Tamsin Moore, 29, and Thomas Turner, 32, both paramedics for
the Welsh Ambulance Service, were married on November 21, 2021, at
the Grove of Narberth hotel in Pembrokeshire
Tamsin and Tom had just finished their first dance when her older sister, Eleanor, surprised everyone with a dance performance of her own. The newlyweds were handed mortar boards to wear as Eleanor performed When I Kissed the Teacher, one of her favourite songs from the film Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again.
“Not many brides are OK with being upstaged but I was quite happy for her to upstage me that day,” says Tamsin. She was thrilled to have Eleanor, 32, who has Down’s syndrome, at her wedding after it was postponed twice due to Covid and Eleanor had been in isolation for 14 months. “To have her there was extra special,” says Tamsin.
Tamsin and Tom met while training to be paramedics at the University of Plymouth. He was previously a beach lifeguard with the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. She thought he was attractive and made a beeline for him at a faculty party. They became good friends and sat next to one another in lectures.
Tamsin would cook supper for Tom and her two male housemates on the proviso that the men would bring wine and wash up. “You could tell he had a good heart,” she says. She spent three years trying to convince Tom that they should be more than just good friends. He puts his reluctance down to the fear of losing a friend if a closer relationship did not work out.
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After graduating, Tamsin went back home to work as a paramedic in Cornwall and Tom to Southampton. It was then that he realised how much he missed her. He let Tamsin know and, a month later, suggested that they move to Pembrokeshire where he grew up. Tamsin took the approach: “If I don’t try, I’m never going to know.”
In 2015, the couple moved into a rented barn on a farm and worked as paramedics. Tamsin also ran a cake company for a short time. “Neither of us are shouty or argumentative,” she says. “If we ever hit a little rut and didn’t agree on something, we’d just talk about it and sort it out. It was fun. It made us realise that we’d missed out on a few years, but it was nice to have the friendship grounding.”
They work at different ambulance stations but can talk about their work with a shared understanding. They know when to turn off the TV if something comes on that might be triggering. “We try to keep work as work and home as home,” she says. In 2016 they moved to the coast. Tom proposed the following year on a bench overlooking the sea. Tamsin said “yes” before he had even popped the question.
Tom’s older brother got engaged around the same time so they decided to wait and marry in May 2020. They planned a wedding for 160 guests on a farm with yurts in Pembrokeshire but then delayed it a year due to Covid. The date then changed again to last November because of restrictions, by which time they decided that they wanted a smaller wedding that would be safer for Eleanor.
“My parents, at her birth, were told that she was unlikely to get past teenage years,” says Tamsin. Eleanor was Tamsin’s inspiration to become a paramedic. She lives in sheltered accommodation but went back home to isolate with her parents during the pandemic. Tamsin would send her craft kits and puzzles to relieve the boredom.
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Tamsin and Tom switched to a smaller venue, the Grove of Narberth, a luxury hotel in Pembrokeshire, and cut their guestlist to 31. Tamsin made their wedding stationery and cake. Her eldest sister, Naomi, who is a set decorator, lent her expertise. Tom’s brother passed on “free decor” from his wedding.
Tamsin surprised herself by sobbing as she walked up the aisle with her father to Christina Perri’s A Thousand Years. Her friend, Jenny, who is a colleague and lives next door, was a bridesmaid along with her two sisters; Jenny’s husband read a poem that he had written. The newlyweds walked out to the Monkees’ I’m a Believer.
Tom gave an uncharacteristically emotional speech at the wedding breakfast. “It was nice to really see him let go a little bit,” says Tamsin. The newlyweds’ first dance was to You’ve Got a Friend in Me from the film Toy Story. It is the song they play when one of them wakes up after a night shift.
“When Covid first hit, none of us really knew what was going to happen,” says Tamsin. “When Tom and I first went to work after it all kicked off, we wondered whether we would both be around long enough to get married.”
In 2020 they bought their first house. They have an inflatable boat and go spear-fishing in the summer followed by barbecues on the beach. Tamsin has a horse, Peter, and Tom is doing an MSc in advanced clinical practice. “When she goes away, it’s lonely without her,” he says.