Chris and Laura have been together for 11 years and they already have two children, Sean and Katie, but for one reason or another they’d never got married. More than that, they’d never even been engaged, so they decided to play a little trick on all of their friends and have an ‘engagement party’ one Saturday night in August.

I turned up early as always, and was led through a side door to the back of the building where I could see a party was in full swing. But there was a big screen of material hiding one area of the hall from the guests, and it was in there that Laura and Chris were going to get married.

They sneaked out of their party so they could get dressed, and then with Katie and Sean, bridesmaid Cara and their best man and maid of honour Paul and Stacey, they all came downstairs and very, very, quietly, took their places and waited for the DJ in the next room to ask everyone to move through.

The result was a good five minutes of pandemonium! In most marriages, everyone waits till the end to kiss the bride and slap the groom on the back, but it was the other way round this time, and it was lovely seeing the surprise and joy on everybody’s face. Eventually they all sat down and we had a short and very moving ceremony, where Laura promised always to try to remain the girl Chris fell in love with when they first met 21 years before, and Chris promised that he would always continue to sing the wrong words to songs.

Laura sent me this short note along with these pictures. “We just wanted to thank you for conducting our ceremony.  The ceremony was lovely and delivered beautifully by you.  We had such an amazing evening.  It was great to see all the surprised faces wasn’t it?!”

It was, Laura – unforgettable! x