How to get married – a guide by Claire

This is my written draft of my wedding speech, on 28th June 2025 to Mr Spokey Dokey.

Step 1 – First, find someone who shares your passion.  So for me that is bikes and so when I saw Rob’s online profile listing ‘Hiking and Biking Guy from York’ I thought it sounds like he might fit the bill. Now for those of you who have not experience the delights of online dating, not everything that people say online is true. This even includes whether they like cycling. I had someone try to convince me that they liked cycling with their rusty old apollo, that lived in their garden. I didn’t think they’d understand why I used to have a bike shop in my living room and 7 bikes in my hall way. So it was important that any potential suitor actually understood the level of passion I had for bikes.

Rob kept his beautiful Bianchi mounted and illuminated on his living room wall, he is a Campagnolo aficionado so that meant we were able to converse in sufficient levels of bike jargon to my satisfaction.

Step 2 – Dating – So we had to have some test dates, our first date was hike, I’m pretty sure he was testing my claim to be hiker, by taking me on 3 hour hike and also checking if I could maintain interesting conversation for that length of time. I think I passed.

That was followed by another date on our bikes. He passed with flying colours, however despite arriving in the Spokey Dokey van, I had a mechanical, not your usual issue like a flat tyre or gear issues, no my saddle fell off my bike. Which was embarrassing, but kindly overlooked by Rob, who didn’t let on if he doubted my mechanical abilities.

Step 3 – Fall in love 

I’ve been in love before. I’ve been in relationships before but only one where I was properly deeply in love. Many of you here will know Chris and will know that we were in love, I loved him deeply and he loved me. I was devasted to lose him. When you are in love and you lose someone, the love doesn’t go anywhere. I read something that really made sense to me which is that grief is just love with no place to go. And so I hold onto that love, in here (in my heart) and it comforts me. When you are in love with someone you grow together, you experience things together and those shared experiences shape who you are. Being loved changes you. I am a different and better person because Chris was in my life and he is still here with me, part of me. I like to think he helped and helps me make good choices and helped me choose Rob to fall in love with.

Note – What is love?

I think there are many that have come before me that have tried to define this. I doubt I’ll be as poetic as any of them. My definition of love is about choosing someone over and over again. It’s not about the bikes rides, or the fun times, or the cuddles. It’s about choosing someone to care for, to keep safe, to help thrive  in the good times and the bad times. And I choose Rob, for his confidence, his passion, his sense of fun and zest for life, and all the million other things that I can’t even put into words and he chooses me even when I’m grumpy, hormonal, difficult.  (he’ll have to explain why.)

Why love – well that’s a bit different. There are some practical bits to this, it really helps if you share some interests and values, but really the best way I can describe this is that your souls fit together. And what shapes your soul is everything that has come before. Like spokes of a wheel.

My soul fits alongside Rob’s soul. I am shaped by all of the spokes of my life and Rob is another wheel, with his spokes and we are now joined together a complete bicycle, pedalling in the same direction off into the sunset.

Step 4 – Propose

So traditionally, men propose to women except on the 29^th Feb. Me and Rob are not very traditional. After visiting my lovely friend Hannah and Stu, I felt very inspired to get married and decided I was going to propose. Rob and I lived together but getting married is not just above love it’s practical too, you can change your name. Oh except that I’m not. I’ve suggested to Rob that he become Mr Claire Sharpe, he doesn’t seem keen, we thought about formally becoming Claire Spokey and Rob Dokey, as we know were saved in most of your phones as Claire Spokey Dokey. We’ve decided to keep our names just as they are.  The other practical part of getting married is that you are legally recognised as spouses and I realised this was important to me. I wanted to recognise Rob as my family, I thought Rob shared that view, but I kept the proposal a surprise. I ordered a ring, after pondering if men wore engagement rings, I kept it hidden away waiting for the right moment, which I decided was Christmas day morning. A bit of a gamble as if he’d said no, we would have had an awkward day and difficult Christmas alone together. Luckily he said yes.

Step 5 – Get hitched

Rob and I initially discussed eloping on some cycling adventure, we thought maybe cycling through Italy or Iceland and stopping someone to tie the knot would be fabulous. However we kept coming back to the idea of a party with our friends to celebrate, so after playing with this idea for a while we realised that celebrating with our friends was what we really wanted to do and actually celebrating right here in Whixley was also pretty important to us. Whixley is a fantastic place, full of fantastic people and without you today wouldn’t have happened. We are very happy to call this place home.

Thank you to everyone for coming here to celebrate with us.

I would like to thank some people specifically;

Clare Beckett for helping choose my dress and adjusting it, as well as providing the flowers

Liz Amies-King for helping me get organised, taking me shopping and generally making sure I got the details sorted and for doing my hair

Dena for patiently helping me with my make-up, something I shunned several years ago in favour of being a sweaty cyclist.

Jasmine, Tina, Diane and Cokie (also known as book club) for helping with wedding favours and stationary and generally tolerating my quirkiness

Tracy for provided lots of alcohol and furniture

Lola for telling me I was being over ambitious with my initial ideas

All of the wonderful people who have provided the delicious food and helped decorate the hall and church, which is often a feature of a Whixley event making our wedding feel like wonderful community spirited event. A massive thank you to everyone for coming.

Just to finish – step 6 – live happily ever after

As many of you know, we are off on our honeymoon next month. We are racing in the Transcontinental race. This is an ultra-cycling race across Europe from North West Spain to Romania, coast to coast, it will be around 5000km, we are not well trained and this might be a bit of a test for us physically as well as a test for us as newlyweds. However we are really excited to be taking on this challenge together. But that is just the start.

Our spokes will need adjusting, our bicycles will need servicing, we will need to keep ourselves fit and healthy for this adventure and for the rest of our journey together. We will need to keep choosing each other even when we’re a bit old and rusty. We are two wheels on a bicycle, so please raise a glass to my husband, Rob, Mr Spokey Dokey.