As I glanced up from the front of the ceremony room I tried to take in the faces of everyone there. I caught sight of The Wedding Reporter, her notebook resting momentarily in her lap while her pen was poised midair, ready to note the next matrimonial moment. The owner of the pen winked at me and smiled, as if to tell me I was doing OK, nailing the whole bride thing. I grinned back at her before my attention swiftly returned to more pressing matters… 

I always planned to share my thoughts on this particular aspect of our wedding. Turns out, writing a blog post about an incredibly talented writer who, truth be told, you have a teeny tiny fan girl crush on, is actually a pretty daunting task {particularly as you know she’ll spot all the grammatical errors you usually manage to slip past everyone else}.

Finally, I’ve decided the only way to approach the subject is to tell it like it is. Emma’s reports speak for themselves, she writes beautifully, but what’s it like to have her in attendance at your wedding? How does it feel to read what she’s written? Why do I think you should bother having a report written at all?

In short, what I offer here is a bride’s eye view of The Wedding Reporter…

‘Kind of scary writing to you with more than 140 characters, what with you being so good with words and all. We’re getting married at 1pm on January 14th at Heatherden Hall, Pinewood Studios… I want one of your delicious reports more than I can actually express in this email. What else do you need know?’

I first ‘met’ Emma {a.k.a Cloggins} on twitter. We exchanged witty banter in the customary fashion and discovered a multitude of shared interests along the way, particularly our passion for reading and writing. Emma was very encouraging as I struggled through the last weeks of my English MA, and I watched in awe as she left her day job to pursue her new and unique business venture. From the moment I grasped the concept behind Emma’s work I was certain I wanted a report of our own.

When we were first engaged, my Mum, the resident family archivist, dug out an old diary. In it was a small newspaper cutting, a mere 2 inches high and tinged yellow with age. With just a few succinct sentences, and in no more than 100 words, it described the wedding of my Great Grandparents in 1931.

Despite its brevity, the prose filled my nose with the scent of lilies and orange blossom as it detailed the composition of the bouquets and listed the flowers worn in the bride’s hair. The lone black and white photograph I had was suddenly flooded with colour as the text described the maids’ green satin skirts, their ‘coateess of green chiffon velvet’, their silver lace caps and the mauve and yellow tulips clutched close to their bodies.

As I gazed at names that seemed all at once familiar but also totally unknown, the words on the page brought me closer to a piece of my family history, to the magic of a wedding that had preceded my lifetime.

Once upon a time, the odd newspaper cutting, diary entry or detailed letter would have been all anyone had to look back on after the confetti had settled and the last slice of wedding cake had been devoured. With the immediacy of digital imagery and the ease with which a wedding can be reduced to moving pictures nowadays, it’s perhaps easy to overlook the beauty of the written word and the fact it can so perfectly capture the magic of such an enormous life event. Combine prose with pictures and the effect is pretty mesmerising.

From the moment we commissioned Emma, my mind wandered regularly to an image of my Great Granddaughter sat on the dusty floor of an attic somewhere in the future, pouring over the details of our wedding day. Of course, I’m crediting her with the same degree of sentimentality and nostalgia as myself {it is, after all, in her genes}, but if one tiny newspaper cutting can mean so much to me I can only imagine what the 40 odd pages of our wedding report will mean to her.

I was sold.

In contrast, my not-quite-husband took a little more persuading. He just didn’t get it. ‘So she writes a story?’, he said with a bemused look on his face. ‘Well, we can get it if you really want it’. ‘That’ll do’ I thought, and set about saving some pennies and coyly asking friends and family to gift us some vouchers as Christmas presents.

As I sporadically observed Emma at work on the day itself it was clear she has the whole wedding guest thing down to a fine art. She mingled like a pro, yet her presence was never, ever intrusive. I loved the way friends and relatives kept quizzing me about ‘the girl with the notebook’. Ultimately, knowing Emma was there recording the day’s events felt very reassuring. It was as if everything she observed was being given an extra significance that would only serve to increase the importance of our own memories.

The first time I read our report was quite magical. The carefully crafted words instantly transported me back to that frosty morning at Pinewood Studios. As I leafed through the virtual pages of our digital copy I experienced an array of emotions. I laughed out loud. I cried. I lingered over the description of moments we missed. I was amazed at what Emma saw, the detail of her observations and the way she managed to describe the slightest glance or the tiniest movement and all the emotion it contained.

I’ve read and re-read our report countless times, never tiring of the words or the memories it brings flooding back. I cannot wait to hold a real, live copy in my hands, to stroke its pages and inhale its bookish scent. It’s not often you get to take a leading role in your very own tale of romance.

Even Mr. LA was won over by Emma’s talent in the end. ‘She’s wicked that Cloggins’ he exclaimed after reading. High praise indeed.

To conclude, my advice to anyone planning a wedding is this:

By all means, scour the globe for the greatest photographer you can find, pay a small fortune for someone to wield a video camera while you say your vows, but don’t overlook the simple beauty of The Wedding Reporter. If you can’t do as William Wordsworth suggests and ‘fill your paper with the breathings of your heart’, why not let Emma do it for you?

Brides, are you tempted by The Wedding Reporter? Anyone wish she’d been around when they married? 

Loveaudrey xxx

PS. Emma is a forceful and persuasive lady but she really had nothing to do with me writing this. I just love what she does.

PPS. You can see more vintage wedding photos, as well as the very newspaper cutting I describe above, here.