Last weekend I trekked down to Bideford for a pretty special day – Tom Green’s wedding to Vicky!
Tom’s probably my oldest friend – we spend pretty much all our time together when we were kids… whilst at school we tried to start TV and radio stations, produced the school magazine and a yearbook, made a short film, wrote a ‘commercial’ computer game that earned us about £100(!), plus loads of other crazy ventures!
And then after school, we’ve kept in touch, firstly helping start up a community radio station together, and we’ve both then taken career paths in media – Tom in radio and me in tv and video. We even shared a house together in Birmingham in the summer of 1997!
Anyway, Tom’s been living in the UAE for the last few years, and was in Cairo before that, so we don’t see other loads, but do keep in touch online, and have caught up when he’s been back in the UK visiting family.
So when I was invited to his wedding down in Devon, there was no way I was going to miss it! It was a heck of a long journey down there from Manchester, but I stayed at a Travelodge on the M5 the night before to break it up a little bit, and then stayed in Bideford on the Saturday night after the reception.
The wedding service itself was in a really picturesque village church, and then everyone drove into the town for the reception in a hotel at the side of the river.
It was great to see them getting married – I’d not met Vicky before, but we had spoken once on a Skype call about a month ago! And I also got to catch up with Tom’s sister Ellen, who I hadn’t spoken to for about 20 years! It was a bit mad, because when I was younger, she was just Tom’s kid sister who we didn’t really have anything to do with, because that’s how it is when you’re kids! But it was really nice to see her now with her partner and young daughter, and just seemed really happy with life and stuff.
I also got to meet a few of Tom’s radio mates, which was cool – they were people I’ve heard him mention in the past, but never seen before. And it was good to say hello to his mum and dad, who again I’ve not seen for a very long time!
I’ve uploaded photos from the wedding here.
One extra thing – after the robbery at our old office, we’ve now moved the business into a new place. It’s in east Manchester, in a brand-new complex called The Sharp Project, and it’s designed to house digital and media businesses, as well as offering studio space to production companies. It’s pretty exciting, and we’ve only been in there a month, but hopefully it’ll prove to be a really good move for us!