From their planned 250 person wedding weekend extravaganza, including a full blown Hindu ceremony and Bollywood-themed reception, in the end Lakshmi and Jack, actually had a completely different celebration to what they had in mind for what became their wedding in August. With the love and support of super crazy talented immediate friends & family along with the help of suppliers, they were able to pull off a humanist wedding in 4 weeks and a reception in 1 week following govt guidelines.

Lakshmi and Jack had an initial small registry wedding with 4 guests and a photographer at Larkbeare House, Exeter, and then this is their 30 person humanist wedding at Little Comfort Farm in North Devon on 21st August 2020. They did some major pivoting and cleverly used some of their friends and family guest to fulfil some of the supplier tasks. Read on to see how this chic and meaningful day was not what they first envisaged, the journey they went on, but it still turned out to be everything they needed it to be.

Images by @sam___okeefe Beaut of a dress by The OWN Studio who Lakshmi found via the Most Curious insta page!

A LITTLE INTRO

Who you are and what you do?

Lakshmi Narayan (Narayan Hampton now), 32, and I’m a PR Account Director

How did you meet?

On Bumble!

What’s your fave thing about each other?

I love that he gets me, and makes me laugh. He’s also not a pushover because I definitely like to get my way! He’s also the most generous person I’ve ever met.

I would say he loves that I make him laugh everyday and he just said my ‘cooking ability’

Here’s a quick run down of the key moments of the day (and lead up!)

Having our dog, Rudy along with both of my parents walking me down the aisle
Our maid of honour and one of the best men marrying us in a truly personal ceremony
Seeing my mum wear a sari as is every Indian mother's right of passage when getting her daughter wed
Having one of my bridesmaids and my dear friend do hair and make up for me and the mums

Jack's usher, Paul White, a Saville Row tailor made a customised suit for him
Crying a week before the wedding as we didn't have space for photographers/videographers so our creative friends (including another best man) and my TV producer childhood pal teamed up as a trio to pull it off
Being able to have an Italian feast as our wedding breakfast
Being able to work with three of our initial suppliers during a time which has been truly awful for the wedding industry!
Seeing my dad do a fantastic speech and having the room in fits of laughter and tears
Watching a video from my brother and his family as they couldn't make it due to living in Malaysia
Looking at my husband at the end of the night and realising we'd pulled it off after a year and a half of planning, cancelling, planning, cancelling and replanning with a beyond our wildest dreams result!

Tell us a bit more about the journey?

Our wedding was meant to be a 250 person weekend extravaganza on 21.08.20-24.08.20 (luckily we kept the dates but not at the same venue).

Our original venue couldn’t see us having the 250 person wedding so cancelled our event with the option to rearrange, but with Covid being so unpredictable we wanted to at least get legally married this year so worked hard to redo our notice and get a new registry date in the diary.

What you found particularly hard emotionally?

The uncertainty. We’re not young and we wanted to draw a line under this chapter as we’d been planning for 1 and a half years. I also felt bad feeling sad about the situation when so many people were going through far worse things in life.

The worst thing was my brother and his family not being able to be at the wedding as they live in Malaysia..that truly sucked but we hope to have a big Indian party at some point when it’s safe to.

What are/were the parts of the wedding you thought you were going to really miss.. was that how it was when it came to it?

The Hindu ceremony, the giving of the mangal sutra - having loads of family and friends around who haven’t been part of that type of wedding.

It definitely still makes me sad to know that it may not happens anytime soon but I’m thrilled with what we’ve done and if it’s meant to be it will be!

Is there anything that has actually ended up being for the better out of the situation?

The intimacy, and how our whole wedding party feels like a big family now. This experience has bound us together for life. I loved how every person in the wedding party brought something unique to the wedding whether it was their personality or their talent I.e. make up, photography, celebrants - we’re so lucky to have such amazing people in our lives to make it such a personal experience.

You managed to have all of your guest as friends and family, no spaces were taken up by suppliers. GOOD MOVE!

I’m so fortunate that our immediate wedding party have these talents. Our guestlist was parents, siblings and groomsmen (and their plus ones and families) and bridesmaids (and their plus ones and families).

Everyone has skills...I think it’s about bringing those out from your wedding party and asking if they wouldn’t mind helping out instead of using those spaces for suppliers. I’m so glad all my 30 wedding party guests were friends and family.

I dont’ know if you saw a blog post we did earlier in the month about how Hindu weddings have been hit really hard in terms of the importance of having everyone there and a bit big grand joyous affair..was this something that you, and indeed your mum, struggled with?

I did see that post and I loved it! We’ll do some form or Hindu ceremony and party - that’s the intention but not on the scale we initially had planned. Both my parents are happy with what we got to do last week, they’re happy if we’re happy. Looking back, the costs of the Indian wedding got out of control and at the end of the day it’s about love, commitment and being happy, not the grandeur which Indian weddings are associated with.

Any other advice for couples going through putting their wedding together right now?

Remember that love conquers all as cheesy as it may sound. But through war, disasters and pandemics, people still get married. Expectations are a funny thing...you don’t know what you’ll miss if it never happened. Take the top three things that are important to you given the barriers that we have at the moment, and focus on those..the rest will fall in place.

SUPPLIER LIST

Lakshmi’s dress - The OWN Studio

Flowers - Ivy Decor - Lakshmi had a sustainability theme run throughout so used dry bouquets and bulked it is with flowers and foliage she picked from the farm that morning!

No cake

Jack’s suit - @paulwhitebespoke (he was one of the ushers)

Make up - @madders82 (best man’s fiancé and make up artist)

Wedding coordinator - @bestdayeverdevon who pulled together all the covid safety documents and conducts for the event - a huge task to say the least.

Caterers - @squisito deli

Marquee - @pukkatents who use indian inspired tents which brought a bit of my heritage into the celebrations

Photographers - @sam___okeefe and @dancan__

Videographer - @bolton.liz