Jo and Jonny had an unconventional first date at an indoor climbing centre. Joanna, originally from Benue State in Nigeria, met Northumberland-born Jonathon through a chance online interaction. What followed was a connection that felt both immediate and effortless, built on shared faith, strong family values and a love of adventure.

They married in June and planned a wedding that would bring both their Nigerian and British identities together. They had two ceremonies, three venues and several outfit changes. “Our wedding celebrated both of our worlds rather than asking either of us to choose between them,” Jo told us. “British elegance and Nigerian heritage stood side by side throughout the day, from the historic venues and vintage London bus to the candlelit reception, floral arrangements, cultural symbolism and joyful celebration.”

The day began at Beamish Hall with a traditional Idoma marriage ceremony honouring Jo’s heritage. The ceremony featured ancestral customs, music and family traditions, with h4r Aunty Maria helping the couple preserve its authenticity. Jo wore black and red traditional attire, while Jonny also dressed in traditional clothing for the ceremony.

After the Idoma ceremony, they travelled to St James’ Church in Morpeth for their Christian wedding. Jo changed into a structured ivory satin ballgown with a sweetheart neckline, while Jonny swapped his traditional outfit for British morning dress. She entered the church to an organ performance of Canon in D, before the couple exchanged vows.

Guests then returned to Beamish Hall for a reception, dinner and speeches, followed by a packed dance floor. Jonny surprised Jo by singing to her during the evening, earning a close second place (after the church ceremony) among her favourite moments from the day.

Planning two cultural celebrations alongside demanding NHS careers was a lot of pressure. “Wedding planning felt incredibly fragmented”, Jo admitted. “Vendors are on Instagram, moodboards are on Canva, your wedding website is on Joy, and styling ideas come from Pinterest. Our experience of planning our wedding and working directly with suppliers inspired us to create Vowpra; a platform designed to connect couples with trusted wedding professionals and make the planning journey simpler, more organised and more enjoyable.”

Jo and Jonny also found that planning a culturally specific wedding required them to develop their own ideas. They found representation and practical guidance were pretty limited. “The inspiration must come from you because there is very little guidance or representation available,” Jo said. “It becomes an opportunity to create something unique while honouring your culture.”

Ultimately though, they were so happy with how the day unfolded. “Our wedding wasn’t half Nigerian and half British” Jo concluded. “It was completely Nigerian and completely British. That was always our vision, and looking back, we wouldn’t change a thing.”

Wedding transport has a habit of falling into the “we’ll sort it later” category. Then later arrives, the venue needs everyone out, your outfit has taken over the back seat and somebody is trying to book an Uber while holding three bouquets and half a wedding cake. Planning your exit deserves more thought than that.

The car you leave in can be practical, ridiculous, glamorous, loud or all four at once. It might give you ten minutes together after a full day of conversation. It can take you to your hotel, become part of your portraits or deliver you straight to the afterparty. Choose well and it becomes another detail that reflects the two of you.

Start with your actual plans. Work out who needs to travel, where they are going and at what time. A two-seater sports car makes sense for a couple leaving alone. A luxury saloon gives a large dress, dramatic veil or structured outfit more breathing room. If you are bringing friends along, look for something with enough seats rather than expecting six people to fold themselves into the back of a car for the sake of aesthetics.

Then comes the fun part: deciding what suits the wedding.

A Rolls-Royce works with old-school glamour, black tie styling and stately venues. A Lamborghini or Ferrari brings a completely different vibe. Think flash photography, city lights and an exit with some volume. Classic cars can suit vintage references without pushing the whole wedding into period-piece territory. Sleek luxury vehicles work well when you want the arrival to feel polished while keeping the attention on your outfits.

Your wedding getaway car can also create a change of pace. After hours spent entertaining, dancing, crying and laughing, the drive home gives you a chance to finally sit down, take your shoes off and process what just happened. Pick a playlist, stash some water in the car and enjoy the sudden absence of anyone asking where the buttonholes have gone.

Before booking, check the imporant details. Can you get into the vehicle comfortably in your outfit? Is there space for a bouquet, overnight bags and anything you are taking from the venue? Will the car be waiting outside, or does it need to park elsewhere? Can it accommodate an extra photography stop? What happens if the evening run over?

Houston-based iExotic offer chauffeured luxury, classic and exotic vehicles in Texas. If you are enquiring, give them the date, venue addresses, passenger numbers and an outline of the schedule. Mention any photography stops, special access requirements and outfit considerations from the start. They will then make suggestions tailored to what you need and want.

Remember, a wedding exit can be a full production with confetti, cheering guests and a loud engine that announces your departure. Or, it can just be two people Irish-exiting out of there while everyone else is still tearing up the dance floor. So why not book the car you would stop to look at in the street? At the end of the day, this isn’t really about cars. It’s about creating one final moment that belongs entirely to the two of you.

Charlotte and Paul styled their New York elopement inspired by the 1950s and 1970s. They stayed at the iconic Hotel Chelsea, once home to generations of artists, writers and musicians, where they got ready together and returned to after the ceremony.

Paul is the drummer for punk band The Flatliners, while Charlotte works as a hair and makeup artist in television and film. They had stayed at the hotel following its renovation and loved how the original artwork and design had been preserved. It soon became their favourite place in New York and the natural setting for their wedding.

Charlotte brought her professional eye to the styling. Her work often involves researching and recreating specific periods, so every detail was considered through the lens of character and storytelling. She wanted the finished look to carry references from several decades without it feeling like they were wearing costumes.

“The theme for our elopement was ‘timeless vintage’”, the bride said. “We really wanted to lean into a vintage theme with limited modern details. We wanted to be able to look at our photos and not know what year it was taken in. This being the main reason choosing our photographer and videographer was so important that they understood our vision and they both executed it perfectly, while also hitting historic locations within NYC.”

Her original inspiration was Sharon Tate’s bridal style, although the finished look prompted plenty of comparisons to Priscilla Presley. A short white Vanessa Cocchiaro dress with sheer sleeves, lace detailing and a high neckline was paired with a bouffant, winged liner and a soft nude lip.

The warm palette of the flowers was inspired by movies like The Godfather; hot summers in NYC, and even down to the restaurant they ate at afterwards – John’s of 12th Street, which was one of the most historic Italian restaurants that had filmed a memorable scenes in The Sopranos, one of their favourite TV shows. “Every detail of our elopement had both of us in mind and it blended together harmoniously”, Charlotte said.

Their friends and family knew an elopement was coming, but the date and location remained secret. For one day, Charlotte and Paul got to disappear into New York together, free from timelines shaped around guests or expectations. “We skipped a lot of traditions, mainly just having it be about the two of us,” Charlotte explained. “It was nice to be able to have this big secret kept just between the two of us for a whole day. It was an amazing feeling to shut the world off, and it not be about anyone but the two of us.”

After their intimate ceremony in Madison Square Park, the newlyweds went bar hopping around the Lower East Side before returning to the Hotel Chelsea. The night ended with champagne and an impromptu party through the hotel’s corridors and staircase.

“Even an elopement may seem like not a lot of work, it actuality is,” Charlotte concluded. “Especially when you’re an extremely detail oriented person like both of us are! However I thrive on a stressful creative process with a great end result. To me, there’s nothing worse than being generic and boring, so you might as well make it fun and make it totally about you and what you both love. Also – don’t be afraid to take a risk!”

Georgia, a Brit, and Ryan, American, are currently planning their autumnal spooky wedding for later this year. In this column, we’ll be following their journey in real time. Expect the drama, the decisions, the feelings, and the messy reality of planning an alternative, destination wedding. This is the story most wedding magazines never show you.

Imagine this. You’re sitting outside your hotel at Universal Studios, Florida. You’re jetlagged after your flight in from London the night before, when a random man who turns out to be from Boston walks up and says hello. You spend a couple of evenings hanging out and going through haunted houses together. Then you both fly home, 3300 miles apart. And that random man, that you couldn’t have run into if you tried, will one day become your husband. Unbelievable, right? Well, that is how I met my fiancé, Ryan. Some would say it was fate, and you’ll catch us saying exactly the same thing.

Six months after our chance meeting, Ryan made the first of many flights to London for a holiday. We crammed as much as we possibly could into five days. Whether that meant seeing friends and family or exploring the countryside. It was then that I knew he was the one… and that my phone bill was about to become incredibly expensive.

Since meeting in September 2023, we’ve been completely inseparable. Or as inseparable as you can be with 3300 miles between you. It’s been a journey of countless flights, hotels, Airbnbs and tearful airport goodbyes. We both know Boston and Heathrow Airport like the back of our hands. Only recently have we been able to say goodbye to the distance and the FaceTime dates, as Ryan has hopped over the pond permanently to join me in the land of tea and red phone boxes.

Three matching tattoos later, in April 2025, Ryan asked my father if he could have my hand in marriage. To which my father delightfully agreed. Did I mention this was only the second time they had met face to face? Long distance certainly has its challenges.

Then came the big decision: which country do we get married in?

When you only see your fiancé for one or two weeks at a time, three times a year, every place you visit together becomes special. We even reminisce about which petrol stations we’ve been to on our adventures. Sad but true! Ultimately, we decided to get married in North Conway in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

We knew straight away that we wanted an autumn wedding. Our love of Halloween is what brought us together. And what better place to get married than the foliage capital of the world? There was very limited time to view venues and lock one in, as most venues in the area for autumn get snapped up over a year in advance. Talk about a time crunch. But Stonehurst Manor stood out to us. Built in 1872, it gave us exactly the vibe we wanted. A haunted manor on a hill, with pumpkins hiding in every nook and cranny.

As sad as it is to say, this will probably be the only time both of our families are in the same place at the same time. With a guest list that’s 50% American and 50% British, we have a lot to consider. However, it’s incredibly exciting to know that in just shy of seven months, the people we love most will finally be able to put faces to the names they’ve heard so much about. And we are very excited to be sharing that journey on the pages of our favourite wedding magazine.

So, it’s onto the next step of wedding planning… and what the hell are we going to wear?

The uncomfortable truth about weddings is that your guests probably won’t remember all the details you painstakingly laboured over.

Its unlikely they will recall the font on your welcome sign, the exact shade of peach used for your table runners or the fact that each vintage candle holder was slightly different but they all worked together perfectly. But they will remember the ceremony that made them snort-laugh and cry, the unexpected drag performance, the late-night chips and the moment everyone ran outside to light wedding sparklers in the dark. Your guests will remember the experience of your wedding way more than what it looked like.

Of course the little details still matter when they mean something to you. Pease do include your collection of vintage glassware, handmade place cards or carefully chosen wedding accessories which will help create a space that feels like yours. The trick is knowing the difference between details that tell your story and stuff you have added because Pinterest or TikTok insists you need it.

Make the Ceremony Sound Like You

The ceremony is often the shortest part of a wedding, yet its often the bit newlyweds say was their favourite. So give it the attention it deserves.

Personal vows are an obvious place to start, provided they sound like words you would actually say (please don’t use ChatGPT to write your vows OMG). You don’t need to turn your relationship into a rom-com or reveal every intimate detail of your lives – just talk candidly about the things that define your partnership, they don’t need to be perfect.

If writing and reading vows in front of everyone sounds like psychological warfare, you could exchange them privately before the ceremony. You can also write them in letters, record them as audio or ask your celebrant to weave parts of them into the script.

Give Your Guests a Role

There is a big difference between attending a wedding and feeling part of one. You could ask guests to warm the rings, contribute a line to a communal reading or make a promise to support your marriage. Invite a friend to perform a song, ask a relative to share a story or give your chosen family a visible role in the ceremony.

Participation can continue throughout the reception. Replace a traditional guest book with voice notes, Polaroids, postcards or a video booth. Ask guests to recommend a song for your first anniversary, draw portraits of one another or leave advice that you can open in five or ten years.

Just keep everything optional because nobody wants to arrive at a wedding and discover they have accidentally enrolled in an eight-hour team-building exercise.

Have Food People Want to Eat

Wedding food becomes memorable when it arrives at the right moment and tastes good. It also becomes memorable for the wrong reasons if there’s not enough of it, people have to wait for ages, or it’s bad!

It might sound obvious but serve the food you actually love. That could mean a curry feast, pizza truck, taco station, Sunday roast, family-style sharing dishes or a buffet of beige party food that would make your childhood self lose their mind.

Late-night food is always a winner too. Few things will inspire greater affection from your guests than the unexpected appearance of chips, toasties, doughnuts or slices of pizza after several hours on the dance floor.

Choose Entertainment People Can Join in With

Live music is the obvious place to start but your entertainment doesn’t have to begin and end with a wedding band. Consider a drag performance, temporary tattoo station, tarot reader, arcade games, karaoke, roaming magician or artist drawing portraits of your guests.

Think about your crowd too. A room full of introverts may love retro games, a cinema corner or relaxed craft table. A group of committed extroverts might embrace karaoke, a dance-off or a full-scale lip-sync battle. Children will appreciate activities they can access without an adult explaining twelve rules first.

Let Your Timeline Breathe

A minute-by-minute schedule may look efficient on paper but in reality things run late, people wander off, hug for longer than expected, lose their jackets and take twenty minutes to move from one room to another.

Always build space into the day. Your guests need time to talk, explore the venue and enjoy what you have planned. You need time to eat, use the loo and experience your own wedding without being escorted from one scheduled moment to the next.

This also creates better photographs. Genuine reactions are difficult to manufacture while somebody is checking their watch and shouting for the next group photo.

Finish With Some Theatre

A planned ending gives the party a final burst of energy before you say your goodbyes. It can also prevent the night from slowly fizzingly out. A sparkler exit remains popular because gets everyone outside, creates some great final photos, and adds a little end-of-night drama.

Before committing, check that your venue allows sparklers and ask where they can and can’t be used. Use suitable long-reach lighters and spread helpers along the route so everyone can light theirs without rushing. Product quality and instructions can differ wildly so research the best place to buy sparklers for weddings and check exactly what you are ordering rather than choosing the cheapest box you can find.

If flames are banned, you still have options. Try LED wands, glow sticks, ribbon streamers, bubbles, bells, or biodegradable confetti.

Stop Trying to Create a Viral Wedding

Social media has a lot to answer for because the quickest way to drain the enjoyment from a wedding is to approach it like a content shoot day. Of course, if you want to film a TikTok trend, or you’re including an idea because you genuinely love it, go for it – but please do not do something just to impress strangers on the internet!

Your wedding is for you and your guests and the thing that will have the most impact is how the wedding was experienced. Your guests will remember being welcomed, well fed and included. But they will also remember if they were rushed, hungry or waiting for you to finish filming your 27th TikTok.

So, in short, among all the wedding planning drama and stress, don’t forget to create a day you will actually enjoy. Because these memories are what survive long after everybody has forgotten what colour the table runners were.