Sarah & Ben’s Muddy Ever After

“He stood out asking me questions about my goats; I was the crazy goat girl and he the agri engineer.”

It was recently reported that a bride-to-be will spend, on average, 524 hours planning the finer details of a perfect wedding day with ‘wedding mode’ taking up over 44 weeks of head space.

Imagine then having to balance that level of commitment whilst knee deep in the middle of lambing season with a rare breed flock that had quadrupled in size from ‘a few hobby sheep’ as well as the wagju calves and the odd goat.

Throw in a significant other who was gearing up for the upcoming harvest – and you can put yourself in the ever so muddy boots of Sarah and her muddy match, Ben, who enjoyed their #MuddyEverAfter earlier this year.

Sarah, who started in the agri-business rearing kid goats for gourmet meat, first exchanged messages with Ben on Muddy Matches in December 2016 after “he stood out asking me questions about my goats; I was the crazy goat girl and he the agri engineer.”

It was a rural romance that would bloom into starting up a rare breed sheep farm together and then a gloriously farm-themed wedding in May 2019.

“We got married at West Carlton Guest House, not far from our home in East Yorkshire,” Sarah tells us. “We haven’t had a honeymoon yet as, at the time of getting married, we were still lambing so it was a hectic time, then Ben was straight into the hay and harvest.”

With such pressures on time, it was those nearest and dearest to the muddy couple who were in the thick of it when it came down to the detail on their day to remember on May 4th.

“Our wedding was full of farm themes,” Sarah says with pride. “Everything we had for the wedding was homemade and mostly made by farmers’ wives or family and friends.”

“We had a sheep hurdle to mount our table plan on and our table numbers were on different farm animals. There were milk churns and milk jugs for the flower arrangement and our wedding favours were corn dollies.”

“Our flowers were all grown by one of my best friends’ mums, who is also a farmer. My mum, aunt and brother made the cakes and our friend iced and hand painted scenes from our life; he painted some of our sheep as one of the scenes. Our friends Caroline and Tim own the venue.”

Whilst friends and family did the leg work, Sarah and Ben’s four-legged loved ones – from the Coloured Ryelands and Shetlands to the Teeswaters and Kerry Hills – enjoyed a starring role in their big day – not least her beloved ‘Suki’.

“My pet lamb Suki was a flower girl. She wore a collar and lead that matched the bridesmaid dresses and my niece and nephew walked up the aisle with her. I had a crook made for my nephew to carry instead of flowers.”

“Funnily enough, the pre wedding gift that Ben and I got for each other were sheep crooks; It was totally unexpected that we both thought of the same type of gift for each other.

“I wore a shawl had felted from sheep fleece and my niece carried a horseshoe hand felted from some our own sheep fleece.”

As for their Muddy Matches experience, Sarah is more than happy to recommend it.

“It’s a great site, the majority of members seem genuine; It’s totally different to any other dating site that I have previously used, people are fully clothed in their profiles for a start!

“We have several friends that have met on Muddy Matches and are now married or engaged.
I would encourage anyone to join as there is really nothing to lose!

Here at Muddy Matches, we thank Sarah and Ben for sharing their #MuddyEverAfter love story with us.