Woodland wedding for Great Yorkshire Show
The Editor
A couple who hit the headlines with a successful marriage proposal at last year’s Great Yorkshire Show will be closing the circle at this year’s event when they say their wedding vows in the Forestry section.
Last year Peri Dunford waited until boyfriend Mark Jones had scaled the full height of one of the competition poles before getting down on one knee – in front of a cheering audience – and popping the big question on the final day of the Show.
The couple, who live in Garstang near Preston, are both involved in the Forestry section, with Peri horse logging and Mark horse logging and competitive pole climbing, so have chosen the woodland as the setting for their wedding on the first day of the Show.
Show director Rachel Coates said: “Although this is not the first wedding we have hosted during the Show it is in a unique location which is completely appropriate for a couple with such strong links to our Forestry section. We are honoured that they have chosen this space to tie the knot, and we wish them a long and happy future together.”
Mark and Peri discovered a mutual interest in horses when they first met in a pub and this was soon combined with Mark’s interest in arboriculture. Now both work in Mark’s arboricultural business and teach at Myerscough College, Mark teaching chainsaw and tree felling skills and Peri as an equine technician.
Getting married at the Show will not change their plans to carry on with their normal activities, with Mark planning to carry out his Great Yorkshire Pole Climbing heats on the day and both he and Peri will be demonstrating horse logging, using cob x Clydesdale and Ardennes horses, on behalf of the British Horse Loggers and in collaboration with Teamwork Horse Logging.
Around 20 guests are expected at the wedding, including witnesses Steffi Schaffler and her partner Dave Roycroft of Teamwork, and the bride will be led down the aisle by horses Stig and Tyne.
In August Peri and Mark will be heading off for a month-long honeymoon in Iceland and Norway.
Tickets are on sale now and sold in advance only for the 166th Great Yorkshire Show which will be held from Tuesday 8 July to Friday 11 July, on the Great Yorkshire Showground in Harrogate.
The very best of British agriculture will be under the national spotlight when the next Show will attract 140,000 visitors for a four-day celebration of farming, food and the countryside.
Some 8,500 animals will be exhibited in pursuit of all-important prize rosettes, and the future of the industry will be on display in a bigger and better Innovation Zone and by the Future Farmers of Yorkshire at their ever-popular Breakfast Meeting at the GYS Stage.
Free shuttle buses are operated by The Harrogate Bus Company every day of the Great Yorkshire Show. The buses run every 10 minutes from Harrogate Bus Station (next to the Railway Station) to the Showground’s White Gate, starting at 7.30am. The last bus departs the Showground at 7pm.
