Fratton workmates who met at Safeways tie the knot after 18 years

Self-confessed ‘party animals’ in their youth, Natalie and Dean Farminer married at Portsmouth Register Office on Saturday, August 20 on a ‘magical’ day that they say ‘couldn’t have gone any better’.

Money worries and the upbringing of their little boy, Leon, now 11, pushed back any wedding plans until January this year, when the pair cobbled together an intimate and personal wedding thanks to the help of their parents.

‘If it wasn’t for our parents, we wouldn’t have been able to do this,’ explains Natalie, née Woodford, a stock controller at Tesco in Portsmouth.

‘We did have an engagement party but we weren’t in any rush [to get married] after that.

‘We just carried on and didn’t think about it.’

Dean, 43, would often exchange glances with Natalie when they worked together at Safeway supermarket, now Lidl in North End, in their 20s.

But because Dean worked nights and Natalie worked the day shift, it took a while for the lovebirds to kick-start their budding relationship.

‘Dean would give me the odd look now and then,’ says Natalie.

‘It just went from there. We went out on a date and we’ve been together ever since!’

For the Fratton workmates turned sweethearts, a grand wedding with lots of guests was never on the cards.

Instead, an intimate and personal reception with 50 guests, at Natalie’s mum and step dad’s house was the ‘perfect’ way to tie together their love for one another.

Every detail of the wedding, gazebos, decorations, fairy lights and music was tailored just how the couple dreamt it to be.

Natalie says: ‘We did it all ourselves. We set up gazebos, our own photo booth, an eight-hour playlist made by both of us, it was our own little space.

‘I haven’t got a favourite bit because everything was just so perfect. It was an emotional day.’

A memorable moment was having photographer, Sophia Benham capture their special day as Natalie says it was like ‘welcoming in a member of their family’.

Dean popped the question to Natalie in 2005 at his house in Landport, which was ‘a bit spur of the moment’.

It caught Natalie completely unawares as she recalls her ‘complete shock’ after the pair had been courting for a year and they have remained inseparable ever since.

Speaking about the pair’s dates together when they were courting, she says: ‘Our favourite thing was a place called Punch Funk once a month. Our friends used to be DJs and we used to go there all the time. It was mostly just going to pubs, the Guildhall and Southsea in the early days. We used to be party animals when we were young.’ Natalie and Dean are planning a family trip to Cornwall next year with their son, Leon, for the ‘perfect’ coastal honeymoon.