Waterlooville couple granted dream wedding at Southend Barns near Chichester

‘It was brilliant, but freezing,’ says Beth, looking back on their wedding day last November.

Funded completely by their parents, the couple enjoyed the ‘relaxed’ wedding they had always wanted in a picturesque location surrounded by countryside.

‘It was the coldest day, but we were all really relaxed and it was so natural,’ added Beth.

The couple were joined at the ceremony by 80 of their friends and family.But most importantly was the presence of their two daughters, two-year-old Evie and nine-month-old Maisie.

Beth, who works in an art shop in Petersfield, says: ‘Evie ran up the aisle to me, and then my sister-in-law carried Maisie up during the ceremony, Evie was just shouting ‘yay!’‘It was really sweet,’ she adds.

Parents Beth, 26 and Nathan, 27, were more than happy for their girls to be part of their day, in fact for many, it was the icing on the cake.

During the speeches, Beth says family members were in the middle of commenting on how amazingly well-behaved Evie had been, when she was caught between a sweet scoop and the wedding cake.

‘Someone said, where is she anyway?‘We turned around and she was taking a scoop out of the wedding cake,’ laughs Beth.As guests worriedly questioned laid-back Beth on why she hadn’t instantly flipped into bridezilla mode she calmly told them;‘She’s my child, she likes cake!’

The ‘easy-going’ couple, who went to school together but first started dating when Beth was 19 and Nathan was 20 after being set up by a friend, say neither suffered with any sort of nerves before the ceremony.‘Everyone kept saying ‘are you two sure you’re okay’ because we just weren’t panicking,’ says Beth.

The pair’s main worry was dressing and getting their girls ready, but by the reception Maisie was napping and Evie was preparing to dance all night long - on what could only be assumed was a cake-fuelled sugar high.

With a reception for 130 guests, the entertainment continued from a conga line led by a cardboard cut-out of a guest who could not make the ceremony, to a rendition of You’re Welcome from Moana, duetted by Evie.

While life quickly went back to normal, with two young children and jobs to return to, the pair are still planning a honeymoon.They will use money given to them as wedding gifts towards a honeymoon with the children to Disneyland Paris.

‘We have a really good friendship before anything.He is my best friend and he says the same about me,’ says Beth.

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

Subscribe here for unlimited access to all our coverage, including Pompey, for just 26p a day.