White Hydrangeas for a Classic and Contemporary London Wedding

Annabel has shared such a great wed­ding report I really don’t want to write too much here so all I’ll say is thank you both to Annabel and Anthony, and to wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher Espe­cially Amy for shar­ing the images with us today.

The wed­ding report from Annabel is about half way down the page, and I have to share my favorite line from it to set the scene for this blog feature:

Annabel says, “at the end of the day every­one is there to cel­e­brate you and your hus­band which is the only thing that mat­ters and cre­ates the most incred­i­ble feel­ing of love, warmth and fun on the day!”

Enjoy today’s real wed­ding. Claire xxx

A beau­ti­ful wed­ding with white hydrangeas: Annabel and Anthony

Wed­ding venue:

Our venue was the stun­ning Syon Park, near Rich­mond, South West Lon­don. We orig­i­nally looked at coun­try house venues out­side Lon­don but the con­ve­nience and beauty of Syon Park won us over. We had a civil cer­e­mony in the for­mal Great Hall then had half of our drinks recep­tion in the136ft long Long Gallery, then walked every­one through the house to the incred­i­ble gar­dens sur­round­ing the con­ser­va­tory. The con­ser­va­tory is hid­den from view from the main house so it was a great sur­prise to our guests when they came round the cor­ner to a stun­ning glass dome! The rain stayed away and as the sun set the glass dome lit up with the most incred­i­ble pink light – just magical!

Wed­ding photographer:

Amy of Espe­cially Amy was our pho­tog­ra­pher and Dan of From The Hip was our video­g­ra­pher. A great team and we are thrilled with the results – would rec­om­mend them to any­one look­ing for a beau­ti­ful set of reportage pho­tos and a video that really cap­tures the spirit of the day. Amy and Dan worked bril­liantly together as a team and made us both feel so relaxed through­out the day which really comes through in our pho­tos. We also had a pho­to­booth which was a huge suc­cess run by Say Fro­mage and the staff were bril­liant. They also organ­ised a book for guests to stick their pho­tos in and write mes­sages to us – the later in the night, the more hilar­i­ous the messages!

How would you describe your wed­ding style?

We would describe our wed­ding style as clas­sic but with a con­tem­po­rary twist – we were keen to cre­ate a beau­ti­ful, styl­ish and ele­gant day but with­out over­do­ing any ele­ment. Before plan­ning, we ranked each big ticket item as to how impor­tant it was to us (eg flow­ers, music, food, venue).

What we dis­cov­ered was that our top rank­ing items were food and drink and music… all key ele­ments which we remem­bered the most from other wed­dings. Flow­ers, favours and styling were all areas we felt we could achieve a stun­ning effect with a more sim­ple approach.

We did not have favours in the end and our flow­ers were the most sim­ple white hydrangeas which were plen­ti­ful and cheap at the time of year.

A lit­tle about the wed­ding ceremony:

We had a civil cer­e­mony in the Great Hall of Syon Park. The cer­e­mony was a very impor­tant ele­ment to me and I wanted to cre­ate a for­mal­ity and sense of occa­sion fit­ting for such a day!

The Great Hall cre­ated this sense of time and place and his­tory with its beau­ti­ful soar­ing domed ceil­ing, black and white mosaic floor and pure white mar­ble stat­ues. We had a for­mal cer­e­mony with tra­di­tional vows but inserted our own few sen­tences at the end of each vow which were a sur­prise to our guests and got a few laughs.

Which read­ings did you choose?

We chose two read­ings – ‘The Vel­veteen Rab­bit’ by Margery Williams which was read by a friend of ours and ‘On Mar­riage’ by Eras­mus which was cho­sen and read by Anthony’s grand­mother. Anthony’s aunt sings with the Royal Phil­har­monic Orches­tra and sang a cho­sen piece with our string quar­tet whilst we signed the register.

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

Our theme was pure white wed­ding with no color scheme as such, just sim­ple ele­gance. Flow­ers were min­i­mal as the con­ser­va­tory was full of them and trees! We stuck to a clas­sic white theme with some sil­ver mir­ror effects thrown in.

In par­tic­u­lar, our cal­lig­ra­phy table plan was a cen­tre piece: We wanted keep­sakes of our wed­ding – items we could have in our home for­ever that would remind us of the day and when I found the mir­ror sit­ting at the back of an old fur­ni­ture shop near home, I knew we had our piece!

Our cal­lig­ra­pher (www.calligraphycompany.com) ele­gantly recre­ated our scrappy draw­ing of what we wanted on the mir­ror glass which was a talk­ing point for guests, allowed the girls to check their make up and looked incred­i­ble in the evening sun­light of the conservatory!

The table cen­tres were very sim­ple: mir­rors, tealights and white float­ing hydrangeas. I love my horses so we had an eques­trian touch with per­son­alised rosettes made as name places – all of the guests ended up wear­ing these by the end of the night which was also help­ful for those who didn’t know each other!

Our cater­ers were Tape­nade, rec­om­mended by Syon Park and true pro­fes­sion­als – they ran almost every aspect of our day and acted as our wed­ding plan­ners. We could not rec­om­mend them highly enough. Food was impor­tant to us and we love canapés so skipped the starter and had end­less rounds of deli­cious canapés dur­ing the 2 hour drinks reception.

I love cheese (it even made it into our vows!) so a cheese board was a cen­tre piece accom­pa­nied by a sim­ple choco­late cake from M&S jazzed up by our florist with white hydrangeas. We cut the cake with a meter long sword engraved with our names and wed­ding date on it! A great keep­sake of the day!

Invi­ta­tions and recep­tion stationery:

Our invi­ta­tions were sim­ple, clas­sic and ele­gant, from Gee Broth­ers of Lon­don. Our table names were all our favorite wines and cheeses (from Pinot Noir to Stink­ing Bishop!) and cre­ated on sim­ple white card, writ­ten beau­ti­fully by a local cal­lig­ra­pher. Our cal­lig­ra­pher also cre­ated our amaz­ing table plan – on a 6 foot tall cathe­dral mirror!

Wed­ding music and entertainment:

Music was one of our key areas for our day as we always remem­ber amaz­ing wed­dings for their fab­u­lous music and bands! After much research, we actu­ally booked a band our friend had had at her wed­ding a year ear­lier – see­ing bands on stage and how they work the crowd is the best way to select!

29 Fin­gers kept the crowd on their feet all night and got right involved in the crowd, danc­ing and singing and pass­ing round mikes and instru­ments to our guests! We also had a fan­tas­tic string quar­tet called Urban Soul who did a clas­sic set for the cer­e­mony then jazzed it up with every­thing from Damien Rice to Oasis for the drinks reception.

What did you wear?

Despite think­ing it would take me ages, I was actu­ally very quick to find my dress. I knew I wanted some­thing vin­tage and orig­i­nal and that I could wear again. Whilst back in Syd­ney cel­e­brat­ing our engage­ment, my mom and I popped into Col­lette Din­ni­gan’s store just up the road from where we live.

Col­lette is a cat­walk designer mainly (Kate Mid­dle­ton is a fan of her designs!) but she does cre­ate a cap­sule wed­ding dress col­lec­tion each year. My ‘lat­tice and pearl’ came in a cock­tail ver­sion just above the knee and the beauty that is full length.

I couldn’t try the full length on whilst in Syd­ney as it wasn’t deliv­ered yet so when I returned to Lon­don I made an appoint­ment at her store in Chelsea to try on the dress. And it was the dress.… del­i­cate, light, ethe­real and vin­tage with lots and lots of pearl detail­ing which I love.

Despite try­ing on the dress in Lon­don, we actu­ally pur­chased it back in Syd­ney and had some small alter­ations done there before I flew it back over with me 6 months before the wed­ding! A well trav­elled dress indeed!

The brides­maids’ dresses were from a high street store in Syd­ney. My shoes were clas­sic Chanel mid heel pumps, light gray and gold to tone in with the vin­tage feel of the dress and I have worn them dozens of times since for friends’ wed­dings. My veil was cus­tom made to match my dress, pure and sim­ple edged tulle as the bead­ing on the dress was so detailed it needed lit­tle else.

My friend Char­lotte made me my some­thing blue – a gor­geous pearl bracelet with a sin­gle del­i­cate blue pearl in the mid­dle. My some­thing old and bor­rowed was my grandmother’s dia­mond brooch pinned to my bou­quet, the new was my dress and my friend deliv­ered a six­pence for my shoe via the grooms­men a few min­utes before I headed down the aisle!

Anthony was always going to wear a morn­ing suit and our wed­ding was the per­fect time for him to invest in one. Ede and Raven­scroft on Jermyn Street pro­vided a won­der­ful ser­vice and he was incred­i­bly happy (and hand­some!) in his tails which he has proudly donned for our friends’ wed­dings since.

Mem­o­rable wed­ding day moments:

• My grand­fa­ther walk­ing me down the aisle, hav­ing flown all the way from Aus­tralia to do so!
• Our quirky vows which sur­prised every­one and made it so personal
• Anthony’s aunt singing so beau­ti­fully as we signed the register
• The deli­cious food – end­less canapés, pip­ing hot mains and lus­cious cheese board
• The rain hold­ing off and sun break­ing through so we could move our drinks recep­tion to the beau­ti­ful gar­dens before head­ing into the con­ser­va­tory for dinner
• The fab­u­lous fun danc­ing with our friends and fam­ily all night long!

Wed­ding day advice:

Stay calm, be super organ­ised all the way through so the week before the wed­ding you can relax. Spread­sheet every­thing, and make timeta­bles for the day per­son­alised to key peo­ple you are rely­ing on – and talk them through it at length! And rely on your fam­ily, friends and brides­maids .… at the end of the day every­one is there to cel­e­brate you and your hus­band which is the only thing that mat­ters and cre­ates the most incred­i­ble feel­ing of love, warmth and fun on the day!

Rec­om­mended wed­ding suppliers:

• Syon Park www.syonpark.co.uk
• Pho­tog­ra­phy – Espe­cially Amy www.especiallyamy.co.uk
• Video­g­ra­pher – From the Hip www.fromthehip.tv
• Tape­nade www.tapenade.co.uk
• Band – 29 Fin­gers www.29fingers.com
• Cer­e­mony and recep­tion music www.urbansoulorchestra.co.uk
• Pho­to­booth www.sayfromage.co.uk
• Wheel­ers Flow­ers www.wheelersflowers.com
• Per­son­alised rosettes – Dar­low rosettes www.darlowrosettes.com