A Handmade Vintage Wedding in London — Vicky and Ross

Huge con­grat­u­la­tions then to today’s beau­ti­ful bride and gor­geous groom, and thank you for such a fab wed­ding report! Thank you also to my won­der­ful friend and wed­ding blog spon­sor the lovely Louise Bjor­ling. Louise is a Lon­don wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher and you can read more about her via her link in the top menu of the Eng­lish Wed­ding Blog.

Louise recently wrote a series of advice arti­cles for cou­ples on choos­ing the per­fect wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher — read How to find the wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher for you, How to pre­pare your­self for the pho­tog­ra­phy on your day and How to get the best wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy on the day itself.

Oh! And don’t miss Ross’s mem­o­rable moments from the wed­ding in the para­graphs towards the end of the arti­cle. They’ll make you smile, I promise! He’s so lovely!

Every­one — enjoy today’s wed­ding blog! Claire xxx

Vicky and Ross — a beau­ti­ful vin­tage hand­made wed­ding in London

Wed­ding venue: Isling­ton Town Hall with a recep­tion at Christchuch Spi­tal­fields
Wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher: Lon­don wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher Louise Bjor­ling

We wanted a civil cer­e­mony that was not too long but expressed our per­son­al­i­ties and had our favorite songs play­ing through out. The bride walked out to ‘This is the first day of my Life’ by Bright eyes. Whilst we signed the reg­is­ter we played a long track by Fela Kuti a famous Niger­ian Afro­jazz musi­cian (The bride is half Niger­ian and half Ser­ria leonan)

Which read­ings did you choose?

The One (author unknown)
The Future — by Emma Salmon

Tell us a lit­tle about your wed­ding venue styling and details:

Isling­ton town hall was ideal as it had a large coun­cil cham­ber which was big enough to house my large African fam­ily. It was also cir­cu­lar which gave it a lovely feel, so every­one could see and we lit­er­ally felt like our fam­ily and friends were all around us on our very spe­cial day.

We choose Spi­tal­fields because we love the area; we have spent many a Sat­ur­day and Sun­day roam­ing around the mar­ket and bars of Shored­itch. The build­ing itself is also so strik­ing and soaked in his­tory. Inside the high ceil­ings and stained glass win­dows cre­ate such an impact. It’s just beautiful.

It was great at night, watch­ing all the cars and peo­ple going by. You really are in the heart of Lon­don, the buzz was great.

Vicky did lots of online research and picked out lots of lit­tle details from dif­fer­ent sites that we made. e.g. the thumb print tree, the tea cup can­dles. One of my best friends spent many a Sat­ur­day going to car boot sales buy­ing these tea cups. We then spent a wine-filled evening pour­ing the wax into the cups.

For the table cen­tre pieces, I wanted a lit­tle wild eco-system. So we used lots of wild sea­sonal flow­ers and I found some but­ter­flies and birds all in cased in beau­ti­ful bell jars. The florist did a great job, mak­ing my ideas come to life. Guest were invited to take them home at the end of the night.

Invi­ta­tions and recep­tion stationery:

My mother in-law is a retired art teacher, so we sat down and designs the invi­ta­tions together, which she then made into a sten­cil. We then got them printed onto nap­kins, and sent them wrapped up in a bow.

The name places were lug­gage tags that I brought on-line. I and a few friends spent a few evenings stain­ing them with tea. Then I found a sweet ink pad on ama­zon of 2 love birds in a cage that we stamped on the other side.

Favours weere a CD of our favorite love songs, the front cover design was the same as our main invitations.

The table names were based on the love songs on our favours CD. One of Ross’ best friends (one of the ush­ers) Joe works for a record com­pany so he found some old vinyl and made them into the table name stands.

Wed­ding music and entertainment:

To open up the danc­ing for the evening we had an African per­former, King Mas­cot and his dancers. They intro­duced the bride and groom with the main wed­ding party and fam­ily back into the recep­tion changed into their evening wear. This is a Ser­ria Leonean wed­ding
tra­di­tion. The evening DJ was then a good friend of Ross that played, funk and soul.

What did you wear?

Bride: A dress from Mor­gan Davies Bridal by Lusan Man­dongus, I added the lace
detail to the shoul­der. My wed­ding bou­quet was made by me (the bride) out of old
brooches I found online and in sec­ond hand shops. The one down on the stem was a
brooch that Ross brought his grand­mother when he was around 6 years old. His mum
gave it to me as my “some­thing old”.

My evening out­fit was in a tra­di­tional West African style. I brought the mate­r­ial from
Pet­ti­coat Lane. It was then sewn by Mrs Bisis Frazer, a Ser­ria Leonean seam­stress.
(She also made all the brides­maids’ dresses and the groom’s, best men and ush­ers
waist­coats). My shoes were made by Car­valli from House of Frazer.

Groom: Morn­ing suit from Moss Bros. Evening suit made by Spencer Hart

Mem­o­rable wed­ding day moments:

Bride:

1. Get­ting ready with my bridesmaids
2. Walk­ing into the coun­cil cham­ber and see­ing Ross for the first time
3. Say­ing my vows, (I cried, Ross didn’t, we had words after!!)
4. Com­ing out of the town hall to see all our fam­ily and friends
5. Ross’s speech about me
6. Com­ing back out to the recep­tion changed, together with the African dancers.Everyone was singing and danc­ing around us!
7. Get­ting back to our hotel and get­ting in the bath with Ross, a glass of cham­pagne look­ing down at Euston Road (we stayed at the St. Pan­cras Renais­sance Lon­don Hotel) from the bath think­ing “we have done it!” and “it’s you and me now”.

Groom:

1. The bride walk­ing down the aisle
2. Vicky, Vicky, Vicky
3. Being scared of my speech
4. Being boil­ing hot. (It ended up being the hottest day of the year)
5. The bride
6. The evening dancers
7. The wob­bly cake
8. My beau­ti­ful bride!!!

Wed­ding day advice:

Try and relax and enjoy every moment. Once you actu­ally marry each other, every­thing else is a bonus. Your friends and fam­ily are all there for you and will be happy just to see the 2 of you happy, in love and mar­ried. Don’t sweat the small stuff and make sure you dance!

Rec­om­mended wed­ding suppliers:

• Our florist was amaz­ing! Mus­cari Whites
• Our pho­tog­ra­pher Louise Bjor­ling (www.louisebjorling.com) went above and beyond.
• My make up artist Angela Amelia, she did me and all my brides­maids in plenty of time and my mother who decided she wanted her makeup doing after all at the last minute.