Harry Derbidge
With their lavish Essex wedding cancelled due to the coronavirus, Harry Derbidge and fiancé Dean Rowland chat to new about their plans for the future
Former TOWIE star Harry Derbidge and his fiancé Dean Rowland haven’t had the easiest few months, but you’d never know it from their cheerful chat in our catch-up call with them.
The couple are clearly very much in love as they constantly finish each other’s sentences.
Harry tells us, “I’ve never had to be someone different with Dean. I’ve literally always been myself.”
The pair had been dating for two years when businessman Dean, 35, got down on one knee at their home in Brentwood, Essex, last August, before whisking Harry off to a surprise engagement party arranged by his cousin Amy Childs.
The boys were set to tie the knot this August at their dream venue but, like thousands of other couples, they had to cancel their wedding due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Harry, 26, admits, “It’s just been awful,” telling us they’re going back to the drawing board after having designed every element of their big day.
Still, the pair are staying optimistic and Harry says he’d love to have the wedding on a TOWIE spin-off!
“I don’t know if I could go back on the main show with all the young ’uns, but I’d definitely do a spin-off. That I would one million per cent do.”
As well as planning their nuptials, Harry and Dean were in the process of adopting a child when lockdown hit and were due to move to a bigger house to accommodate their growing family. It’s all been put on hold.
But despite all the recent challenges in their lives, they’re staying positive and have even managed to launch a successful make-up brush business while in lockdown.
Here, they spill on their new joint venture, Zooming with Amy and their honeymoon plans…
Hi boys! How have you been getting on in lockdown? Dean:
It’s just like normal because we spend every minute of the day together anyway!
Harry: We’ve been together for nearly three years now and we’ve only ever been away from each other for four days.
Sorry to hear you had to cancel your wedding. What’s been the toughest part about all of that? Harry:
It’s just gutting. We were going to do a joint hen/stag do with all the girls and now the whole year has been cancelled. I know it’s not just us. I keep trying to look for the positive side and just think we’re going to have to do it bigger and better next year.
Dean: It’s really hard because we got engaged last August, so the wedding would’ve been exactly a year on. We put so much time into planning it, like getting everyone else organised to be there. We were looking forward to it so much.
Have you been able to keep the same venue?
Harry:
No. We were originally going to do it in a place called Hutton Hall, 10 minutes from where we live, which was the perfect venue. I’ve still got my nan and a lot of family, so we wanted to stay quite close to home. As they have bookings as far as two years in advance, we can only have it there if someone cancels, but we can’t rely on that.
Dean: We feel like if we can’t have it there then it’s not meant to be there, so maybe it’s best that we find somewhere else.
How far had you got with the planning?
Dean:
Obviously we had our maids of honour – my best friend Demi Sims and Harry’s cousin Amy – and bridesmaids organised, and we’d pre-booked everything. We had a colour scheme, which was all white and navy.
But if we can’t have it at that venue we’re going to completely change up the theme and go for something brand new.
Harry: My mum’s a florist, so she’s going to do all our flowers, but now we’re changing the colours, everything’s gone out the window.
Dean: We want to change Demi and Amy’s outfits as well. We designed all the outfits – for the maids of honour, the bridesmaids, the boys and our suits as well. That’s just what we’re like as people – we like to be a bit different. We literally designed everything from top to bottom for the wedding, but now we’ll completely change everything.
What’s been the reaction of your friends and families? Harry:
Everyone is gutted.
Life won’t get back to normal until next year so everyone is mentally prepared.
Dean: The only good thing about doing it next year is that it will give us and everyone who was involved in it something to look forward to.