A fabulous day of hugs and emotion

“When Paul first came to work at the Warton office at The Land Registry where I was working I wasn’t very keen on him,” says Emma, a civil servant, from Kirkham near Preston.

“A few years later we were placed in the same work team and we got to know each other a little better.”

Emma soon realised that Paul, from Telford, Shropshire, wasn’t all she thought he was.

“We found we had a lot more in common than we realised,” she says, “and we gradually became good friends.

“The rest, as they say, is history.”

On Emma’s birthday, Paul presented the birthday girl with breakfast in bed - and a proposal.

“Paul bought the ring from a local jewellery designer.

“We had designed it together from an idea scribbled down on the back of a paper bag one day while out in the Lakes.”

The Lake District theme continued when the pair were married on September 28 at Broadoaks Country House Hotel, Troutbeck, Windermere.

Though their outdoor ceremony was dampened by the typical Lakes weather, their spirits stayed dry as Emma and Paul moved to the music room for a cosy, intimate wedding.

Following the three-course wedding breakfast, the bride’s son, Joseph, who had also escorted her down the aisle, gave a speech which had many in tears.

“We were very proud of Joe,” adds Emma.

“Paul, being a man of many words, carried on the theme with the most beautiful, thoughtful and touching speech which was then rounded off by the best man, Yoh, with an amusing poem that left us in tears of laughter.”

As the wedding party had exclusive use of the hotel, the evening continued in a relaxed, informal affair.

Some took part in a quiz in the music room as others danced to an iPod playlist of “cheesy wedding music” in the dining room with the remainder of the guests doing their own thing in the bar area, relaxing and chatting.

“To sum our day up in three words we would say it was fabulous, huggy and emotional,” say the newlyweds.

“A perfectly relaxed day spent in the company of our close friends and family.”