“Our love is the guiding force that charts all our tomorrows”

After just three dates, the couple moved in together and they share a love of movies, gaming and picnics by the sea.

Just four weeks ago, in front of family and friends dressed as inhabitants of Tolkien’s Lord of The Rings meets The Court of King Arthur’s Camelot, Helen and Warren tied the knot at their medieval / fantasy themed wedding.

Here, Helen, who is 46, and 48-year-old Warren, from Winnington, tell us their wedding story, in their own words.

If you’ve tied the knot this year or are planning to get married in the next few months, and would like to appear in ‘Our Wedding Day’ feature, email heidi.summerfield@newsquest.co.uk

The theme for the wedding was medieval fantasy

When and how did you meet?

Helen: We met on an online dating website called Geek to Geek (it no longer exists) and for our first date we had a meal at a pub called The Swan at Bucklow.

Warren brought me a stunning bouquet of flowers. We sat outside talking long after the pub closed until a hotel resident lent out of the window and shouted for us to shut up!

We had three dates over the next few weeks and, after the third at Chester Zoo, Warren pretty much moved in with me.

What did you think of each other when you first met?

Helen: We’d spoken to each other via email for about three months before we met and chatted over the phone for a few hours at a time so it already felt like we knew each other. We’d discussed our love of movies, musical scores, movie art and VFX (visual effects) so we were never short of something to talk about.

He said, as soon I told him I was listening to the new Transformers movie score by Steve Jablonsky on repeat, he knew he wanted to marry me.

We’d recently both lost our mums - mine died three months before we met and Warren’s mum had died about a year before. We were both still grieving and being able to talk and cry together really created an incredible bond between us.

Where and when did you get engaged?

Helen: I’d jokingly told Warren he wasn’t allowed to propose until we’d been together at least three years. On his 40th birthday – January 4 – which was four days into our third year together, we celebrated with a surprise birthday meal and in front of friends and family at the Blue Cap in Sandiway, he proposed.

He says he’ll never forget the anniversary of the proposal as it’s on his birthday!

How did one of you propose?

Helen: When my mum died, I inherited her engagement ring. I permanently wore it on my right hand and we’d discussed that it would one day become my engagement ring.

When the time came, and Warren got down on one knee, he had to ask me to take the ring off my right hand and give it to him so he could ask me to marry him and put it on my left hand.

We also used Warren’s dad’s wedding band, who had died when Warren was about 18, as his ring for the wedding, so each set of parents are a big part of our engagement/wedding.

I wear my mother's engagement ring and Warren wears his father's wedding band.

We discussed timings for the wedding, but we didn’t set a date as soon as we got engaged as shortly afterwards my father Peter died from lung cancer.

We were incredibly grateful he got to see just how happy we were together and I know he was very fond of Warren and looked forward to him becoming his son-in-law.

During the course of the next few years we bought a house - I was running my own self-employed business full time, Warren got promoted at work, I had to have hip replacement, Warren had bowel cancer (he's all clear now) then we had the whole Covid thing until finally I said let’s just commit, book the venue and we have no excuse to put it off any longer.

That gave us a deadline to work to and it made such a difference knowing that.

What was the date of the wedding and reception?

Warren: We got married on Saturday, June 22.

What was the location of the wedding and reception?

Warren: We got married at Alcumlow Wedding Barn in Congleton.

How were you feeling on the morning of your wedding?

Helen: We both said we were feeling surprisingly calm. I had slight butterflies as I was getting my dress on, right up until the moment we were waiting for the music to start for me to walk down the aisle and my mouth went completely dry.

Warren said the exact same thing happened to him and we had to have staff run and fetch us a glass of water each. The ceremony was a bit of a blur for me, as it was so over whelming, but it went smoothly and I’m glad we had the videographer so we can watch it back.

We wrote our own vows and had written them out on scrolls that we read from. We used quotes from some of our favourite movies in our vows and everyone said how beautiful what we said to each other was, as no one knew we’d done our own vows.

Would you like to share your wedding vows with us?

Warren’s Vows

I, Warren Lee, ask you, Helen Mills, to be my wife. Within that word is wrapped all that you mean to me. My closest friend and companion through darkness and light. The mirror of my heart, with whom I share the laughter and tears, the sorrows and the joys, hand in hand facing all that this life throws at us.

I promise to love, cherish and support you as my other half, without whom I would be lost. You are my sun, my moon, my starlit sky, and I would dwell in darkness without you, but you are my guiding light, my strength, my heart, and I need never fear the emptiness without you by my side.

And so it is that I ask you, Helen, to do me the ultimate honour of being by my side till we are old and grey and through all that lies between. You are the Valeria to my Conan, the Elizabeth to my Darcy, I love you.

Helen’s Vows

I, Helen Mills, ask you, Warren Lee, to be my husband. You are my best friend, my warrior, and my protector. I promise to love and comfort you from now until the end of days. I promise to be here to wipe away the tears when you are sad, to be your guiding light in the darkest of times, a shoulder to lean on should your strength and determination waver, and I promise to make you smile every day.

There are no words to describe the love between us. Our love is the guiding force that charts all our tomorrows, it holds our world together through difficult times and will make life itself shine brighter and bolder than we can ever dream. I would rather spend just one lifetime with you, than face all the ages of this world alone. If I were dead and you were still fighting for life, I would come back from the darkness, back from the furthest reaches of the universe, to fight at your side.

I can honestly say I have no regrets in life, as every choice, every decision I have ever made, and every path I have ever taken has led me to this perfect moment. Stood here with you, about to become your wife. You are the Westley to my Buttercup, the Madmartigan to my Sorsha, I love you.

Wedding guests were asked to dress like the inhabitants of Tolkien's Lord of The Rings meets The Court of King Arthur's Camelot

How would you describe your wedding?

Helen: The general theme for the wedding was medieval/fantasy. Imagine the inhabitants of Tolkien’s Lord of The Rings meets The Court of King Arthur’s Camelot.

We wanted to use the stunning venue to the best of our ability without over doing the theme, so the colour scheme for the decorations we used were green, ivory and gold, and we used lots of natural decor like white blossom trees, green foliage and wood with soft candle light and twinkling fairy lights.

We had family arrive from Australia, New Zealand and Spain and we encouraged all our guests to dress to the theme, but it was by no means mandatory.

There was a pair of elf ears that one guest brought and it did the rounds with most people with hilarious results, especially my 88-year-old nan wearing them – this will be forever remembered by all.

We had perfect weather on the day to be able to have the wedding outside, in a white framed structure called The White House and I walked down the aisle to the most beautiful piece of music called Colwyn and Lyssa (Love Theme) from a fantasy movie called Krull from 1983.

We had a string quartet called Suave Strings playing before the ceremony and during the drinks reception and Warren had secretly commissioned some of our favourite pieces of music from our favourite movies to be played - they were just amazing. I could have stood listening to them for hours given the chance.

We had giant outdoor games for the guests to play including giant Jenga, connect four and hoop toss.

In the evening, we had board games on the tables, packs of cards and silly games for the guests to play.

Our table names were named after a few of our favourite movie composers:

Bride and Groom Table – Jablonsky - The movie and composer we discussed at length when we first started emailing each other.

Table 1 – Williams - Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Superman and many more.

Table 2 – Horner – Composer of the piece of music I walked down the aisle to from Krull.

Table 3 – Goldsmith – Star Trek, Supergirl, Legend and many more.

Table 4 – Poledouris – Conan, Starship Troopers and many more .

With Warren’s help, we designed the invites and made them ourselves and I am a qualified graphic designer, so I designed the table seating plan, the table name cards and table name signs and the Welcome board to all use the same design.

How many guests did you have?

Warren: We had 28 guests in the day and around 60 overall in the evening.

What did your guests eat?

Warren: For the day guests we had a BBQ grazing table that consisted of burgers, sausage, chicken skewers, corn cobs, fresh rolls and mixed salads so they could what whatever and however much they wanted to eat.

For the dessert, I created a dessert grazing table that was available for all guests though out the entire day. I have my own cake business called Fairy Dust Cake Studio, and I had a shop up in The Court Yard in Blakemere Village for nearly 10 years so I am used to catering to weddings.

I made four different kinds of cookies including Nutella and Biscoff-stuffed, individual lemon drizzle and school sponges, sugar cookies dipped in white chocolate and raspberry, salted caramel cupcakes, carrot and cream cheese cupcakes, Biscoff cupcakes and three types of loaded chocolate brownie.

I baked for weeks in advance and stored everything in my freezer at the studio, so I didn't have to spend the week before my wedding baking.

The wedding cake was a four-tier dummy cake as it took us both just over a month to hand create the 16 individual panels that made up the design. Each tier featured four iconic visuals from some of our favourite movies, games and TV shows and everyone said they were blown away by the detail and the amount of work that went into it. Guests spent a fair amount of time studying the cake, trying to guess all of the themes.

The wedding cake:

Top – Groot (Guardians of the Galaxy), A Cylon Centurion soldier (Battlestar Galactica 1978), Lara Croft (Tomb Raider), Assassin’s Creed Emblem.

Next down – Captain Hook (Hook featuring Robins Williams), Darkness (Legend), The Glaive (Krull), The Auryn (The Neverending Story).

Next down – Xenomorph (Alien), Rocket backpack (The Rocketeer), Mando Helm (The Mandalorian), Robo Helm (Robocop).

Bottom – Conan and Red Sonja, The Dark Crystal, Beastmaster, Supergirl/Wonder Woman

For the evening meal we had four different types of stone-baked pizzas, baked fresh on site in the pizza oven, followed by a selection of ice creams and of course, the dessert table was still available.

Each tier of the wedding cake featured four iconic visuals from some of the couple's favourite movies, games and TV shows

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Did you have a first dance?

Helen: We’d had lessons once or twice month since the beginning of the year to learn how to do a specially choreographed waltz to a piece of music, from one of the Harry Potter movies, called Neville’s Waltz. It was one of the things I worried about on the day as we’d not had chance to practice wearing our wedding attire, so we managed to sneak away for 10 minutes or so in the afternoon to have a couple of run throughs. Everyone said it was just beautiful when we’d finished dancing.

After the first dance, we did a quick thank you to everyone for sharing our special day with us and then the silent disco started.

We knew as soon as we started to arrange the wedding that we wanted to have a silent disco as so many people had travelled from around the world to be there and we wanted to be able to have conversations with them, instead of shouting to be heard.

It was a big hit and it was hilarious watching people dance to completely different songs at the same time.

The first dance was a specially choreographed waltz to a piece of music from one of the Harry Potter movies

Did you have speeches? How did they go?

Helen: Warren did his speech just before we ate in the afternoon and then his best man Simon gave a speech. Simon said he wrote his speech a year ago, the day after Warren had asked him to be best man!

What are your favourite memories of the day?

Helen: We discussed this question and both of us said the same thing. The whole day was just one long incredible memory. We managed to have the wedding we’d dreamed of, and it was as unique and spectacular as we’d hoped.

Warren’s sisters hadn't seen each other in around 14 years, since their mother’s funeral, as one lives in New Zealand with her family so seeing family together after years and oceans apart was amazing. Everyone said it was a wedding like no other, and that was the plan, to be as memorable, different and one of a kind as possible.

Tell us a little bit about your outfits on the day

Helen: For my dress I knew I wanted a gown that didn’t exist in shops or stores. I had an idea in my head, and so I used a piece of AI software on my computer to generate 30 or so different designs using the parameters I set, and from there I narrowed it down to five incredible dresses.

I approached four or five wedding dress makers who said it was not something they would be able to help with. I then turned to a good friend's mother, who I've known since childhood, and asked if she would be up for the challenge as I knew she made dresses and costumes for LARP and Cosplaying.

She said she would love to help and between us we narrowed the design down to one incredible dress, pieced together the patterns and she then spent six months hand making the dress to my measurements.

The amount of detail she went into blew me away - the intricate beading and trim, the hand stitched and embroidered details on the sleeves and the hundreds of individually sewn on pearls, crystals and beads was just exquisite. It took her 18 hours alone to hand sew the trim around one of the bell sleeves.

She said it was the most beautiful thing she’s ever made and everyone said just how stunning it was. I didn't want to carry a bouquet of flowers so I pondered for months on what I could do as an alternative. In the end I hand made a white ostrich feather fan, finished with gold beading and diamonds to match the dress details and carried that instead of flowers. Given it was such a warm day, it came in very handy indeed.

My two nieces, Faith and Isla, were my bridesmaids, and their mum Samantha was my maid of honour. They each chose their own style of gown from a selection I'd put together, and they all choose them in a lovely purple colour.

I had the dresses shipped from America and matched them with a silver satin floor length cape, an elven style hair accessory and they each carried a brass lantern down the aisle with an LED candle as I didn’t want any bouquets of flowers.

My sister Kate, who suffers from neuromuscular scoliosis was my chief bridesmaid and even she put on a dress for me, which is a rare sight indeed.

Warren’s attire was loosely inspired by the look of Rutger Hauer in an 80s movie called Ladyhawk, and was pieced together from items brought from various places online. His cape was a deep emerald green to match my dress, although he didn't know it at the time I made him buy it, as no one knew the colour of my dress.

His pants and tunic were black and were finished with a hand tied belt and belt pouch, just big enough to fit a mobile phone in! His two best men Simon and Simon’s son Jayden, wore similar attire but in shades of brown.

Each of the three men had chosen a sword bought specially for the occasion, and wore them on their left hip, then the outfits were finished with matching boots, capes, belts and wrist guards.

Helen's dress was handmade with intricate beading and trim, and hand stitched embroidered details

Did you go on honeymoon? Where did you go?

Warren: We haven’t had our honeymoon yet. We plan on doing it in the next 18 months or so when work commitments allow.

We want to do a cruise around the Norwegian fjords and see the Northern Lights, but for now we are planning a road trip to Scotland for a week in September to get a short break in while we can.

We asked for funds as wedding gifts for the honeymoon and were incredibly grateful for all of the wonderful donations we received. We look forward to booking it in the near future.

Please tell us a little bit about the things you have in common. Why do you love each other? Why did you want to get married?

Helen: We were both lucky enough to have been brought up in a similar way, by a mother and father who instilled in us similar morals, values and work ethics. We both work too hard sometimes, and we both love to do creative things when we can or just play Xbox together.

We have a lot in common - we share a love of all things movies, the making of, the VFX, the music, the art, talking about the feelings they evoke. We love gaming, being inspired and arty, we love just going for a spontaneous walk and a picnic by the seaside.

We have a love for collectables and figures ranging from a massive spectrum of movies from old classics through all things fantasy and sci fi. We both have a similar sense of humour, the same political views and we both absolutely adore our cat fur babies.

We talked about why we wanted to get married and be both agree it’s that final sense of commitment.

It’s so much more than a piece of paper, getting married means we are committed to stay by each other’s side until death do us part. It’s that feeling you get knowing that you have given your heart and soul to the one person in the world who feels like the other half of you.

You become one being, one entity, and that you can enjoy the rest of your days together knowing that you can grow old and grey and grumpy together and fart in bed without repercussions.

Alcumlow Wedding Barn in Congleton hosted the perfect wedding day

Is there anything else you would like to share with us about your day or your relationship?

Helen: Because I’d lost both my mum and dad I asked my ‘other mother’ Jackie Ellis, my mum’s best friend and a lady whom I've known since I was a toddler, to be one of our witnesses, and her husband Bob Ellis walked me down the aisle in the place of my father, so they were both a massive part of our wedding.

Photo credit: Chris from Carpe Diem Photography