Ceremony Stories - Gill and Michael
How good is it when you get invited to a great friend’s wedding? Pretty awesome, right!
The excitement of witnessing two people that you know and adore, celebrate their love for each other. The spectacle of seeing them dressed up to the nines. The privilege of being part of their day. It's terrific!
I can assure you that being invited to be the celebrant (!), for the wedding of two dear friends, is absolutely wonderful. Michael and Gill were my very first couple and it was a great honour to be their celebrant.
Photo credit - Emily Frier
“We were so lucky to have Tim as our celebrant. From the very beginning, we were set at ease that our ceremony would go smoothly and would reflect us as a couple.
10/10, we’d get married by Tim again!”
^^ Excerpt from Gill and Michael's Facebook review. ^^
Having been friends with Gill and Michael for a number of years, working with these two was a dream. They created a ceremony filled with delightful light moments, meaningful inclusion of guests and a sudden torrential downpour of summer rain ( … this last part wasn’t planned).
A feature of their wedding, was a ring warming ceremini*. Their wedding bands were placed in a small bag and passed from guest to guest, as the wedding took place. Each guest took a moment to give a wish, or positive thoughts for the rings, before passing them on. Such a lovely touch.
The Ring Warming Ceremini - photo credit Olivia Bowman - livbgood
The wedding ceremony was at Coal River Farm in Cambridge in mid-February 2018. The setting was overlooking the stunning Coal Valley. The weather had been threatening rain for the entire day. So far, it had held off.
We were lucky enough to start the ceremony outside, directly beside the marque that was set up ready for the reception. After a few spots of rain, a quick relocation to the shelter of the marque buoyed everyone’s spirit. So many giggles and so much excitement as we dashed undercover. As soon as we were all safe and dry, the downpour really began! Epic. But we continued without missing a beat.
Given the groom is a meteorologist, I will guess that rain on his wedding day is a sign of good luck. Perhaps an atmospheric congratulations from Mother Nature?
The brave wedding party in the summer rain. Photo credit - Emily Frier
I’ve always known Gill and Michael to be jokers. They love a good pun and will often provide high quality chuckles. Their wedding was no exception, with a liberal dose of heckling coming from them both … but mainly Gill. This brought me so much happiness, because it indicated to me that they were comfortable and felt part of their own ceremony.
The final moment of awesomeness came at the close of the ceremony. Gill had arranged for a large selection of friends to be armed with kazoos. In the middle of their final song, the kazoos were whipped out and a symphony of squeaks erupted. The look on Michael’s face was priceless - he had no idea!
And then, on cue ... the sun came out!
The Rainbow Connection - photo credit Emily Frier
It was such a great experience to be part of the wedding of two people that I have known for years. Seeing them so happy, and sharing this moment with them, is something I will treasure forever.
*a Ceremini is a small, meaningful moment within a larger ceremony.