The day before Jo and Steve’s wedding, the weather was dreadful.
Not the romantic kind of dramatic weather either. Proper British chaos. Hailstones. Wind. Rain coming in sideways. The sort of forecast that has everyone repeatedly opening weather apps while pretending they are absolutely fine about it.
Because their wedding venue, Abbey House Hotel, was a little too far for me to comfortably travel on the morning itself, I arrived the evening before and was very kindly adopted into Jo’s orbit for a few hours while she and her people settled in for the night.
This already told me everything I needed to know about the kind of wedding this was going to be. There was no stiff formality. No performative “bridal suite” energy. Just women gathered together, having drinks, chatting, laughing and trying not to obsess over the weather forecast.
At some point, the venue team informed us of an important local superstition. Apparently, if you want good weather on your wedding day, the bride must bury a sausage in the hotel gardens the night before.
Now. I had never heard of this before. Neither had anybody else. But within minutes, the venue appeared carrying an alarmingly long raw sausage for the occasion.
Naturally, we all took this extremely seriously. So out we ventured into the darkness, giggling like teenagers, to perform a fully ceremonial burial of the sausage, who, for reasons nobody can properly explain, had by then been named Harold.
And would you believe it. The next morning, we woke to glorious sunshine. Not “it’ll do” weather. Proper beautiful sunshine. Blue skies. Warm air. Guests drinking outside. The sort of weather that makes everybody instantly calmer and happier.
So now I suppose I’m obliged to become professionally pro-sausage.
The atmosphere before the ceremony even started was one of my favourite parts of the entire day.
Jo had very wisely told guests to arrive an hour earlier than necessary because some of her family members have a reputation for being, well, optimistic with timings. Which meant, hilariously, that the punctual guests arrived very punctually and accidentally created a pre-ceremony party.
Thankfully, the bar was open. People spilled out into the sunshine with drinks in hand, introducing themselves, reuniting with family they hadn’t seen in years and settling into the day long before the ceremony began. By the time we were ready to start, there was already this wonderful buzz around the place. Everyone felt relaxed. Warmed up. Properly there.
And that energy carried beautifully into the ceremony itself.
One of the things I loved most about Jo and Steve’s wedding was that absolutely none of it tried to pretend they were a couple they’re not. There were no sweeping declarations about soulmates written in the stars.
Instead, their ceremony celebrated the things that actually make a life together work after nearly twenty years: humour, resilience, loyalty, family, patience, friendship and knowing exactly how to wind each other up.
Because this is very much a relationship built on taking the mickey. The affection sits inside the teasing. The love exists inside all the little “Stevisms” and “Joisms”. And that kind of love always feels incredibly real to witness.
Steve looked nervous before the ceremony started — that lovely kind of nervous where somebody is trying to hold themselves together while also taking everything in. Jo looked absolutely stunning and completely grounded in the moment. Their guests, despite a healthy head start at the bar, were wonderfully respectful while still bringing loads of warmth and personality into the space.
It never felt like a room full of people quietly observing a wedding. It felt like a room full of people deeply invested in these two humans.
There’s a line in their ceremony script about today not being about fairytales, but about “the real things”. And I think that’s exactly why the whole day felt so special. Nothing about it felt manufactured.
The laughter was loud. The hugs were genuine. The atmosphere was relaxed from the very beginning. People were invited to bring drinks into the ceremony, sit wherever they liked and simply enjoy being together.
And by the time Jo and Steve walked back down the aisle as a married couple, being cheered through a crowd of people reaching out to hug and kiss them along the way, it felt less like the “formal end” of a ceremony and more like one enormous collective exhale.
A celebration that had been unfolding naturally all day.
Possibly thanks to Harold. We’ll never know.