‘This won’t be the day we envisaged’

James Doughty, 33, is marrying Shannon Thornett, 30. Both are teachers from Bedford

After over a year of planning and replanning, my fiancée and I are relieved that we finally have the go-ahead to invite as many people as we want to our wedding in July, but with social distancing, this really isn’t going to be the day we envisaged. It’s frustrating that so many rules will still be in place. A shorter ceremony and restrictions on kissing and exchanging rings in some register offices, not to mention a ban on dancing, all make for a rather watered down wedding.

I’m glad we can go ahead with the full complement of guests. After a long wait, it is, of course, a relief now to be able to go ahead, not least because we were going to have to do battle with our venue and suppliers if we’d had to postpone a second time. If the restrictions on numbers had stayed the same, we would have postponed again. Now we can have the 85 family members and friends that we want to be there with us. I do worry social distancing will take something away from the day. I know it’ll be a wonderful day. But it certainly won’t be the wedding we dreamed of.