Rain, Mead and Magic: Carrie and Charlie’s Whimsical Moonacre Wedding

Carrie and Charlie’s October ceremony at Moonacre wedding in Dorset was full of heart, soul and whimsy. We had handfasting, a mead ceremony, Norse pagan blessings, Hailstorm guitar strings, a paparazzi moment, handmade leather jackets, a custom embroidered cape, and a brief but spirited downpour right before the ceremony. This one had everything.

How It All Began (On Tinder, Via Iron Maiden)

Carrie and Charlie both joined Tinder looking for friendship rather than romance, which immediately tells you something about these two. Neither of them was interested in the usual small talk. Charlie was drawn in first by Carrie’s “bright flash of personality” and by the fact that her favourite song was The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner by Iron Maiden. I mean, of course it was. Their conversations were long, thoughtful, and sometimes took days to reply to, because both of them actually wanted to get it right.

Their first proper meeting is the kind of story that belongs in a wedding ceremony, and I was very glad to get to tell it. Carrie turned up to Charlie’s flat covered in mud, having attempted to climb the embankment outside rather than use the perfectly sensible path. They found her car keys later in a small shrub. They spent the evening talking, then stayed up until 2am showing each other their favourite music on YouTube, and somewhere in the middle of all of that Charlie played Kryptonite by Three Doors Down, a song Carrie had on an obscure karaoke album as a child and had never met anyone else who knew. That was the moment.

Their love deepened quietly, through a playlist that has been growing for three years and currently runs to nearly twenty-four hours, through camping trips and muddy walks and a memorable dinner on a freezing beach where Charlie sang an improvised song about a frittata and made Carrie laugh. He picked her up from the train station when his great-grandmother passed away. She saw him through it. And somewhere in all of those small moments, something undeniable took hold.

The proposal came in Kensington Gardens at the end of a lovely day in London. Charlie got down on one knee, and Carrie, convinced for a split second he was winding her up, told him to f*** off. She quickly reconsidered, said yes, and has been dining out on that story ever since. The engagement ring, by the way, contains a piece of guitar string from one of Lzzy Hale’s Hailstorm guitars. A favourite band, a deeply personal detail, and absolutely perfect.

A Couple Who Made Everything Meaningful

One of the things I adore about Carrie and Charlie is the way they approach everything with intention and creativity. Their wedding was not just a day, it was an expression of who they are, built from the things they love and the people who matter most to them.

Carrie and her mum had made so many of the elements themselves. The bridesmaids wore embroidered denim jackets, the groomsmen wore leather jackets in the evening, and Carrie herself arrived in a vintage VW campervan, which was just absolutely perfect for this couple and this venue. She stepped out in a stunning custom cape by Holly Winter Couture, embroidered with autumnal motifs including pumpkins and leaves, and was escorted down the boardwalk into the woods by her proud dad. It was whimsical and warm and entirely, completely her. 

Hana Laurie, one of my absolute favourite photographers to work alongside, was there to capture every detail of it with her brilliant humour and fun!

Moonacre as a venue is just made for couples like these. Outdoorsy, whimsical, festival-spirited, with the kind of natural beauty that makes an outdoor ceremony feel completely right. 

The Ceremony: Ancient, Personal and Full of Heart

Before the guests arrived, Charlie’s Dad, David, and I were already out in the ceremony space doing something extra special. We walked the space together, blessing it with sage and mead, calling on the gods to look favourably on this union. There is something about doing that kind of thing with real intention, in a woodland setting. And then, just as we finished, the wind picked up out of nowhere. The trees moved, the air shifted, and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. The universe had shown up. Whatever you believe, that moment was other worldly.

We opened the ceremony itself with a fun paparazzi moment. I told everyone they had thirty seconds to whip out their phones and snap away at the couple before putting them for the rest of the ceremony. Carrie and Charlie pulled wonderfully silly faces and then we got on with proceedings.

The ring warming followed, and it set the tone perfectly. The rings were sent to the back of the gathering and passed through every set of hands in the room, each person holding them for a moment, warming them with love and making a silent wish for the couple’s future. By the time they made it back to the front, those rings carried something precious with them. We also took a quiet moment at the start to remember those who were no longer with us, which felt important and right.

Commitments, Vows and Rock, Paper, Scissors

Carrie and Charlie, by their own admission, are notoriously bad at making decisions. So the question of who would share their vows first was settled, naturally, by Rock, Paper, Scissors. 

Carrie went first. She described love not as the grand gestures but as the small things: a dinosaur hot water bottle in the bed after a night shift, the frittata song, the hand that appears beside you when you are climbing a steep waterfall. She described Charlie as having given her roots and safety she needed to bloom. She promised to be his 90% on days when 10% is all he can give. She called them Hardy Perennials. I nearly lost it entirely.

Charlie spoke of having spent much of his life searching for the better part of himself and finding it in Carrie. He called her his best friend, his eternal gig buddy, occasionally a pain in the butt, and “the person all my favourite songs have been about.” He promised to be her confidant, the keeper of her secrets, and to seek the next adventure knowing she would always take it with him. He closed with the phrase that has run through their relationship from the very beginning: love is love reflected. 

Handfasting, Norse Pagan Roots and Specially Brewed Mead

This is where Carrie and Charlie’s ceremony moved into truly special waters.

They had chosen to include a handfasting, an ancient tradition rooted in Celtic and Norse cultures and the origin, as I always love sharing, of the phrase “tying the knot.” Handfastings are a great way to create something unique as no two ceremonies are ever the same. They had made their own cord, incorporating meaningful elements and charms chosen deliberately and carefully. 

David, a modern-day Norse witch, joined me to perform the handfasting. He called on his Norse pagan roots and on Mother Nature herself, lit a wedding candle he had created specially for the couple, and spiritually bound their souls together with a ceremony that was deeply moving and completely unlike anything I have been part of before. The words he led Carrie and Charlie through were beautiful: “I wish to join my life with yours, to stand by your side and sleep in your arms, to be joy to your heart and food to your soul.”

David had been shamanically brewing mead specifically for this wedding for several months. He led the gathering through three toasts, drawing on the ancient tradition of the honeymoon, that wonderful detail that the word itself comes from the custom of newlyweds drinking mead for a full moon cycle after their wedding. 

Carrie and Charlie have always loved mead together, and bees hold a special meaning for them both, which made the whole ceremony feel layered and considered in all the right ways. There is something extraordinary about a ceremony where the drink has been made specifically for the day by the person offering the blessing. David was magnificent.

Mr and Mrs Hamblin

Moonacre in October, with the autumn light and the meadow and the slightly dramatic weather, was the perfect backdrop for two people who are, as Charlie put it, each other’s kind of wonderful weird.

Carrie and Charlie, what a day. What a couple. What a ceremony. Here’s to the dogs you are going to adopt, the gigs you are going to see, the playlist that is never going to stop growing, and every muddy adventure still to come.

What Carrie and Charlie Said

I will let them have the last word, because they said it beautifully:

“We don’t know where to start with the wonderful human being that is Miranda! We met her at an alternative wedding fair and as soon as we walked into the room we found ourselves drawn to her welcoming atmosphere. She made us feel right at home and after striking up conversation about what we wanted for our ceremony, she blew us away with her breadth of knowledge and plethora of supportive ideas. Even without confirming our booking with her, she had fully embraced our visions and was genuinely excited to see how it would all pan out.

Once we had booked, she got to work right away spending time listening to what we envisioned and adding her own ideas into the mix. Miranda brought an air of excitement, joy, knowledge and genuine passion to the planning that made us feel like we had made the perfect choice!

We met a few times to discuss our options and Miranda even took on working alongside my father to incorporate a handfasting and mead ceremony alongside the more traditional elements of a ring warming and vow exchange.

When the time came to write our ceremony and personal vows, Miranda sent us fantastic guides full of helpful hints and tips. We loved sharing date nights sat filling out fun and quirky questionnaires to share our stories with her. These turned out fantastic and we were thrilled when we received the first draft of our script giving us goosebumps ahead of the real thing!

On the day Miranda was incredibly helpful arriving early to help direct final preparations and calm last minute nerves. When all was ready to start she led a wonderfully moving, heartwarming and unforgettable ceremony.

We have had numerous compliments of just how special this part of our day was because of Miranda’s words full of love and devotion. She spoke respectfully of our story covering all of the important details and guided us through the creation and delivery of our personal vows.

After the wedding day we received a wonderful selection of gifts, hand picked and thoughtful, which were incredibly personal and added a fantastic finishing touch alongside a printout of our ceremony and vows to keep and read whenever we want to look back on an incredible day.

We will be forever grateful for Miranda’s guidance and contributions to our wedding day, we can’t recommend her enough! Miranda is honestly just a wonderful person all round and we can’t wait for an excuse to hang out with her again some time soon.”

Carrie and Charlie, you were an absolute joy from the very first fair to the very last toast of mead. Here’s to many more excuses to hang out.

The Dream Team

Photography: Hana Laurie Photography 

Venue: Moonacre, Dorset