Category Archives: Engagements

Miss Jo Black’s Tattooed Tales – The Proposal

She’s here! Marry Me Ink’s blogging bride of 2015 – Miss Jo Black! I’m a regular follower of @missjoblacktattoos and one day, I saw the most beautiful ring I’ve ever seen appear in my feed. That’s where it all started. I contacted Jo and got her to enter her engagement story and Pinterest board to be Marry Me Ink’s new blogging bride. I’m SO glad she did – Jo and her fiance Leigh are due to get married at the end of the year with the most awesome theme I’ve heard of. This is where I now hand you over to Jo..

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I guess this is my hello to the world of internet blogs and my first post as a “Blogging Bride” for the lovely folk at Marry Me Ink!

So… I’m Jo Black, or JoJo to my fiancé Leigh, I own and tattoo at a studio called Black Inc. Tattoo in the sleepy countryside town of Frome, Somerset… and that is exactly where and how we met.

Leigh, my bearded babe, came into my studio on a sunny morning with his son Finn to book himself in for a large tattoo on his back. He must have prepped Finn for their visit to impress me and the other ladies in he shop because Finn repeatedly told Leigh how much he loved him and what a great dad he is… come on what woman doesn’t melt when they know a man is a good dad! But anyway, after some time chatting about what he wanted and where, he and Finn went for a wander around Frome, when he left me and the other girls in the shop Alison and Neko joked that he was gorgeous and one of us could end up marrying him, I believe Neko’s words were “He’s RED HOT”.  A while later I went to get a round of coffee for the shop I noticed them waiting in line for milkshakes, I went over and chatted some more… And that’s where it all began.

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For the next couple of weeks leading up to his tattoo we spoke almost every day, joking and chatting via text and Instagram.  When the weekend of the tattoo loomed we had come to the decision that we just wanted to spend a bit of time together and instead of doing the tattoo we went to the Frome World Food Festival and ate and drank and fell in love! It took me almost a year to actually get round to tattooing him at all and still to this day we haven’t done the one he booked back then!

Two years on and Leigh and I are living together in a flat in Frome, with our dogs Spike and Bobbie and more in love than ever. My family adore him, and would probably rather spend time with him than me! And I adore his family too, he has rather a lot of family!

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So, with being so happy and on track, when we went to watch Funeral For a Friend play in the local venue just before Christmas 2014 and he started acting very strangely, ducking out here and there, whispering to people, taking phone calls and texts in private… I started to think something was up… I actually said to a friend that evening ‘I reckon he wants me to think he’s going to propose tonight and then he won’t do it’. That friend, who knew what was going on, laughed at me.

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Love Letters – A Halloween Proposal At A Concert

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I came across Jess and Red’s wedding portraits on Instagram a few weeks ago from Chris Nachtwey Photography and I was privileged enough to receive their engagement shoot as well as their wedding (which you’ll get to see in a few weeks – I love making you wait!)

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We met when I was 13, in my neighbourhood. He was skating around like a bad ass and I fell in love.  I didn’t see him again until I was 21, and we had such a great connection… we dated for a few months and then we split up because we both had been fresh out of long term relationships and knew we weren’t ready to have each other yet-it was real.  We stayed close friends, I talked crap about dudes that split up with me to him, always able to be honest, and one day just got the guts to ask him back out, (with a song on my guitar), and the rest is history!

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Actually that was so unique!  Halloween is my favourite holiday and so he planned to ask me on Halloween.  We were going to Northampton, Massachusetts to see my favourite two bands The Ryan Montbleau Band and The Alchemystics, and he had planned to ask me during a particular song… He had ordered a custom made charm bracelet from a lady in the UK that was a zombie survival charm bracelet – very fitting for a girl like me! He had it in his pocket as we were going into the show and the security checking us in asked him to empty his pockets.  I was standing right there so he cunningly said, “Oh I have my knife in my pocket.” I’m like, “Why did you bring a knife to a show?  Go put it outside.”

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Love Sick London – A Bold & Colourful Couple Fashion Shoot

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Today I get to introduce you to the awesome Love Sick London – A Camden based clothing company that draws inspiration from our diverse backgrounds and surroundings in London. Verity Quirk of Rabbit & Pork Photography shared this awesome shoot to showcase Love Sick London‘s awesome clothing and also to show off awesome tattooed couple Kate Van Doren and Mike Williams.

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Love Sick London was born out of a love for Tattoos, tattoo design and big illustrations. From basement tattoo parlours to hipster hangouts, our aim is to bring high quality, fair trade and organic materials with big statement prints to the market. Established in 2013, we have gone from strength to strength, working with very talented illustrators and artists all over the UK we have gone from follower to follower on social media, with Instagram being our biggest selling tool to date.

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Our products have been brought worldwide, from Hong Kong to Columbia and our biggest customers seem to be our brothers and sisters up in bonny Scotland.  As the company grows we hope to expand by having our products stocked in boutiques and high street chains. Love Sick London was not born from heartbreak but from a Sick Love of London.

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Love Letters – A Yorkshire Golden Hour

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Today I get to share with you the gorgeous tattooed bride-to-be Emma and her fiancé Chris’ engagement shoot (with the most amazing golden hour light!) from West Yorkshire wedding photographer Maryanne Scott. The story of how Emma and Chris met is lovely!

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We initially met on a dating website in mid 2011. After months of exchanging texts messages and lengthy phone calls we finally decided to meet in person in December 2011. Chris lived on the Lincolnshire coast and I lived in West Yorkshire but he decided he had a good feeling about us meeting so he drove up to meet me.

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Our first “face to face” date was coffee and cake at a Starbucks.. Needless to say we hit it off, he well and truly swept me off my feet and we spent the three days together!!! We had a long distance distance relationship from then until he moved up to Yorkshire in October 2012.

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