The Planning
We got engaged in April 2019 and initially planned the wedding for July 2020. Over the summer of 2019 we found a venue in Maidstone, organised our stationery, ordered suits and found a wedding dress. We even sent out save the date cards and invitations at Christmas to our 80 guests. Then the country was locked down for the first time. We were oblivious to how serious it was and still believed that the wedding in the summer would be fine, and that it would all be over by then.

Change of Plans
During March and April it soon became clear that the virus was severe and that our wedding plans were in doubt. We then received a phone call in May to let us know that our initial venue had gone into liquidation and that our deposit had been lost. We decided, at that point, that the wedding was not going to happen and that we would have to go back to the drawing board and find a new venue and date.
We wrote to all our guests to cancel and worked hard with the banks and insurance companies to see if we could get our money back.

New Date
We finally got all of our money returned to us and started our plans again. By the end of June, we had found another, much more beautiful venue and had booked for May 2021 by which time, we thought, Corona would be a distant and strange memory.  Time passed and, once again, a restriction­ free wedding began to look doubtful.
We eagerly awaited the news of restrictions easing and in April we made our final decision, that we would progress with the wedding with restricted numbers. We were just so desperate to get married and felt like we had been on pause long enough.

The Theme
We planned for an outside ceremony and picnic in the beautiful grounds of Nettlestead Place and desperately crossed our fingers for sunshine, or at least, no rain. Our theme was vintage Kent and the cream and green flowers set off the vintage style wedding dress and picnic in the wildflower meadow perfectly.

The Ceremony
When the day came it was the hottest day of the year so far. The venue looked beautiful and we were able to have our dream day with our closest friends and family. The ceremony was so intimate and we felt like the process was more sacred and less of a performance than with larger numbers. The picnic was delicious and sitting in the sunshine with those we loved was a perfect way to begin our marriage.

The Reception
We then jumped in our cars up to Cambridge for our Champagne reception next to the Cam and reception dinner at Darwin College. Overall an initial nightmare turned into the perfect day that we never really knew was what we had wanted all along.