A bride-to-be has revealed her joy after her friends visited her home to congratulate her and her fiancé on what would have been their wedding day.
Rachel Harrison and her fiancee James, both 32, from London, have been together for 14-years and were due to get married yesterday at Higher Eggbeer Farm in Devon.
They were forced to put their plans on hold after lock-down was announced – but that didn’t stop friends Emmert Roberts, Constant Allarcon and Flabbie De Langautier from stopping by and congratulating them.
Rachel, a wedding planner, told FEMAIL how their ‘spirits were lifted’ after seeing their pals, and said they also received video messages from their friends and family around the world.
James, 32, and Rachel Harrison, 32 , (pictured left) London, have been together for 14-years and were due to get married yesterday – but instead, their friends decided to surprise them with a visit to celebrate their love with a social distancing drink
The couple’s original wedding was set to have 150 people, and Rachel had been planning the day for around 18-months.
She explained that the couple had planned for a full wedding weekend for guests, saying: ‘We booked a place in Devon to have for the whole weekend.
‘Family staying in the house, people able to camp and today would have been the party, a bit of a BBQ.’
The couple were set to tie the knot at 2pm and Rachel explained that she was left in tears after her head bridesmaid arranged for her friends and family to send video messages that afternoon.
Emmert Roberts, Constant Allarcon, Flavie De Langautier donned masks and party hats to congratulate the couple on what would have been their wedding day
She explained: ‘One of my best friends and my chief bridesmaids live in New Zealand, she was meant to be coming to the wedding and arranged for all of our friends and families to send us videos.’
‘So when two o’clock came round, we had this bombardment of videos of people toasting, which was really sweet and I was already in tears. So it was quite emotional.’
She said: ‘We’ve been really lucky, lots of our friends have sent deliveries and messages.’
However Rachel said the couple were particularly amazed when they received a text from some friends to say they were outside their window.
Rachel told how their ‘spirits were lifted’ after seeing their pals, as well as receiving video messages from their friends and family around the world
Emmert, Constant and Flavie decided to surprise their friends, donning party hats and elaborate masks to get into the party spirit.
The brightly coloured face masks were decorated with shoes, London buses and cupcakes to make sure they weren’t spreading the virus.
The group, who are isolating together, all wore jeans and trainers, but decided to add some flare to their outfits with a bow ties – with Flavie even donning a borrowed top hat for the occasion.
Rachel revealed: ‘We felt very loved and our spirits were lifted of seeing human faces that weren’t through a screen.’
Rachel, who founded wedding planning business The Capston Second in 2015, revealed the couple were happy to wait a little longer to get married with friends and family around them
Rachel, who founded wedding planning business The Capston Second in 2015, hung out the window to chat with her pals while James stood in the doorway drinking a small bottle of champagne.
The wedding planner went on to explain that while they were sad their big day was cancelled, having been together for so long the couple were happy to wait a little longer to tie the knot.
She said: ‘I’m a wedding planner but I didn’t manage to plan for a pandemic, we’ve been together for 14-years so we can wait another one.’
But she added: ‘The mains stress was re-organising everything and it was upsetting then and now we’ve sorted everything that’s a weight off.
‘We’ve just all been living in a parallel universe so the thought of having our wedding wasn’t really anything. Everything changed so quickly. ‘