Try Not to Break Your Foot 6 Weeks Before Your Wedding

so says today’s gor­geous bride on the Eng­lish Wed­ding blog. Fiona had her cast taken off just a few days before the big day — but it didn’t spoil a won­der­ful wed­ding day as she mar­ried the (also gor­geous!) Toby in London.

So it was bye, bye Jimmy Choos and hello adorable bal­let pumps for this bride! Fiona’s wed­ding report tells a won­der­ful story — there are cer­tainly tears but the wed­ding ends in tri­umph and cel­e­bra­tion… in a Covent Gar­den nightclub!

The beau­ti­ful wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy is by Geoff Rear­don, and por­trays this sophis­ti­cated wed­ding day with the ele­gance and charm reg­u­lar read­ers will recog­nise from Geoff. I’ll leave you to enjoy the story in words and pictures…

Fiona and Toby’s ele­gant Lon­don wedding

The build up to our wed­ding was slightly stressful…..I (bride) broke my foot 6 weeks before and it was touch and go as to whether my cast would be off in time, cou­pled with the fact that the Lon­don Riots were two days before and unfor­tu­nately the day before our wed­ding we had to attend my Great Aunt’s funeral. We lit­er­ally got back from York­shire with one hour to spare before our wed­ding rehearsal and by the time the morn­ing of the wed­ding arrived, we were just so keen to get mar­ried before any­thing else could hap­pen to us!

I had my cast removed three days before and had just about learnt how to walk prop­erly (albeit in bal­let pumps now rather than my Jimmy Choo wed­ding heels that I had swooned over for weeks only to have to take them back once I broke my foot (run­ning to work in a bid to get Bride fit and hit an bro­ken paving slab….) Our wed­ding cer­e­mony was at 3pm and we both had a bril­liant ‘get­ting ready’ expe­ri­ence thanks to our ush­ers, brides­maids and won­der­ful pho­tog­ra­pher (Geoff Rear­don and his assis­tant, Clare). They made us feel so at ease and cap­tured amaz­ing shots with­out us real­is­ing they were there at some points!

My wed­ding dress was “Georgie” by Sassi Hol­ford. I wore bal­let pumps by French Sole (took Jimmy Choo heels back as broke my foot six weeks before our wed­ding!!), a veil and crys­tal head­band for the recep­tion from Sassi Hol­ford, pearl ear­rings and a bracelet by Tiffany.

Toby wore a morn­ing suit by Can­nali, shoes by Crock­ett and Jones, bright blue socks and a blue polka dot tie from John Lewis.

Due to our run of bad luck in the lead up, I just wanted to get down the aisle as fast as I could (before I tripped up or the Church was looted by riot­ers!!) so I was actu­ally 10 mins early and had to drive around the block twice in our white wed­ding taxi. We got mar­ried at Chelsea Old Church where Toby’s par­ents got mar­ried and my Father and I man­aged to get down the aisle before the organ­ist had had a chance to play ‘here comes the bride’ (the Vicar had announced that I was here but the organ­ist had not realised and by this point I had made my way down the aisle…quite funny and reflected how keen I was to get the ring on Toby’s fin­ger!!) An absolutely amaz­ing ser­vice with our best friends doing read­ings and Toby’s best friend singing a Welsh love song with his Mum play­ing the piano…perfect!!

At the last minute, my friend’s son (Josh Hine) who is an intern at an adver­tis­ing firm, offered to film our wed­ding for us. He edited it down to 8 mins and put it to 3 pieces of music (split into 3 sections..Church, Recep­tion and danc­ing). The result was amaz­ing as it cap­tured the whole day, but doesn’t bore peo­ple when we show them a video as only a short one!) I would rec­om­mend every­one to get this done! Guests, also didn’t even realize he was there as he was so incon­spic­u­ous.

We then had 40 mins for pho­tos with Geoff and Clare, which once again impressed every­one as it wasn’t a long time and peo­ple could enjoy the views of Chelsea whilst we had our fam­ily and group shots taken. Then (due to Geoff’s motor­bike being pinched dur­ing the Riots) he untra­di­tion­ally jumped in our white taxi cab and took the jour­ney with us to our Recep­tion venue…The Wal­dorf. Our guests went in 2 red Lon­don buses and also got a tour of Lon­don on the way so our fam­i­lies from the North were very happy!

This venue also holds a link to our fam­ily, my beloved Mother loved to eat and stay here when she came to Lon­don with my Father. We had drinks and canapés in the large Pavil­lion room with a slide show of pic­tures of our fam­ily (to include both our late Moth­ers) and although it was emo­tional, it was more of a cel­e­bra­tion of their lives rather than high­light­ing the sad­ness that they are no longer here to share our Wed­ding with us.

Whilst this was going on, Geoff and Clare took us into our main room (Palm Court…stunning décor and light­ing) where we had our roman­tic shots taken! They only took 30 mins and we were ahead of sched­ule by the time we entered the Palm Court again for our Wed­ding Break­fast lead in by our Jazz band quar­tet.

We had deli­cious food….salmon plat­ter to start, steak for main and Eton Mess. The speeches were bril­liant and thor­oughly enter­tain­ing for every­one! We then cut our cake (3 tiered with Lon­don Marathon fig­ures of Toby and I (we had run the marathon in April) made by my very tal­ented God­mother, Sue Hufton).

We used Toby’s usher’s sword (in the army) to cut it with and then went into the Pavil­lion room which was now set up for danc­ing (our jazz band turned into our disco band) and my Father played ‘True Love’ on the piano for us to dance to.

My brides­maids came on at the end and scored us a la Strictly come danc­ing with score cards! My good friend Rhian who is an opera singer sung a love song to us with her Mother accom­pa­ny­ing her on the piano….very emo­tional and cried buck­ets!!!

Then it was danc­ing madly for the rest of the evening. I threw my bou­quet and on first attempt it got stuck in the chan­de­lier (my Dad was sweat­ing think­ing that he would be pay­ing repair costs…) Finally got it down and on Take 2, our friend caught it, who has recently got engaged!!

We ended up in a night club aptly named Dirty Mar­tini, in Covent Gar­den much to the sur­prise of the bouncer and guests inside (a whole wed­ding party turn­ing up)We had our pic­tures taken all evening by ran­dom peo­ple and free drinks….my dress even stood the test of time and not one stain on it!!!

My hus­band (!) car­ried me out of the club and we returned to the hotel where my God­moth­ers and Aunts had cov­ered our room in glit­ter, stream­ers and ban­ners! A bril­liant end to the best day we could have ever imagined!

A fab­u­lous wed­ding day moment?

Being sur­rounded by all our fam­ily and friends and see­ing how happy they were for us and how they all care about us…very emotional.

Wed­ding day advice

Not to break your foot 6 weeks before…………

Rec­om­mended wed­ding suppliers

The Wal­dorf Hilton (Katie Ely wed­ding organiser….amazing!)

Geoff Rear­don Pho­tog­ra­phy (This gen­tle­man is not only a great pho­tog­ra­pher but has become a great friend too) His artis­tic and cre­ative ideas are bril­liant, his pre­sen­ta­tion and atten­tion to detail, amaz­ing; and his time man­age­ment and pre­ci­sion on the day is remark­able. Geoff was also assisted by Clare West. www.geoffreardon.com

The Lon­don Taxi Company

Sassi Hol­ford (they lis­ten to what you want and make it hap­pen! Also very patient with dress fit­tings when your hem line needs chang­ing because of heels turn­ing into flats last minute)

French Sole bal­let pumps (beau­ti­ful and comfortable…you will wear them again if you get a glit­tery or gold pair!)

Tiffany (I was spoilt, but I had the most beau­ti­ful pearly studs and bracelet from my Father which are time­less clas­sic pieces)

The Lon­don Bus com­pany (we hired two red buses to take our guests to the Waldorf)

The Dave Chal­lis Band (based in York­shire but well worth the trip down) The band were a jazz quar­tet to start with and then turned into the main band in the evening. They had music for all eras which kept every­one happy and they are a real fun band to be around. Not one per­son didn’t dance!

Josh Hine (Vidographer)

See more of Fiona and Toby’s Lon­don wed­ding on Geoff Reardon’s wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy blog: geoffreardon.wordpress.com/2011/09/13/fiona-toby-get-married-chelsea-old-church-the-waldorf-london/