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When I sat down to write the wedding vows for this styled shoot that I was so lucky to be a part of, I had no idea who the couple would be. So I did the only thing that made sense: I created fictional characters. (How fun!) What perhaps didn’t make as much sense was the level of backstory I went into (mildly embarrassing).

I am so excited to be exhibiting at Love on the Lawn this year – the most beautiful wedding expo in the Midlands. Like everything that Jacqui from Marriage Meander pours her soul into, it’s just… something special.

📅 Date: Sunday 18 May 2025, 10h00 – 15h00
📍 Venue: Haycroft Farm

Some of my earliest childhood memories involve my gran’s hands.

Sitting next to her at her dining room table, feet dangling, I would watch as she trimmed the ends off beans. Precision-wrapped a present. Cut around a pattern pinned to a piece of fabric with decisive strokes of her fabric scissors – which you were, under no circumstances, to touch.

I have quite a high hit rate when it comes to meeting people at weddings. Two of my serious relationships were with people I met at weddings (one of whom is now my husband). But, interestingly, one of the weddings that comes to mind when I think of the most fun I had – the most loved I felt – was right after a horrible breakup.

The thing that struck me most, almost the moment I started talking to Yasmine and David, was how much of themselves they brought to our conversations. They were so open and honest and vulnerable that I was quite struck by the weight of the privilege of what I do.

Of all the things I write for Something True, personal vows are my favourite. I find them so moving, every. single. time. But, while I love them, they’re not really something I can share on my website or social media, precisely because they are so personal.

Except for these…

If I had to pick one word to describe my gran, I would choose “formidable”.

Don’t get the wrong idea – she was many things. She had one of the best laughs I’ve ever heard, which I heard often. She was kind, often in very practical ways. She was adventurous and capable and loved a good story – especially if the person telling it was a good looking man.

When we started planning our wedding, one of the first things we knew we wanted was for our dog, a rescue Scottie called Eleanor, to be there. She ended up walking down the aisle with my husband (they had their own song) and she was quite put out that we seemed to want her to go and sit down with the other guests during the ceremony. Rude.

Have you been asked to officiate a wedding? The scripts I’ve written for people to lead the ceremonies of close friends or family have been surprisingly moving for me. Learning about a couple through the eyes of someone who knows them well and loves them is quite beautiful.

Just before the pandemic – with uncannily lucky timing – my boyfriend (not yet husband) and I took six months off work and travelled the world.

Even just writing that sentence feels surreal, years later, when we have the photos and memories to prove that it actually happened.

If you decide to write your own wedding vows, there are so many formats that they can take – it really depends on what you want, and what feels like the best fit for you.

My favourite format is a combination of joint vows and individual appreciations.

My husband and I got married later than a lot of our friends. This meant that, by the time we sat down to plan our own day, we’d been to a lot of weddings and watched people create beautiful days that felt like an expression of their personalities and relationship. And we wanted ours to feel completely like us – most particularly when it came to our ceremony.

I absolutely loved working with Joy and Jonathan. Not only do we have a similar philosophy about travel and adventure (i.e. more is more), but they had obviously thought a lot about their relationship, what they value, and the life they are building together, which made for really interesting conversations.

I love their love story: South Africans who met while living in Berlin (still their home), and became good friends…

Asking a parent, friend or family member to do a reading as part of your ceremony can be a lovely way to make it more personal. But choosing the right reading can be tricky – where do you start?

The fun part, I think, is that wedding readings don’t have to be super traditional – they can be a bit quirky or fun, if that feels more like “you”.