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A Gatsby Inspired Vintage Wedding at Chiswick House

By Claire

Ryan and Laura’s wed­ding day is beau­ti­ful and mixes vin­tage ele­ments with clas­sic, time­less styling: from Laura’s grace­ful Lisa Red­man wed­ding dress to the art deco style cock­tail menus and ele­gant roses used through­out the day. I know you’ll love and be inspired by today’s real wed­ding blog from Chiswick House.

The images are by the very lovely Ben­jamin Toms, and beau­ti­ful bride Laura has very kindly writ­ten a full wed­ding report to share with all of you today. Watch out for the gor­geous lit­tle flower girl lead­ing every­one down the aisle, and the inflat­able gui­tars at the end of the day!

Enjoy! Claire xxx

Laura and Ryan’s Gatsby inspired vin­tage wedding









The wed­ding of Ryan & Laura Sandilands

The pro­posal: Ryan pro­posed dur­ing a beau­ti­ful hol­i­day in the Mal­dives, whilst watch­ing a sun­set with a cocktail.

Wed­ding venue: Chiswick House and Gardens

Pho­tog­ra­pher: Kent wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher Ben Toms

How would you describe your wed­ding style? A vin­tage Gatsby-inspired style

Ryan and Laura had a civil wed­ding and chose some really lovely wed­ding read­ings: On Your Wed­ding Day (read by a close friend of the bride), A Tapes­try of love (read by Father of the Groom), A lovely love story (Edward Monk­ton) (read by 9 year old niece of the Groom – not leav­ing a dry eye in the room!)

Laura wore a stun­ning bespoke silk gown bespoke made by Lisa Red­man, with a key­hole back and beau­ti­ful vin­tage beading.

Ryan wore a morn­ing suit in gray with a cream waistcoat.

What were your wed­ding highlights?

It had been a pretty rainy sum­mer and the morn­ing of our wed­ding was the first time the sun had appeared for what seemed like months. We felt so lucky as it put every­one in such good spir­its from the beginning.

The ambi­ence was per­fect before and dur­ing the cer­e­mony. Mainly due to the won­der­ful inte­rior of the venue and enhanced by Ludovico Einaudi’s Berlin song as the bride entered (and the rest of his album before the ceremony).

The bridal car was a beau­ti­ful cream Rolls Royce Sil­ver Cloud which set the scene of a Gatsby inspired day.

The bride is very for­tu­nate to be friends with Dior’s inter­na­tional makeup artist, and he made the morn­ing prepa­ra­tion mag­i­cal.

















Wed­ding venue styling and details:

We chose a 1920s/30s Gatsby style gar­den party theme with a BBQ, hog roast and food sta­tions on the lawn which was deli­cious and inter­ac­tive. We added fun ele­ments like a vin­tage style ice cream tri­cy­cle that was avail­able all day and night (very pop­u­lar with the kids!).

Cham­pagne was served in 1930s style Cham­pagne saucers. Guests sat at long tres­tle tables for a more relaxed party atmos­phere, the tables were dressed in opu­lent vin­tage green damask table linen and an eclec­tic mix of crys­tal glass­ware run­ning down the cen­tre of each table (sourced from the bride’s Grandmother’s coun­try house and char­ity shops).

A selec­tion of flow­ers (Roses and peonies) filled the glass­ware giv­ing an arty coun­try gar­den feel. Balls of gyp­sum flow­ers framed the mar­quee with bay trees and fairy lights at each entrance.

We used black and white art deco wall paper to cre­ate a back­drop behind the top table and the cock­tail bar which com­pletely trans­formed the marquee.

Wed­ding music and entertainment:

The Bride’s brother-in-law’s band ‘Mas­ters Of The Tuni­verse’ played an acoustic ver­sion of a Crazy For You (sim­i­lar to Groove Armada’s cover ver­sion) for the first dance fol­lowed by a mix of wed­ding music which appeal to all gen­er­a­tions. The dance floor was full all night. It was sur­pris­ing how much a few neon inflat­able instru­ments encour­aged such a play­ful atmosphere.

We had a photo booth and a box full of fancy dress items to encour­age peo­ple to let their hair down (which they def­i­nitely did). The pho­tos were printed as they were taken and guests stuck them in to a guest book and wrote com­ments next to them, so we now have a lovely book of mem­o­ries and amus­ing photos.

There was a free bar which also included cock­tails: the bride’s favourite, Pas­sion Fruit Daiquiri, and the groom’s favourite, Mojito, being from the 1930s style mono­chrome bar.

Mem­o­rable wed­ding day moments:

  • Laura spend­ing her last few min­utes as a sin­gle woman with her dad in the car to the venue
  • Ryan first see­ing Laura in her dress
  • Our daugh­ter Eliya (15 months old) graced the aisle first as she stood a lit­tle over­whelmed by all the eyes focused on her ele­gant lit­tle flower girl dress, every­one thought she was very cute.
  • When Laura didn’t quite man­age to not cry!

Wed­ding day advice:

Go with your ini­tial thoughts in terms of theme, oth­er­wise you will prob­a­bly go around in cir­cles and back to your first idea like we did, as it was more our style in the first place which is why it appealed to us.

Relax. There are peo­ple there whose job it is to sort out nig­gles on the day so that you can enjoy yourself.

You’ll want to catch up with every­one at your wed­ding but make sure you (the bride and groom) spend some qual­ity time together, even if it’s just step­ping out­side to take a breather from all the action. The day will absolutely fly by!

Organ­ise some­thing that really gets the guests involved. For exam­ple, peo­ple couldn’t get enough of the pho­to­booth we had there!

More of Laura and Ryan’s rec­om­mended wed­ding suppliers: