacular and fun! lovely staff!)
the city-centre location in Newcastle’s Exhibition Park (where I’d take my twins in their double buggy as babies to play in the sandpit, having no idea I’d one day be doing a wedding in the cool brewery across the duck pond, swapping sandy Babybels and mislaid dummies for glittery streamers and cold champagne)
the fact that I got to drive through the park! Like Percy the Park Keeper! It’s minor crap like that that massively appeals to my sense of Main Character Syndrome
Stunning photos by Margarita Hope Photography
I love seeing the personal touches a couple have added, particularly to capture and keep the mood of the day. Lucy and Florin had an old-school rotary phone in the bar of Wylam Brewery, with a note encouraging guests to dial a voicemail and leave them a message. I recorded something before we began so I could capture the pre-ceremony excitement, guests arriving in their finery, Florin buzzing around in a flutter of anticipation, welcoming everyone in his lovely way.
Lucy and Florin are madly in love and did not stop beaming all day, maybe other than for little, happy weeps. There were two meaningful readings, one from Lucy’s Grandad David who was mentioned in the ceremony, next year celebrating a big marriage milestone: diamond wedding anniversary with Grandma Janet. Friends and family hung on his every word as he read Marry Your Best Friend by N'Tima, as if he’d written the advice himself. The second reading was equally gorgeous and special, the Whitney Hanson piece of perfection “instead of wishing you a love that burns, I wish you love like a river that twists and turns”, by Lucy’s oldest friend Laura, who she’s known since before they were born, their mums having met at an antenatal class.
I probably shouldn’t put this down in writing, but I think Lucy and Florin’s might be my favourite wedding I have ever done. It was the winning combo of them being so warm and wonderful to work with (and befriend), getting the nervous thrill of doing my ein bisschen Deutsch in front of everyone, and performing the whole joyful marriage ceremony under the ribbons-banners-glitter-fairy lights spectacle that was their space.
“Hals über Kopf verliebt” is the phrase I will always think of when I think of the lovebirds. And how they met, dancing; literally spinning into each other’s lives. And how they celebrated their wedding in an explosion of colour and tears and joy.
Hals über Kopf verliebt. Head over heels in love.
“Thank you for making us feel so relaxed and at ease, throughout the whole thing, we absolutely loved it all”