Announcements

HEXHAM Abbey was the setting for the wedding of Jonathan Stokoe and Tanya Pakeman.
The bridegroom is the son Tom and Laurian Stokoe, of Hexham. A former pupil of the town’s Queen Elizabeth High School, he attended the University of Nottingham and is a managing consultant with Badenoch & Clark recruitment consultancy.
The bride is the daughter of David Pakeman, of Guildford, Surrey, and Sinikka Pakeman, of Cordes-sur-Ciel, France.
She attended South Hampstead High School and the University of Leeds, and is a senior manager at Coca-Cola Enterprise.
Given away by her father, she wore a one-shoulder taffeta dress, with a black waistband, and vintage-style net headpiece.
Her bouquet was a unique fan-shape, containing fuchsia roses and orchids.
The bride’s friends, Lizzy Mockford and Kate Healey, were chief bridesmaids, and the bridegroom’s sister, El Stokoe, and bride’s friends, Lucy Chisholm-Batten, Rachael Taylor and Anthea Ayache, were bridesmaids.
They wore one-shoulder black cocktail dresses with fuchsia shoes, and carried fuchsia rose ball-shaped posies.
Matt Rowe, the bridegroom’s friend since university, was best man and ushers were friends Tim Denyer, Matt Hodges and David Hobson.
The service was conducted by the Rev. Alan Currie and hymns and music included Wagner’s Bridal March, All things bright and beautiful, One more step along the world I go, and Finlandia by Jean Sibelius, accompanied at the organ by Marcus Wibberley.
The pew ends in the church were decorated with black fans and fuchsia roses.
Guests travelled to the reception at Newcastle’s Biscuit Factory in red double-decker buses, while the couple took a white London-style cab, celebrating the bride’s London roots.
The couple honeymooned in Las Vegas, Mexico and Miami.