Lucie and Chris’s Relaxed Wedding with a London Theme

Con­grat­u­la­tions Lucie and Chris, and thank you so much for shar­ing your story on the Eng­lish Wed­ding Blog! My thanks also to my friend and spon­sor, wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher Ben­jamin Toms for the lovely images of this Lon­don wed­ding. Enjoy! Claire xxx

Lucie and Chris: a beau­ti­ful and relaxed Lon­don wedding

Wed­ding venue:

Old Maryle­bone Town Hall, The Swan at The Globe

Wed­ding photographer:

Kent wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher Ben­jamin Toms

A lit­tle about the wed­ding ceremony:

Reg­istry office cer­e­mony in the Pur­ple Room at Maryle­bone Reg­istry Office (we loved the relaxed and warm style of the room and the bride still got her aisle to walk down), clas­si­cal music on strings before the ser­vice, con­tem­po­rary songs on strings from the entry of the bride onwards

Wed­ding read­ings: Scaf­fold­ing – Sea­mus Heaney, After the lunch – Wendy Cope

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

We tried to embrace the sea­son, going for darker pur­ple and warm pink colours through­out, from the brides­maids dresses, through to the flow­ers in bou­quets, the reg­istry office and The Swan and on the cake.

While we lived in Lon­don, a lot of our guests didn’t so we laid on a Routemas­ter bus – com­plete with sight­see­ing tour – to take our guests from the reg­istry office to the venue – and rather than be apart from our guests, we thought we’d hop on the bus too!

All our sta­tionery embraced the Lon­don theme and, to com­plete things, we worked with The Swan to set the recep­tion up in such a way that our guests could see the fab­u­lous iconic views of St Paul’s Cathe­dral from the drinks recep­tions and dur­ing the meal. We hoped that the Swan would come across as a mod­ern styl­ish venue and that the views would amaze our guests and we were not disappointed.

How­ever, the most impor­tant thing for us was to make sure the tone of the day was warm, com­fort­able and relaxed and the set up of the Bal­cony Room and the staff at The Swan achieved the bal­ance per­fectly on the day.

Invi­ta­tions and recep­tion stationery:

All with a fun brightly coloured Lon­don sky­line theme (from Hello Kitty). Home­made Lon­don Under­ground map as a table plan.

Wed­ding music and entertainment:

Strings at Old Maryle­bone Town Hall and drinks recep­tion – Manor House Music. Band after the wed­ding break­fast – The Van Goghs (booked via Func­tion Junc­tion). Both were excel­lent – we had seen the Van Goghs at a friend’s wed­ding, so we knew they had the range of songs to make the party go with a bang.

What did you wear?

Lucie: Lusan Man­dongus dress (“Tara”) and acces­sories from Teokath, Wim­ble­don; Fil­ippa Scott shoes. Brides­maid dresses: Dessy.

Chris: Gieves & Hawkes

Mem­o­rable wed­ding day moments:

Walk­ing along the South Bank for our pho­tographs and hav­ing com­plete strangers con­grat­u­lat­ing us – not some­thing you’d expect in London!

The string quar­tet break­ing into “Chas­ing Rain­bows” by Shed Seven as Lucie walked into the room (they had learned Chris’ favorite song as a surprise).

Wed­ding day advice:

We know it’s a cliché, but the day goes so fast! Try to step back and get a cou­ple of min­utes to your­selves to soak it all in.

Rec­om­mended wed­ding suppliers:

• Ben­jamin Toms Photography
• The Van Goghs (through Func­tion Junction)
• Manor House Music
• The Swan at the Globe