Lisa Bartlett, 43, assistant director of service development at Brook, the sexual health and wellbeing charity, and Geoff Eden, 49, managing director of Vista Architecture, were married on September 24, 2022, at Brooklands Museum in Weybridge, Surrey
Just after saying “I do”, Lisa squeezed herself into the cockpit of Concorde. She was in the co-pilot’s seat. Her husband, Geoff, was in the pilot’s seat. “It was a good job I didn’t have a big dress,” she says.
Geoff loves cars and they married at Brooklands Museum in Weybridge, where McLarens and Hawker Hurricanes are just a few of the vehicles and aircraft on display. “We wanted somewhere quirky,” she says.
Lisa and Geoff met through a dating app — he was attracted by a photograph of her outdoors wearing a grey woolly beret. Their first date was at a cocktail bar in London in 2013. “We had a good laugh,” she says. On saying goodbye, he surprised her with a kiss. At the time, Lisa’s grandmother was unwell and her mother had died in 2009. Geoff was separating from his first wife and his father had died earlier that year.
Lisa understood the impact on Geoff. “I was just so aware of how raw I had been in that first year after losing my mum,” says Lisa. On reflection, he says: “It was maybe part of the bonding. We both could relate to the loss.”
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Lisa was then living in Forest Hill, southeast London, and Geoff was in Surrey. In 2015 she moved into his house, where they still live. She waited until after his divorce before hanging any of her pictures.
Geoff, a “Geordie boy” from Gosforth, studied architecture at the University of Aberdeen and now runs his own practice, Vista Architecture. Before meeting Lisa, he spent 13 years doing up a VW Beetle, Jolene. “She was a little gem,” he says.
Lisa grew up in south Gloucestershire and thought she might become an actress until she studied English and drama at the University of Manchester. “I realised there were a lot of people who were better than me,” she says. She went on to do an MA in gender and international relations at the University of Bristol.
She has run eight marathons, including an ultra-marathon, and enjoys a shared passion with Geoff for design. “Lisa is a bit more fiery,” he says. “She is very determined both in personal and work situations. And incredibly caring, which sometimes doesn’t look like caring. She can be very direct.”
They wanted children and in 2016 had a baby boy, JJ, who died at 17 weeks. Their son, Oliver, was born two years later. “We had always said if we had children we would get married,” says Lisa. In 2019, Geoff suggested a snowboarding trip to Tignes, France. They were at the top of a mountain when he proposed on one knee with her mother’s engagement ring.
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Their daughter, Billie, was born two months before the first lockdown in 2020. “It was tough,” says Lisa. “Nobody could come in and out.” They started out with the idea of a small wedding, but that changed. “Everyone needed a blow-out party,” says Geoff. They booked Brooklands and invited 100 guests.
“I’d never really imagined myself getting married,” says Lisa. She tried on lots of dresses with her older sister, and Billie was thrilled with her bridesmaid dress.
“It is lovely to have your children at the wedding, but trying to plan and prepare for getting married with two young children is actually quite hard work,” says Lisa. Oliver and Billie kept asking: “Is it tomorrow?”
The 2pm ceremony was held in the Vickers Suite alongside the front end of a Vickers biplane. Lisa walked in with her father, and Billie, to Finbar Furey’s The Galway Shawl, which was a favourite of her mother. Oliver was the ring bearer. Some of the gold from Lisa’s mother’s wedding ring was made into their wedding bands. After a simple ceremony, Lisa and Geoff walked out to Glen Campbell’s Wichita Lineman, as a nod to his father, who loved it. They were given a tour of Brooklands in a red Railton Terraplane car. Drinks were served outside and guests enjoyed the Formula One simulator. After the sit-down meal, Billie and Oliver joined in the first dance to Neil Young’s Harvest Moon. “We swayed and the children dragged us round,” says Lisa. Oliver is still talking about the light-up dancefloor and has been asking: “Can we do it again?”
Lisa’s sister looked after the children while she and Geoff went on honeymoon to Menorca. As part of their wedding package, they have a year’s membership to Brooklands.
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“We’ve had some tough times,” says Lisa, “and Geoff still always makes me laugh.”