Your Devon and Cornwall Wedding - Page number 59 - November/December 2021 (Issue 34)

FOOD GLORIOUS FOOD We’re having an elopement wedding in Cornwall and want to enjoy a pre-wedding dinner with both sets of parents beforehand. We all love seafood so where do you suggest? Meet the expert: Jack Stein is the son of famous Cornish chef Rick Stein, owner of The Seafood Restaurant in Padstow. Cornwall. Jack now works as the chef director across the Rick Stein Group having started his career from an early age when he worked as a porter in his father’s Cornish restaurant before moving to front of house when he was just 16 years old. Jack then travelled the world learning about culinary delicacies in every corner of the globe before returning to Cornwall. He has published a recipe book and starred in several television shows. Jack says: Cornwall is famous for its seafood and the crab here is amazing. In my opinion, it’s one of the best crabs in the world. Over on the east coast, they’re quite small but here in Padstow they’re huge and can weigh up to one and a half kilogrammes. I love eating them boiled and served with mayonnaise, keeping them nice and simple. You don’t need to play around with fish too much because it’s so tasty anyway. On the whole, shellfish is sustainable, delicious and we have plenty of it here. 01841 532 700 | www.rickstein.com/restaurants/the-seafood- restaurant | www.instagram.com/ricksteinrestaurants CHURCH ON TIME We can’t decide between booking a church wedding or having a civil ceremony – can you advise us? Meet the expert: The Bishop of Crediton, the Right Reverend Jackie Searle, has recently helped launch the Devon Church Weddings project aimed at encouraging more couples to get married in church and also to showcase some of the 600 Anglican churches across Devon, many of which are Grade I listed and in beautiful coastal or rural locations. Jackie says: I love marrying couples in church and adore the beauty of a church wedding, from the traditional moments and personal touches to the familiar words reflecting the individuality of each couple. A wedding in church offers a holy and spiritual dimension and the Devon Church Weddings project works with churches to ensure that prospective wedding couples receive a warm welcome and are supported through the process. A church is a beautiful and special place in which to make marriage promises, celebrate love and be blessed. There’s a beautiful moment in the service that always moves me after the couple have exchanged their vows and made their promises, where the vicar takes their hands and wraps them in the priestly stole and declares that they are now married. It symbolises that their love for each other, all that has just been promised and declared, is held in the even greater love of God. At the heart of any wedding service or ceremony is love. The love of two people who are committing themselves to one another for the rest of their lives. They are joyful occasions and each one is so different. By the time you reach the wedding day, there is often a great bond that has grown between the couple and the priest from the first meeting, where you talk through practicalities and set the date, through to the wedding rehearsal and the big day itself. As a vicar, you want to do your best for each couple to make their wedding truly wonderful. Two words come to mind when describing a church wedding - relationship and blessing. Your relationship is at the heart of the service. In the sealing of your relationship with each other, you are from then on related to that church – your names are in the register and the church will always be there for you in the future. The blessing element of a wedding is also really important. It doesn’t mean that everything will go smoothly or that nothing bad will ever happen. Christian blessing is a deep faith that God is with us and wants good for us. Many couples who come to church to marry find they become part of a church community who love and support them through their future life. Weddings have taken place in churches for generations, with families and friends gathering to celebrate. 01392 294 905 | www.devonchurchweddings.org www.instagram.com/devonchurchweddings www.gettyimages.co.uk www.gett yimages.co.uk EXPERT ADVICE 59