It’s finally here!! The ultimate tattooed bride Miss Jo Black got married last year and, in the run up, blogged for Marry Me Ink with all her planning details. Jo and her husband Leigh decided to split their wedding celebrations over two days – One day for the legal part with their very closest family and the second day celebrating with all of their friends. Today I get to share with you Jo and Leigh’s legal part and family celebrations (You’ll have to come back in the next few weeks to see the second half) from photographer Matthew Harris Photo.
I am a tattoo artist, I own a studio in a small town called Frome, it’s a busy and vibrant town in the middle of nowhere. But Leigh had been following me on Instagram for some time (@missjoblacktattoos) and commenting on my work saying he would love to book a tattoo with me.
One busy Saturday when I had a couple of other girls in the shop he showed up! He was living in Birmingham at the time but visiting his son, who he had brought along, about an hours drive from Frome. I was immediately attracted to him, his confidence and his amazing smile were quite overwhelming. The other girls in the shop shot me some looks too and I must have gone bright red.
I greeted him and made the booking for him, whilst he was in the shop his son said “Dad I love you SOOOOOOO much’ and obviously this made us girls melt a little bit. After he left one of my friends joked “Imagine! He could be the man you marry!”
Shortly after Leigh and Finn left to have a wander around Frome, I popped out to get some coffees for us from a café up the road. They were in there getting ice cream, so I went over and said hi, told him I had no more clients that day and we had a walk around Frome together before they drove home.
From there we messaged a bit about the tattoo he was going to have, and flirted over facebook for a couple of weeks. His appointment date was coming up and it fell on a weekend when Frome hosts a big food festival and we decided that we wanted to spend some time getting to know each other and enjoying the sunshine instead of tattooing. He came to visit, my mad little dog fell in love with him and I knew he was a good man then.
Things went on with Leigh living in Birmingham and travelling down to see me every weekend, or me going there when I could for about a year, when we decided he would move down to Frome and live with me in my little flat. They say you never really know someone until you live together, and that’s true, but having Leigh move in only made me love him more!
A year and a half after that he proposed. That in itself was spectacular! We were watching a band I have loved for a long time, Funeral For a Friend, and he managed to get in touch with the lead singer Matt who agreed to dedicate a song to me and as he did he said “Miss Jo Black, your boyfriend has something to ask you’… I turned around and there he was on one knee, spotlight and all! Obviously I said yes! And then they launched into the song ‘history’. It was phenominal!
We had the wedding over two days which was a great idea! We did the legal bit on Friday 18th in the registry office in my parents town, that meant we just invited our VERY closest family to be there as it was a small venue. But after that a few other people joined us and we had celebratory drinks in an amazing pub called The Black Swan. They have a fantastic rustic, vintage feel and many of our guests were staying there too. Then we went back to my mums house for Prosecco and nibbles and a bit of music before the guys went back to the hotel and me and the girls pampered ourselves before bed ready for the real big day!
I woke up slightly worse for ware on the Saturday, which was partly nerves and partly excess Prosecco, but we got up, got over to the venue at 9.30am and started all the decorating ready for a 4.30pm start!
How gorgeous and chilled out does Jo and Leigh’s ceremony look?! Don’t forget to head back to Marry Me Ink to hear about all their black and gold wedding decor in Part II of their wedding weekend! Thank you to Matthew Harris Photo for the awesome shots of their day!
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