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‘Our families had been
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50%
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subscribersSARA GOREE, 32, AND CHRIS BEAUMONT, 33,
WERE MARRIED ON JANUARY 17, 2020,AT THE MANOR HOUSE IN CASTLE COMBE, WILTSHIRE.
THEY FEATURED IN THE TIMES ON JULY 18, 2020important was the ceremony,” she
says. “My dad walking me down the
aisle. Vic and I getting to stand there
and declare our love for each other in
front of all of our friends and family.”
Kelly had embarked on an MA in
psychology at the University of
Reading, so hired a wedding planner,
Jenna Hewitt, for support. As Covid
spread, and the couple contracted it,
Jenna helped them to make the
decision to postpone their wedding
until May 1, 2021. The added
complication was their wedding
licence, which was only valid until the
end of October. To get legally
married, they had to marry at the
venue stated in their paperwork.
They refer to their mini ceremony
at Somerley House on a hot August
day as “the contract signing” rather
than their wedding. They did not
have guests and their witnesses were
employees at Somerley House. “I
didn’t want to make it a big deal
because I still want to have all of
those feelings on my wedding,” says
Kelly.Kelly took up sewing during
lockdown and made Vic a shirt
for the contract signing held outside
in the colonnade. They exchanged
necklaces instead of rings, which will
happen next year. Kelly carried a
small bouquet. Afterwards, they
celebrated with champagne and a
packed lunch.
In the evening they enjoyed wine
and pizza, and played the board game
Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective.
“We have one wedding and it’s next
year,” says Kelly. New save-the-date
cards have already been sent out with
the original image of them
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Vic had never imagined being
married. His focus was on his
retirement. “It certainly wasn’t
anything I was looking for,” he says.
“Then this hurricane from Texas
whirlwinded her way into my life.”
Kelly, who was born in Texas, met
Vic at a convention in Las Vegas.
They had friends in common. Kelly
was in a relationship and had never
imagined dating a Briton. “A lot of the
British guys I’d met before have been
kind of cold or reserved,” she says.
Eight months later, they met again
at a convention in Texas. This time,
she was single. Kelly realised how she
felt about Vic when it came to saying
goodbye. “I wanted to hold his hand,”
she says. “I wanted to say, ‘Please
don’t go. Please don’t leave me.’ ”
In 2017, Kelly visited Vic in the UK.
He is a fibre optic planner for BT
Openreach. They went to Scotland
for a fortnight, staying in Edinburgh
and the Highlands. “I’d always
wanted to go because I’m a
McKenzie,” she says.
“I had come out of a series of
terrible relationships,” says Kelly, who
was then living alone in Boston. “I’d
given up on the idea that I was going
to find someone.” In 2018, she left her
job as a consultant and moved into an
apartment in Reading with Vic.
“I wanted to give this a proper try,”
she says. “Everybody kept telling us it
will be hard and there will be
difficulties, but that never really
happened.” She describes Vic as
strong, smart, honest and loyal. “He’s
just a good man,” she says. “He brings
me more joy than anyone I’ve ever
known. He brings out the best in me.”
For Vic, their coming together was
a chance to lead a new life. “I’m
terribly grateful that I fell in love,” he
says. “To go 50-odd years without
being in love is a bit melancholy.
Maybe because it came late, I didn’t
really have any doubts that I was in
love. Kelly is the bravest person that I
know. She fights her corner on
everything. I love how fierce she is.”
She likes cooking, he does the
dishes. “We fell into patterns and
routines very easily,” she says. “It has
been magical for me.” He introduced
her to cricket, which is her new
passion, along with British detective
series.
“I’m very extrovert but I’m a
homebody,” says Kelly. “Vic is quite
introverted but he likes going out.
Marriages and engagements
‘She is the bravest person I know’
Both our needs get met just by
existing with the other.” She says: “I
am the luckiest person in the whole
world in that I am clearly into older
men and I finally found the one older
man who had never got married and
has no kids but is willing to get
married and have kids.”
In 2019 Vic proposed on bended
knee under a tree at Caversham
Court, a public garden by the River
Thames in Reading. Kelly has a BA in
art history from Georgetown
University and an MBA from UCLA
Anderson School of Management. It
was the Canalettos and
Gainsboroughs hanging on the walls
of Somerley House that led her to fall
in love with the grade II stately home
in Hampshire that they chose as their
wedding venue.
A hundred guests were sent save-
the-date cards to the three-day event
on September 26 this year. The
ceremony was to be held under a
500-year-old oak tree in the grounds
followed by a wedding breakfast and
dancing. “The part that was reallyWhen Vic met Kelly at a convention in Las Vegas, his focus was on retiring. “She whirlwinded her way into my life,” he says
New readers
Everyone says
Adley is a mini
Matt, but
some of his
mannerisms are
more like
Danielle’s. Their
son arrived
weighing 8lb 3oz.
“He’s very
responsive now and grabs everything
in sight, including my hair,” his
mother says. Danielle, head of
performing arts at a school who
teaches dance, drama and music, has
been singing nursery rhymes to him
every day so that he can recognise
melodies. “We are always listening to
music.” Matthew is head of PE at a
school and naturally would like to get
him into sports — rugby, football,
cricket, tennis and everything in
between. “We took him for his first
swim and he enjoyed it, so that was
something,” says Danielle. The plan is
to take him to lots of extracurricular
activities “and then he can see what
he enjoys the most”.“Ashley thinks
Xavier looks like
me, I think he
looks like Ashley,
and a lot of
people say he
looks like his
sister Saoirse,”
says Katie, whose
son arrived three
days after his due date, weighing 6lb
12oz. “He loves his food and is
sleeping quite well. We can’t
complain.”
The couple decided not to find out
the sex, as they did with Katie’s first
pregnancy. The name Xavier was
Ashley’s choice — “He had always
said if he had a son, that’s what
he would like to call him” —
though eight-year-old Saoirse (New
reader, January 12, 2013), who loves
being a big sister, prefers to call him
“Zay-Zay”. Xavier shares his middle
name, Beresford, with his paternal
grandfather; it is also Ashley’s middle
name. “We wanted to keep that
tradition,” Katie says.Kelly McKenzie, 31, a counsellor, and
Vic Sawyer, 52, a fibre optic planner,
were married on August 11, 2020, on
the Somerley Estate, near Ringwood,
in Hampshire
Xavier Beresford Woollery was
born on June 25, 2020, at the
Heartlands Hospital in Birmingham
to Katie, 34, and Ashley Woollery, 34Adley O’Hara Sutton was born on
May 9, 2020, at Watford General
Hospital in Hertfordshire to Danielle
O’Hara, 33, and Matthew Sutton, 32MIKI STUDIOS