7 Years, a Farm, a Business and One Very Unexpected Ring

Ollie and I have been together for seven years, and in that time we've managed to build a business, start a farm, grow our off-grid life and generally make things quite difficult for ourselves by constantly coming up with new things we want to do.

We've also somehow managed to get to seven years together without getting engaged, which is quite impressive considering we spend practically every waking minute together.

You see, our relationship doesn't really have any boundaries. Between Herd & Hive, which involves my family, and the farm, which involves Ollie's family, there's not really a point in the day where we're not doing something, talking about something that needs doing, or planning something else we probably don't have time for.

We don't have that thing where one person comes home from work and tells the other about their day. Because the other person was probably there. Or, at the very least, they've heard about it already, possibly several times.

Our idea of a romantic evening is getting to sit down together without one of us suddenly remembering something that needs doing. And even then, there's a strong chance we'll end up talking about the business, the farm, the animals or some new idea we've had that will inevitably create more work for both of us.

We've basically spent seven years building a life together, with very little idea of where work ends and normal life begins.

And honestly, I don't think either of us would have it any other way.

It's not always easy, of course. When you work together, you can't exactly leave a bad day at the office, especially when the office is wherever you've decided to work that day. But when something goes right, there's nobody I'd rather celebrate with. We've built Herd & Hive together, we've started creating our own little farm, and we've made a life that's completely our own, even if it does involve an unreasonable amount of jobs.

So getting married was never something we didn't want to do. It just wasn't something we'd particularly thought about. We'd been so busy getting on with everything else that it hadn't exactly been top of the priority list.

Apparently, building an entire business and starting a farm takes precedence over getting engaged.

Who knew?

Anyway, a few weeks ago, we actually managed to have a day off. A proper day off, where we weren't rushing off to do something for the business or the farm. I'm not entirely sure how we managed it, but we did.

Naturally, we decided to go for a walk up Ingleborough. Because when you've spent most of your life working, the obvious way to relax is to walk up a massive hill.

We made our way to the top, sat down and ate scones, which is a pretty decent way to spend a day if you ask me. It was just a normal day out for us. No reason to suspect anything was about to happen, no big plans, just the two of us getting some time together without a million other things demanding our attention.

And then Ollie proposed.

I genuinely didn't believe him.

I kept saying, "Are you serious?" Over and over again. I reckon I must have said it about ten times, which probably wasn't quite the reaction he'd imagined when he decided to ask me to marry him.

There I was, on top of Ingleborough, trying to work out if my boyfriend of seven years was actually proposing to me or whether I was missing something.

He was serious.

And yes, I did eventually manage to get past the disbelief and say yes.

It was a complete shock, which made it all the more special. There was no elaborate plan involving a fancy hotel or a romantic weekend away. We weren't dressed up, there weren't hundreds of people watching, and I certainly hadn't spent the day expecting to come home engaged.

It was just us, doing something we'd have happily done anyway, eating scones on a hill.

And somehow, that felt completely right.

I think that's the funny thing about us. We've never really been a couple who needed to make a big deal out of milestones or follow a particular timeline. We've just got on with life, figuring things out as we've gone along, and somehow ended up here.

But underneath all the laughing and me repeatedly asking if he was serious, it was a really lovely moment.

Because although the proposal was a surprise, the thought of spending the rest of my life with Ollie wasn't.

We've already done so much together. We've taken risks, started things from scratch, made plenty of mistakes, worked through difficult days and celebrated the things we've managed to achieve. We've built something together without ever really stopping to think about how much we've actually done.

And I think that's what makes it so exciting. We're not starting our life together. We're already living it.

We're just making it official.

So, September 2028 is the plan. We've got a wedding to organise, which should be interesting given that we can turn even the simplest idea into a full-blown project.

One thing we do know is that we want the wedding to be so 'us'.

If you could somehow sum up everything that makes up our life, throw it all together and turn it into a wedding, that's pretty much what we're going for.

Bright colours, the outdoors, animals, nature, family, farming and as much homemade stuff as we can physically manage to produce between now and then.

We're not particularly interested in a perfectly polished, traditional wedding where everything has to match and you're not allowed to touch anything in case you ruin the aesthetic. We'd much rather have something full of personality, a bit quirky, full of colour and made up of things that actually mean something to us.

And when I say homemade, I mean we're probably going to end up making practically everything ourselves.

The decorations, the little details, the things that people probably wouldn't even think twice about at somebody else's wedding. We'll want to make them, paint them, build them or somehow turn them into a project that takes three times longer than buying them would have done.

Because apparently we can't just enjoy an occasion. We have to create an enormous amount of work for ourselves first.

But that's also the point. I love the idea of looking around on the day and knowing that we've made it all happen ourselves. That the things people are sitting on, looking at and walking past have been built, decorated or put together by us, our families or the people around us.

And that's where our community comes into it, too.

One of the best things about building Herd & Hive has been the people we've met along the way. We've got such an amazing community around us, from the people who've supported the business from the beginning to the other small businesses, makers, farmers and lovely people we've met through doing what we do.

These people have become such a big part of our lives, and I don't think we'd want to celebrate something as important as this without them being part of it in some way.

We've always been surrounded by people who are brilliant at what they do, full of ideas, creative, generous and willing to muck in. So rather than having a wedding where everything is brought in, set up by strangers and packed away again at the end, we'd love to involve the people around us and make it something we all have a hand in.

Whether that's creating things, helping us bring our ideas to life or simply being there on the day, we want it to feel like a celebration of the people and the community that have helped shape our lives, not just a party for the two of us.

Our families are such a massive part of everything we do and between us all we've built a life where the people around us aren't just people we see occasionally. They're involved in the everyday stuff, the hard work, the exciting bits and all the chaos in between.

So having everyone together to celebrate feels far more important than having everything look perfect.

I think that's what makes it so exciting. We're not just planning a wedding, we're creating another thing together, with the people we love, in a way that feels completely ours. There'll be bright colours, homemade everything, animals somewhere they probably shouldn't be, and a lot of people who've helped make our lives what they are. And knowing us, there'll also be a ridiculous amount of work involved and at least one minor disaster along the way.

But that's fine. We've got nearly two years, after all. What could possibly go wrong?