84 Saturday May 28 2022 | the times
Readers’ Lives
The perfect gift
for new parents
‘She has her father’s eyes
and face shape but her
mother’s lips and nose’
Celebrate the arrival of
a newborn in Readers’
Lives, a service in
contracted tributesCall 020 7782 5583 or email
[email protected]50%
discount for
subscribersPIPPA SUZANNE DRACOTT WAS BORN ON MAY 28, 2020,
AT BROOMFIELD HOSPITAL IN CHELMSFORD, ESSEX,
TO CLAIRE, 30, AND GARY DRACOTT, 30brother. Kelly was confused when
Stephen’s family disappeared at the
end of a husky ride. Charlie was there
as Stephen then went down on one
knee. She was so surprised that she
fell over in the snow.
She started planning their wedding
while they were still on their trip and
arranged a viewing at Gaynes Park, a
barn wedding venue on a private
estate in Epping, Essex. Stephen is a
keen gardener — a passion he shares
with Kelly’s father — so they wanted
a lot of greenery.
By the time they finally gotmarried, their suppliers felt like
friends. Kelly enjoys making things
and created a 3D memory tree as a
way of including late family members
in their celebrations. Her friend, who
is a seamstress, added sleeves and a
gauze back with pearl buttons to her
wedding dress to make the shift from
a spring to an autumn wedding.
Charlie had grown out of his hired
suit by the time of the wedding. His
parents dashed out the night before to
buy him one. They invited 120 guests
to the 1.30pm ceremony in the
Orangery, which sits in a Victorian
walled garden.
Kelly’s cousin, who was her
“bridesman”, entered first with
Charlie, followed by two bridesmaids.
The wind picked up Kelly’s veil as she
walked in with her father. Charlie was
included in their vows and he chose
the orchestral theme from the
animated film How to Train Your
Dragon for their exit from the
ceremony.
“I have the habit of talking quite a
lot,” says Kelly, explaining why she
did not give a speech. One of the
highlights of the day for her was
watching Charlie run around with his
friends from school. The first dance
was an acoustic cover of Carly Rae
Jepsen’s Call Me Maybe, which played
a lot on the radio when they were
first dating.
Kelly and Stephen are currently on
a two-week honeymoon in Bali.
Charlie did not get to go but he has a
treat of his own: Kelly’s parents are
taking him to Disneyland Paris.If you would like to feature a
wedding or engagement or the
birth of a child on these pages, call
020 7782 5583, Mon-Fri, to discuss
the content and cost, or email:
[email protected]
thetimes.co.uk/static/terms-and-conditionsKelly and Stephen’s wedding
photographs are particularly special.
As well as a treasured record of the
day they got married, they are a
precious memory of a joyful occasion
shared with his father, Martin, who
died unexpectedly a few months later.
The couple had postponed their
wedding three times and waited a
year and a half to get married because
of Covid. Their wedding gave Stephen
the opportunity to tell his father in
his speech how much he appreciated
him.
The couple had met working part-
time in the clothes shop AllSaints. He
fell for her immediately, but she took
a little longer to appreciate his
charms. She found him “a bit
annoying” at first. “He was very
persistent trying to chat to me all the
time,” she says. She disproved what he
called his “unfair assumption” that
someone so attractive could not also
be so nice.
They would chat in the stockroom
and go for lunch together. He
graduated with a degree in music
performance from the Academy of
Contemporary Music in Guildford
and was setting up a business with a
friend, White Wall Music, writing
music for film and video games. She
was studying fashion at college in
Southend.
They kept in contact as friends
during the summer break in 2012
when Stephen, a drummer, did a stint
performing on a cruise ship with his
three-piece band. In his absence,
Kelly realised how much she liked
him. “He is very kind-hearted,” she
says.
On his return, they took his
parents’ dog for a long walk. Their
second date was at London’s Sky Bar.
Stephen was then living with his
parents in Upminster, east London,
and Kelly was based at her family
home in Essex. “She is the kindest,
most sensitive, most determined
person that I have ever met,” he says.
Their relationship developed and it
was a surprise when Kelly discovered
that she was pregnant in 2014. “It was
quite stressful when you are that
young,” she says. “We grew up very
quickly.” Their son, Charlie, who is
now seven years old, was the ring
bearer at their wedding. “Everything
Stephen does is for me and Charlie,”
she says.
Marriages and engagements
Shop floor romance is the real deal
In 2016, they moved into a rented
flat near her family home. Two years
later, they bought a house in
Upminster, which they now share
with their cocker spaniel, Sienna.
Stephen says he felt secure enough in
their relationship not to need to get
married, but he recognised that it was
important to Kelly who wanted all
three of them to have the same
surname.
His mother helped him to choose
an engagement ring, which he tucked
away until they were on a trip to
Lapland with his parents and youngerStephen and Kelly met working part-time in the clothes shop AllSaints and he
says he fell for her immediately. They had to postpone their wedding three timesNew readers
Every time Jamie
and Erin would
travel from their
home in London
to the hospital
for check-ups,
they’d pass Bow,
in east London.
So when their
first child was
born and they couldn’t agree on a
name, they decided it was fitting to
name him after this regular
geographical feature.
In her first trimester, Erin had a
mild aversion to all vegetables,
replacing them with cheese and crisps
and, in the lead-up to the big day,
spicy food and regular “crab-walking”
down the stairs. Like his parents, Beau
is fun and lively: he calms down only
when being danced around to music.
Jamie and Erin were considering
taking him to the Glastonbury festival
but decided instead on the next best
thing: “Cabababarave”, a parent-
children day rave in Leyton, which,
Erin says, is more for the parents than
the children. Jamie is less keen on the
idea. The next stop is “Raver Tots”.Compared with
their two-year-
old daughter Ella,
whom Seb and
Laura raised in
Exeter under
lockdown
restrictions,
bringing up Remy
has so far been a
breeze. The family recently moved to
the New Forest, where Laura grew up,
and they are surrounded by
countryside and horses which Remy
can spot from his bedroom window.
What’s more, John Lewis, where both
Sebastian and Laura work, have
altered their paternity leave policy and
Sebastian is thrilled that he’ll get three
months to settle in with Remy. “It’s
been a real game-changer.”
They wanted to give Remy a French
name to honour Seb’s roots, but, with
George as a middle-name, “Louis
George sounded too royal”, muses Seb.Kelly Moran, 30, an office manager,
and Stephen Hewitt, 32, head of
broker channel at Iwoca, a small
business lender, were married on
October 3, 2021, at Gaynes Park in
Epping, Essex
Remy George Blevings was born
on May 10, 2022, at the Princess
Anne Hospital in Southampton to
Laura Bentley, 33, and Sebastian
Blevings, 51Beau George Woodburn was born
on February 27, 2022, at Homerton
University Hospital in London to
Jamie Wood, 33 and Erin Burn, 36WWW.JULIAANDYOU.COM