The most important thing to me about what I do is relationships. I say to anyone who asks me that 85% of what I do is about relationship. Relationship with the couple I am serving, with the venue and with suppliers, assuring all of them that I am competent and able to give everyone what they need to have a great day. I also love watching the relationship between couples getting married. This past weekend I had the honour of being asked to be part of Kim and Drew’s sealing of their relationship in a venue that have cultivated a close friendship with, Skipbridge Country Weddings.
I was involved in this wedding for the full day as their wedding singer and guitarist right from the ceremony to the last dance at midnight. Kim and Drew are a genuinely lovely couple who so clearly love each other. They began the day with a ceremony in the open air, guests perched on bails of hay under a bright sunlit sky where I sang Kim down the aisle to a more thoughtful and acoustic version of I’m Gonna Be (500 miles) by The Proclaimers. The bride and groom were so relaxed about their day they had laid on a picnic spread for the meal in a PapaKata teepee. The PapaKata can be seen in the pictures below. Beautiful bespoke pop up venues that look absolutely stunning. I sang them through their meal before it came time for the guests to mingle. This is where Skipbridge really comes into it’s own because there is so much to do. The surrounding fields are chock with garden games to play or you can just chill out on the benches by the pond. If you so desire you can spend a little time in the quirky hobbit hole or on bails of hay around their fire pit which tends to be lit later in the evening.
One of the reasons I so enjoy Skipbridge is the unpredictable nature of the day. Many weddings are rigidly set in their format with some flexibility but at Skipbridge you never quite know what’s going to happen (in a good way). We went into the evening with a little bit of DJing and a live set before the fire was lit. Thankfully I have a very versatile set up so am able to take my battery powered amp, microphone and guitar to the fire pit for a traditional sing-a-long which, without fail, always begins with kumbaya. It ended with a few numbers from the best man, Lee, doing his best Liam Gallagher impression. We sang together. He was very impressive actually. After a quick blast of some Johnny Cash in the Whiskey Shack and finishing with a round of American Pie, we headed for the dance floor to finish off the night. NOT your typical wedding but then NOT your typical wedding venue. I thoroughly, highly and totally recommend Skipbridge Country Weddings if you are looking for something rustic, personal and different for your day. A huge congratulations to our lovely hosts Kim and Drew and to Gill and Gordon and all the team at SCW. Check out the adjoining B&B where many of the guests end up staying, Thistledown House run by the lovely Eric and Lesley. Also, a new business venture from the team is Skipbridge Farm Cottages for hire. Photographs in this blog were taken by myself but the official photographer for the day was Dixon Photographic.