SOMETHING old, something new, something borrowed, vindaloo – it’s fair to say happy Halesowen couple Lisa Hill and Paul Scobell’s wedding was a tad unusual.
Oh, and the something borrowed was a London bus. And a Volkswagen camper van.
The couple travelled from their ceremony to post-wedding drinks in the van then later rocked up at Halesowen’s Bangla restaurant – for, yes, an unusual wedding breakfast – in the bus, along with their guests.
“I just wanted to do something that wasn’t the norm, something a bit unconventional,” said blushing bride Lisa, 48.
“And we love curry so we thought, what better place to have our reception?”
The transportation, though, was a complete shock to Lisa, who explained: “My sister (Jenny Skyrme) organised the camper van and my dad thought it would be a good idea to use a bus so everybody could travel together to the restaurant.
“But I didn’t know it was going to be a London bus so that was a surprise!”
The newlyweds went from the red bus to the red carpet treatment at Bangla, where they partied the night away last Friday (November 23).
Lisa added: “I don’t think either of us expected the day to be as good as it was. Although I didn’t really have any curry because I was too busy talking to people!
“Everyone absolutely loved it and people said they had never been to a wedding like it.”
There was no rowdiness though – the guests wouldn’t dare, because the new husband and wife are both police officers.
Lisa – who works as a detective constable in Harborne – joked: “The restaurant was probably the safest place to be in Halesowen last Friday night!”
The pair, from Blackberry Lane, went to the same school, Earls High School but, in Lisa’s words, their lives ‘took a different path’ before they got together six and a half years ago.
Paul, a police constable in intelligence based in Birmingham, has been married once before and his 10-year-old daughter Evie was the couple’s flower girl.
He said: “It was a fantastic night, amazing – although if I’m brutally honest, I can’t remember too much about it!”
Last week’s festivities were for close friends and family, so the couple – who plan to honeymoon in Thailand in the New Year – are having a second reception at Hasbury Conservative Club this weekend.
That one’s a bit more low-key – just Elvis and Neil Diamond tributes and a fish and chip van…
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