TWO arts tutors have celebrated their love with a wedding surrounded by their loved ones.

Amanda Rutter, a 58-year-old who works at Pennington C of E Primary School, married the 51-year-old James Michael Rutter, who works at BAE Systems. 

The pair met in 2000 at Furness College when Amanda was a ceramics tutor, and James had completed his NVQ in Art and design.

"We both shared a passion for sculpture and still today continue our hobbies in our newly converted art studio and modelmaking room," said Amanda.

After the first lockdown in 2020, Amanda proposed to James.

She said: "I'd recently watched the film with Amy Adams and loved her idea of a marriage proposal in Ireland, but that wasn't to be due to the current global situation, so I sent him a text on the way home from a lockdown exercise walk - not very romantic I know, but it was a success, and he said yes."

The pair wanted a 'huge' celebration for their wedding and booked Hawcoat Park in Barrow following a small service at the registry office in Barrow on January 14 2023.

"We can say with our whole hearts, it was the best day of our lives," said Amanda.

"My dad walked me down the aisle, a very special moment. I am the last of 5 children to be married. He's 82, and I'm sure he thought he would never see the day. 

"Our only expectation for our wedding was that everyone loved being together as much as we did. I particularly was very composed on the day,  I believe that is unusual for a bride, so everything ran as smoothly and as perfectly as we could have wished for.

"We had a fantastic band Abbey Road playing brilliant music and Pete Murphy provided great entertainment throughout the night. We both have pretty different musical tastes - James loves dance music, and I love ballads, so our first dance song was a mixture of the two, The Sun Don't Shine by Klangkarussell.

"We can't thank everyone enough for all the generous gifts we received, one of which was a short break in the Lakes that we enjoyed shortly after the wedding."