Barney and Charlie’s amazingly unique and quirky hand fasting wedding in Oxon Hoath, Kent

creative bouquet toss

Barney and Charlie’s wedding was wonderfully unique and as one guest described it “totally Barney and Charlie”. They got married at Oxon Hoath which is a lovely manor house with lots of floral gardens and open green space and quirky interior decor!

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Charlie wore a 50s style A line dress with a black petticoat, lace off the shoulder top, red heels and bow sash. Barney wore a black suit with matching red tie and had his wedding cane which was later used as the conch for the speeches.

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What made their wedding extra special was that they secretly had two ceremonies that day- the first was a beautifully small and intimate civil ceremony in the library of Oxon Hoath, with just a few friends and family seated in a semi circle of vintage sofas.

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Their second ceremony was a hand fasting ceremony conducted by the independent celebrant River Jones with a few special twists. Guests could sit wherever according to whether they preferred The Beatles or The Rolling Stones. On top of the gift exchange, where they give each other three surprise gifts to represent their promises to each other, and the hand fasting of family members representing the four elements. There were so many tears and laughter during the ceremony, it was beautiful, and it was such a reflection on them as a couple that both of them gave each other gifts that promised they’d always have fun together. They also jumped over the broomstick with a hilarious running leap to the classic wedding song Jump Around by House of Pain! *Jump up jump up and get down*

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After the ceremony, in another fun that’s-so-Barney-and-Charlie element they had made Charney magazines that introduced a lot of the key people of the wedding and had their schedule of the day in etc. It was a proper bang up magazine as Barney works in publishing!

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Barney and Charlie decided to Charnefy their ceremony by having a ribbon tied to the back of every guest’s chair, which the guests then tied around their hands until it became one crazy giant ribbon ball/a cat’s dream. It did slowly dawn on them that they were starting to get extra sweaty hands…

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The wedding dinner room was decorated with cool hand painted pub style signs and multi coloured bottles with flowers

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Just before dinner they took a big sword and chopped off the top of a crazy luxe tall croquembouche!

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Barney’s cane served as the talking stick- whoever was giving the speech had the cane.

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After the wedding dinner Barney’s old band mates surprised him with a gig which was thoroughly enjoyed by everyone!

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They had a lovely first dance before we skulked off for some fun couple shots.

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The evening food consisted of a cheese tower and a Doctor Who themed wedding cake.

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