There are so many big decisions one has to make after deciding to get hitched.
You have to find the perfect venue, the perfect wedding dress, and for some, the perfect wedding car.
For Jason Dorey and his wife to be, choosing the car was not a difficult decision. For the young couple had bought the vehicle they would celebrate their happy-ever-after in some years before.
Having come home from travelling and living in Essex, the pair decided they needed a second car – and this time round they were going to get a classic.
Jason, 43, said: “Neither of us particularly like modern cars, they are a bit soulless and so we decided to get a classic car.
“I wanted something with leather and wood for the interior, I didn’t really want a sports car, I wanted something comfortable.”
The father of two decided to research classic cars on the internet and to find out what clubs there were locally.
It was here that he found the Rover P4 Driver’s Guild, which would have a big role in bringing him together with his dream car.
“The chairman of the club lived 10 minutes from us so I decided to give him a ring and he was really helpful.
“I remember my grandad having a couple of these Rover as well so I had some childhood memories of this car.”
He explained the chairman ran a business servicing and repairing old Rovers and often had cars coming through for sale.
In 2000, he came across a 1962 Rover 100 – which Jason and his wife fell in love with straight away.
He said: “The previous owner had it from new and he was in his late 80s and hadn’t been able to drive for about six years due to health problems and eventually his family said to him ‘you can’t just leave this car rotting in the garage, you need to find someone who is going to look after it’.
“I think its colour made it really striking and the red leather, it just looked right. And the fact it had been well looked after, although the paint was a little dull. It drove lovely. We had looked at a couple before that were a bit ropey.
“I think modern cars, you drive around in them and to me, they are just a car. Some of the technology in modern cars is amazing but from a driving point of view, they leave me cold.”
The car was predominantly used as Jason’s mode of daily commuting until it would get its starring role at their wedding in 2003.
“We both just really liked the car and just seemed fitting that it was also ivory so it was the right colour and it would have been silly to hire another classic car,” he said.
“It was amazing on the day. Stan, the chairman of the Guild, he drove my car and my wife and father in law and another guy from the club drove me and my best man in his Rover so that was really nice.
“We got married in Kent so the journey from Essex into Kent and then onto the church was just amazing, just to arrive in one of these cars.
“People do generally like older cars and some classic cars can look a bit dowdy if they are grey or black but I think this stands out being ivory. With the ribbons on it, it just looked the part.”
A year later Jason decided to take the car off the road to give it a makeover.
“There were a couple of rust spots and the paint was quite flat, it didn’t shine or gleam so I just thought I’ll take it off the road now and restore it”, he said.
“The club were brilliant, all of them have restored a car at some point, so I thought I should do it while I’ve got this great support network and I had the time to do it.”
After stripping the car down, it was sent off for numerous jobs including spray painting and re-chroming.
And despite not being particularly mechanically minded, Jason managed to do a lot of the work himself.
“The interior didn’t really need a lot of work. I didn’t want to renew the leather ’cause it’s never the same, so I just cleaned it and rejuvenated the colour. I did the same with the carpets.
“The car got a sympathetic restoration. I wanted to keep as much of the original charm, the smell and the look as I could.”
Jason had planned to complete the restoration in three years. But like all timetables, it soon went out the window when other things came up.
He said: “I stripped the car quite quick and at the time I was working shift work so I could do that during the day and we just had the one child then so it was relatively easy to fit it in.
“I just did it bit by bit, I think then my wife became pregnant and I thought I must get this finished before the second one comes along. Then we moved house, and the new house didn’t have a garage so I had to put the car in a cocoon while we built a new garage. My wife was extremely sympathetic ’cause it meant we had to wait to get a new kitchen.
“Once the new garage was up, I was able to finish it off.”
But despite the one-year delay, Jason admits that the overall process was quite enjoyable.
He said: “I think it’s quite pleasurable to take something that looks a bit scruffy and horrible and bring it back to looking fantastic. It wasn’t particularly easy cause I’m not from a mechanical background so it was a real challenge for me.
“I was pleased with it. I tried to be meticulous without going over the top. I appreciated it more once I started driving it again – that’s what I like doing, I don’t like seeing it closed up in the garage. I like being out and about in it, it’s very relaxing.
“It was amazing to be driving around in this car and thinking ‘Crikey I’ve had this car completely apart and it still works’.”
Last year Jason moved his family up to Montgarrie, near Alford, and is excited to start taking the car out on the Aberdeenshire roads – and especially around the well established classic car scene.