Amelia and Lee are proper childhood sweethearts. They’ve been together since they were 14 and 15, when Lee was in a band at school and Amelia was a loyal groupie. She’d wait for him at the bus stop every morning and they’d walk to school together. They even spent their days writing little notes and letters to each other. See – proper childhood sweethearts. They were smitten with each other, and they still are. On the day they married they’d been together for 11 years, 1 month, 1 week and 1 day. We asked Lee lots of nosy questions about their wedding and their Patchworked New Orleans and Mexico honeymoon registry…
How did you get engaged?
We got engaged on our 10 year anniversary, in bed. I presented Amelia with a photo album of our ten years together and once she had finished looking at the book I proposed with my Nan’s engagement ring. The ring had been passed down to me – adjusted to Amelia’s size secretly by my mum years before.
What kind of wedding did you plan?
Amelia planned what some have described as ‘relaxed’, ‘not traditional’, ‘intimate’ and ‘romantic’ wedding. Our ceremony was in the church next to our school where Amelia’s parents were married. Our reception was at ‘Poplars Hall’ – a beautiful old orphanage in Brentwood, Essex.
We had a buffet style dinner, in which we had our friends cater in the style of a jerk-pan BBQ, some meats and beautiful salads. Myself and my best man served our guests. Amelia had arranged benches for people to sit at with no seating plans. This encouraged a free and easy system where guests could move around and mingle easily. Our cake table was made up of home baked cakes from family members. There were two wedding cakes made by Amelia and her bridesmaid Joanna. Amelia made the decorations herself with the help of friends and family and the flowers were also all arranged ourselves the day before the wedding.
What was your first dance?
Our first dance was ‘Leon bridges – Coming Home’ – this was a last minute decision. We were actually set on only having a ‘last dance’ as something Amelia had really wanted, which was ‘St Vincent – Stars Aligned’.
What was your favourite part of the day?
My favourite part of the day – (obviously this is a difficult one) – was our ceremony, when it sunk in that we were actually married! I was crying, laughing, jumping in the air – it was pretty overwhelming.
Amelia’s – Our first dance, it was lots of fun especially as I was so against people watching me badly dance until a few days before! We made sure we had 30 seconds of planned dancing before everyone ran onto the dance floor to join us!
Why was Patchwork the best wedding registry for you?
We had previously used Patchwork a couple of years before for Amelia’s brothers wedding gifts. We had found it such a fun and easy way to give people exactly what they want!
What did you decide to ask your wedding guests for?
We wanted to fund our honeymoon – an incredible trip to Mexico and New Orleans. Amelia and I hadn’t been on a holiday together for what seems like such a long time! So we planned a ridiculous adventure which included paradise beaches and street parties.
It was so fun to create the patchwork and actually really helped in planning our honeymoon, finding all the fun things we could experience on our trip! It’s so so easy to use, I loved that you can even adjust it after it goes live, we didn’t realise items would ‘sell out’ so fast so it was ideal that it only took a few moments to up the quantities people could buy. It’s also great that you can look back to see who got what when writing thank you cards!
We had really positive feedback from our guests about how easy and fun it was to use! I have recommended it to so many people since.
How did you feel setting off on your honeymoon?
We felt so lucky and so special that people had been supportive of our gift selection, and extremely excited to go off and actually experience the things we had planned. The Patchwork was a great way for people to visualise our holiday and we mixed up the prices so much so that people could buy us something small and fun like 1 donut, or part of a flight!
Would you recommend your trip to other honeymooners?
Our honeymoon was absolutely incredible! We were so lucky to be able to go to 2 places, we went to Mexico in October which is known as off season however this meant we had the whole of Tulum beach to ourselves! It was incredibly hot so we were so so lucky it felt like a private paradise! New Orleans is the most amazing city we’ve been to, it’s southern hospitality at its finest! It’s so fun and vibrant, we didn’t want to leave, the food and cultures of both places are amazing and we couldn’t recommend them enough.
Thank you Lee & Amelia for sharing your patchwork story with us. And congratulations from Team Patchwork!
All wedding photography by threeflowersphotography.co.uk
If this has inspired you to make your own patchwork, just customise one of our readymade patchworks or create one from scratch.