To tie the knot | Wedding Celebrant | Meaningful ceremonies

I promised you photos and thoughts on the wedding of my son Jack and his beautiful bride Megan.

They were married in the garden of Megan's family home outside Saskatoon in Canada in August this year.

Celebrant getting in a knot!!

From the outset the wedding was going to be understated, a proper family event with all the elements from the dress to the ceremony provided by us - their family.

Megan looked stunning in a dress made for her by her mother - it was a real labour of love; but that is what the ceremony was about from start to finish - attention to the smallest details and done to make the day really special.

Such a beautiful dress

The ceremony was my contribution - I interviewed Jack and Megan when I was with them last summer and wrote the ceremony back in England - they chose the elements that they wanted to make the day memorable - a hand-fasting, a sand ceremony and a wedding tree.

The hand-fasting was fun, none of them had ever seen one before and it was a chance for Megan's sisters and her parents and my mum to say things privately to them that meant so much.  We tied the knot with a cord that I made - eight strands to represent each member of Jack's living family in England.

The sand ceremony utilised a maple syrup bottle that we up-cycled and the sand was from England, Canada, Australia - where they met and Iceland - where they fell in love.

My daughter made the wedding tree, she used photographs from both sides of the family, printed in sepia and decoupaged onto a canvas in the shape of a stylised tree - the guests were encouraged to use their finger prints to make the leaves and to sign their names in the grass ... the tree is back in England now for the second half of the ceremony early next year.

The family cooked and chopped and mixed and stirred with a will to create a cosmopolitan feast - so much food and so much washing up!

The marquee went up, the dance floor went down - the decorations went in; at one moment there was catastrophe when a string of lights disconnected and crashed down showering the dance floor and grass with tiny slivers of bulb - the indomitable Krone family had the solution, an industrial hoover ... who could imagine hoovering a lawn, it had to be done.

I trained as a Celebrant because I wanted to be immersed in real family events - this was one of those, such joy and love it was palpable and I am thrilled to share it with you.