We are really excited to begin this year’s wedding shows at St George’s Hall in Liverpool.  St George’s Hall really is a stunning building and has a lovely feel to it.   It has been in so many films due to its amazing architecture.  In fact did you know that after London, Liverpool is the most ‘filmed in’ city in the UK.  There is lots of brilliant architecture here, we love it .  What a privilege to work in this building too!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             We’ve got our exhibitor’s stand ready to go and most importantly Angel and Spirit are getting ready to show their beauty off to new clients.  There will be some recorded footage of the birds in flight, so people will be able to see exactly what it is that they do so well.

The wedding shows organised by The UK Wedding Shows have been fantabulous events previously and we are sure that this one will be no different.  However we are really looking forward to working with the Liverpool peeps who we think have brilliant friendly personalities (unless of course you start to talk about red and blue…..)

All in all – we’re looking forward to feeling whacked at the end of the weekend after talking to so many lovely people

Looking forward to posting about the event on Monday!

Spirit made the delivery of the bride and groom’s wedding rings and was absolutely adored by the congregation and quite a large one at that. Adorned in heather ribbons, Spirit travelled along the aisle in between the standing guests and in graceful undulating flight, she delivered her package beautifully.   She quite liked young Theo who she flew to and didn’t want to leave him to return to her handler.  We think Theo and the wedding guests quite liked this bit too!  However Spirit was eventually persuaded to return to Robert and she got a lovely ‘treat’ (owl cake, as we call it) when she did.

Photographs of Spirit the ring bearing barn owl with bride and groom and family

Thereafter Spirit mingled with the wedding guests and was centre of attention for a little while, posing for lots of photographs.  The bride and groom had their turn and if the photograph that we took was anything to go by, we imagine the photographer’s photographs will be incredible.

Angel and Spirit will have to assume Hedwig’s role at a forthcoming wedding.  It is a Harry Potter themed event.  It might surprise you to learn that we have not attended such an event previously.  Let’s hope the dark lord himself doesn’t show up and throw a spanner in the works!!

Watch out for photographs

We’re very thrilled to have been told that we will be approved pinkly, i.e., Pink Approval!  Looking forward to meeting new clients old and new at the Gay Wedding Show in Manchester at the end of this month.  Also we’re aiming to put a package together with Hotel Verta – yes, what an amazing venue that is.  What a WOW factor that would Hotel Verta and Angel and Spirit the ring bearing barn owls!!  Keep reading for latest news on this.

Steph and Angel being filmed for Four Weddings

Our celebrity owls are getting used to film work; Channel 4 –  My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, ITV1 – Daybreak, BBC News  - Royal Wedding.  Now it is ITV2 , Sky 1 – Four Weddings.

People say, ‘never work with animals or children’, we often work with both!!  Unpredictability is the word, so stress levels can be higher than usual!!

Mellington Hall in Powys was the venue and it was a very relaxed beautiful old building, with wonderful staff.  This was a great bonus to us as tensions in the hotel are often felt by suppliers.  There was none of this with Mellington’s staff, they were amazing.  Steph, the bride wore a black and white wedding dress and had long black hair and she did look spectacular in her outfit.  She was about 30 minutes late and the registrars were a bit uptight as they had another wedding to go to.  Having said that a guest was 20 minutes late and we are sure he was very grateful for Steph’s prerogative tardiness!  All that said, the wedding went beautifully, Angel was fantastic, right on cue, not remotely unpredictable and posed magnificently for the cameras too.  The ‘brides’ (competing for the prize) were filmed with fervour, particularly their reaction to Angel.  Thankfully, they loved her and we really hope that our ring bearing barn owl gave Steph some valuable points!

Owl wedding ring bearer safely delivers wedding rings

Wedding rings delivered outdoors

Vixie and Marcus are nature lovers and wanted something different and special that worked in harmony with nature on their wedding day.  They learned about us and after chatting their requirements through, immediately commissioned us to deliver their wedding rings.  The difference with this wedding was that it was an outdoor wedding and we mean really outdoors.  The venue was set amidst the most stunning corn field in the middle of fields and fields of beautiful countryside.  Just to make things even more challenging for us the wedding aisle ran in between two ponds, which were (naturally) inhabited with wildlife.  There were a family of coots living in one of the ponds. Why would the young coots feel the need to stay still during the exchange or rings?  Why would they feel the need not to distract Angel and Spirit during the time they needed to concentrate on what they were about to do?  Why would they??  Well they didn’t – these coots got on with exactly what they wanted to do, when they wanted to do it! Fortunately Marcus (the groom, who was receiving the owl) and I had a chat about this and I suggested that he waited until I ‘tipped him the wink’ before he called Angel to deliver the rings.  At least this way I had an element of control and could engineer the delivery of the rings around some quiet time in the pond.

It was nerve racking for us, as there are far more distractions when the owls are out in the open.  Overcoming the distractions that you know about is one thing, but there are always those that you don’t know about!  Fortunately we had none of the latter, during the crucial time.  Angel flew beautifully along the aisle and she did look absolutely fantastic out in the open countryside

Some guests were in tears, Marcus the groom had a huge smile on his face and Vixie (who arrived at the ceremony on horseback) was looking on in wonderment.

We took another booking at the wedding for two weeks later – you can’t do better than that!

We had the most amazing day, the weather was kind to us and so were the coots in the end…..

Next was a wedding at the very gracious Arley Hall – beautiful statley home that it is.  Stefan the manager extended a very warm welcome and everybody was very helpful particularly when it came to hiding us away from guests.  Bride and groom were clearly thrilled with Spirit’s faultless delivery of their rings and she did look quite at home in such a majestic building.

Moorside Grange in Disley was a force to be reckoned with - flying outdoors in a force 9 gale (ok – well not quite, but you see the picture).  After the ceremony there was fun outside with Wendy and Phil flying the owl.  She did well in such high winds and it was fantastic exercise for her too.  The venue again was stunning, particularly outside.

What next, well a busy second weekend coming up with a wedding at Mellington Hall, which has recently been awarded  Trip advisor’s ‘ excellent front of house manager’ –  Kim from Mellington Hall in Powys.  Mellington Hall looks like a wonderful venue and we are very excited to be commissioned for an event there.

Just to add to the stress of our line of work (and believe me it IS stress personified!)  we are being filmed for an episode of ‘Four Weddings’.  Now neither Angel nor Spirit are strangers to film crews, appearing on three occasions before on screen, but they do tend to want to show off and do ‘something different’ when filming takes place.  Let’s see!!