‘I transformed into a white swan!’
Sophie Cousens, 41, is a novelist and lives with husband Tim, 39, in Jersey, with two daughters aged six and four. They married in Dillington House, Ilminster, Somerset, in July 2013.
I’m one of five siblings and, by the time Tim and I decided to get married in our early 30s, we’d been to a lot of weddings.
We both love fancy dress, so I suggested we do something a bit different and have a theme for ours. Tim loved the idea.
Our 100 guests dressed in the usual smart attire of lovely dresses and suits for the exchanging of the vows at Dillington House. But once we were officially husband and wife, that’s when the fun began. We all went off to change…
FANCY THAT
I transformed myself into a white swan by adding a white feathered shawl, headdress and feathery eyelashes, while Tim added a stripy waistcoat, wings and stripy antennae. He was the bee to my bird!
Each table had a different fancy-dress theme and we’d told our guests which table they were going to be sitting at so they could plan their costumes.
On the Alice in Wonderland table, we had a Queen of Hearts, a Mad Hatter and a white rabbit. The weather was absolutely baking hot, but the rabbit kept his furry outfit on all day!
The kings and queens table had my new parents-in-law Paul and Jose decked out as Antony and
Cleopatra, and my parents Richard and Avril were Henry VIII and one of his six wives – she wouldn’t tell us which one!
FLAPPING AROUND
On the Titanic table, the women wore fabulous 1920s flapper dresses, and on the under-the-sea table, one of the guests was an octopus.
We had also had a fairy-tales table and a 50s-themed one.
The themes were a great conversation starter for guests who didn’t know each other. Everyone put so much effort in and made it a wonderful day.
✣ Before I Do by Sophie Cousens, (£9.99, Hodder
& Stoughton) is published in September