Felpham couple moves wedding forward 3 weeks to avoid changes to covid restrictions – with just 3 days’ notice

Glen and Jenna Wolfenden (née Smith) were originally due to get married on October 18 at The Ravenswood, in East Grinstead, with more than 100 guests to celebrate their nuptials.

The newlyweds were already resigned to only being able to have 30 close family and friends at their wedding due to the restrictions put in place by the government, but the announcement of a tightening of measures from Monday left them with no option to postpone – unless they could somehow move it all before the weekend.

Glen, 28, a business development manager for family business HeatLoad, said: “We decided we could not go ahead with just 15 guests, as we have too many members in our immediate family which we simply couldn’t cut.

“So we thought we’d try our luck and see if our venue and registrar could move it to Friday – and to our astonishment they said yes.

“With the help of our incredible venue we managed, in the space of a day, to move our entire wedding a month early.

“This includes all our suppliers and guests. It was very stressful, but totally worth it.”

Jenna, 26, is a vetting advisor for Checkatrade, and while they were friends as teenagers, they only started dating four years ago after bumping into each other at the Pagham Pram Race.

The announcements about restrictions since March had slowly chipped away at the couple’s positivity, but the announcement last Tuesday was the final blow.

Glen said: “It’s been an emotional rollercoaster over the past few months and we’ve never been able to truly get excited for our wedding.

“It seemed cruel and unjustified considering our venue is Covid secure and about 14 acres.”

However, Glen said the wedding day was better than he and Jenna could ever have imagined.

He said: “It was so intimate and special and we couldn’t have asked for anything more.

“If we were given the option I think we would actually choose our corona wedding every time.

“Originally I thought over the weekend we’d maybe take our dog for a walk or maybe go out for dinner – but instead we got married.”

• Pictures by John Schofield Photography – www.johnscofieldphotography.co.uk

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