Havant bride marries her 'best friend' at dream autumn wedding following whirlwind romance

Last October, Grace Allison, formerly White, got her dream autumn wedding, marrying her ‘best friend’ Lewis Allison at St Faith’s Church in Havant, with a reception at the Langstone Hotel.

‘Ever since I was younger, I’ve always wanted an October, fall type wedding,’ says Grace, 24.

‘All I knew was that I wanted a Hummer limo and I went from there,’ adds Lewis, 25.

After two years of planning in lockdown, in which Grace says Lewis was ‘hands-on’ and instrumental in helping her pick their distinctive burgundy and navy blue colour scheme, the day flew by.

‘It went by in a blink of an eye,’ recalls Grace.

‘The morning seemed to go quite slowly, I remember it vividly because I was stressed,’ she laughs. ‘I love having everything in my control and on your wedding day you just don’t.’

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Even on a day as important as this one, the couple say sometimes no amount of planning can prevent a few bumps in the road, with the limo arriving before the bride was even dressed and the flowers being delivered to the wrong address.

Grace adds: ‘But it was fine and the rest of the day was a blur, I just remember my dad walking me down the aisle and telling me to slow down because I was bolting it down - it was just excitement!’

‘I was actually okay in the morning,’ adds Lewis. ‘As soon as I got to the church it all kind of set in and I realised ‘ooh okay, I’m actually getting married.’

‘It went really smoothly and it was just a lovely day,’ he says.

At the reception, where the newly-weds were joined by around 100 of their family and friends, the speeches given by Grace’s dad and Lewis himself were particularly memorable.

‘My dad’s was more heartwarming, it made me cry,’ says Grace.

‘I went in a different direction,’ adds Lewis.

‘Lewis got a bit confused between a speech and a roast,’ laughs Grace.

Lewis adds: ‘I told the story of the first time we met, she technically lied to me and said she lived in Bedhampton. When I came to pick her up, literally just outside her parents’ house was the sign: ‘Welcome to Leigh Park’.

However that didn’t stop their ‘whirlwind relationship’ from blossoming and the couple, who met at a party in 2018, were engaged two years later.

‘The evening was great, it was just a massive party, everyone just got involved and had a good time which I really loved,’ Lewis says.

The date of their wedding was also exactly two years on from when the pair got engaged, in 2020, a surprise Grace’s grandmother almost gave away the night before the proposal.

Grace says: ‘My nan was going on and on about it, saying ‘when are you going to propose?’

‘She even went upstairs and gave him a ring to give me! He had to take her outside and say: ‘I've got the ring, I’m going to do it.’

The following day, Lewis kept his word and proposed on Southsea seafront to an unsuspecting Grace.

‘She’d been going at me about going out for a date, I’d already planned what I wanted to do and where I wanted to do it so I thought it was the perfect opportunity,’ explains Lewis.

‘I took her through the highlights of our first date, down by Mick’s Monster Burgers, down the arcades and onto the beach, and that's when I popped the question,’ he says.

Two days after the special day, Grace and Lewis jetted off to Rhodes, Greece, for their honeymoon.

‘It was exactly what we needed after the stress of planning a wedding, just being able to chill out and drink a pina colada,’ adds Grace.