My Secret London Wedding Anniversary - Part 2

So here we go ladies, Part 2 of my vintage tea-party themed wedding. After our quicky wedding ceremony in Hackney Town Hall {our local}, we headed to Victoria Park for our pictures, where {joy of joys} we found the best photo-prop ever. An ice-cream van! I'd really recommend trying to organise a few photo props - it makes for much more natural portraits, particularly if you're feeling a bit stressed on your wedding day. After our pictures we headed home for our vintage tea party reception. We decorated our Shoreditch flat with handmade white pompoms, white bunting bought from eBay, and a dozens of roses bought from Columbia Road Flower Market on the cheap! Stunning photographs published with thanks to Caught the Light, and I've filled in my own Before the Big Day Bridal Questionnaire, so check out my answers below for all my suppliers and wedding DIY projects.

Our amazing wedding photographer was Chloé from Caught the Light. I can't remember how I found her, but I've long been a fan of her work here on Before the Big Day, and I booked her over a year in advance for my French wedding. 

When we decided we wanted our London wedding to be photographed as well, she very kindly agreed to help out. Chloé's work is stunning, and I can't recommend her enough. She's wonderful to have around, and generous with her time. At one point she even spotted that my two-year old nephew was making a run for it, and rescued him in the nick of time!

This was our secret wedding before the big official day in France, so we kept it simple with a tea-party back at our flat in Shoreditch. It was lovely for closest family to see us in our home - many of the grandparents hadn't seen it before. 

For our decorations, we used white bunting and handmade white tissue pompoms, that looked like peonies {tutorial here}.

As we got married at 3pm, we settled on a tea party. I considered an Alice in Wonderland theme, but settled instead on a vintage tea-party, complete with cucumber sandwiches and my mother-in-law's vintage china.

We bought all the tea-party food from Marks & Spencers, and my husband picked it up on the morning of the wedding. We bought the champagne and hired glasses {for free} from our local Majestic who delivered everything.

I bought special pink doilies and cute little Alice in Wonderland-style cocktail stick cake toppers from eBay to decorate the food.

The vintage tea-party style cake stand was a bargain from eBay, and worked perfectly with my theme.

I'm slightly obsessed with paper straws, and agonised over which pattern to choose for weeks! In the end I settled for red hearts.

We bought giant L-O-V-E balloons as photo props, but had a disaster on the day, because the O kept deflating. I'd recommend buying two of each, just in case! We bought our own helium cannister, so we could pump them up on the day.

The only problem with hosting our wedding at home, was that I spent the morning panicking slightly, cleaning and decorating. If you decide to do the same, I'd recommend getting everything ready several days in advance, or calling in favours from your friends to help out.

We DIY'd our flowers, with blooms bought from Columbia Road Flower Market the Sunday before. We kept them in a darkened room, but they still opened a bit too much - so in some ways I wish I'd spent a bit more money and got up early to buy them on the day. 

My mother actually chose and organised my cake, and my grandmother paid for it as a wedding present to us. We chose white and sage green as a colour palette and I love the stars as a motif. 

The cakes were delicious - we sent one home with everyone at the end of the party. We also chose to give little pots of Dorset honey as favours, because that's where I grew up.  I decorated the pots with green and white baker's twine, and little handmade thank you tags.

I really enjoyed planning our wedding! I started Before the Big Day because I love weddings and thinking creatively about how to make them stand out from the crowd. However, it was A LOT more stressful than I thought it would be. With hindsight, I probably should have taken on a few less DIY projects, but it saved us lots of money, and it made our wedding personal to us. 

My advice to brides? Read Before the Big Day! Come up with a theme idea, and start your DIY projects early. Eat properly on the day of your wedding - I got grumpy just before the ceremony - not a good idea! And leave yourself lots of time to get ready. You'll want to have time to compliment your bridesmaids and your mother on what they're wearing, and if it's all a bit of rush you won't have time to savour every special moment.

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My Secret London Wedding - Our 4th Anniversary

Four years ago today, we celebrated our secret wedding in London. Why secret? Well our 'real' wedding was in Provence, but legally we had to get married in the UK first. At first we thought we'd just sneak off on a Tuesday afternoon and get married privately with just two witnesses. But then our parents wanted in. And then we realised that the grandparents weren't going to make it out to France, so they snaffled invitations. And then, being a wedding blogger, I got all excited about a vintage tea-party wedding theme, and Chloe from Caught the Light offered to do our pictures. So before we knew it, we were planning two weddings. That's two ceremonies, two themes, two dresses {lucky me!}, and double the details! Take a look, and see what you think!

We got married at Hackney Town Hall on 5th May in front of 20 family and close friends. It was our local registry office, and we loved the grand staircase at the front of the building. We followed up with a tea-party reception at our flat in Shoreditch. It was lovely for closest family to see us in our home - many of our grandparents hadn't seen it before.

My dress was from an Australian designer called Rose & Ruby. They've actually stopped trading, but I managed to find this one on Australian Ebay, and I took the plunge and bought it without trying it on. Luckily it fitted perfectly!

My shoes were gold strappy stilettos from Halston Heritage with blue sequinned I Do stickers on the soles. They were my 'something new'. 

My mother's vintage sapphire engagement ring was my 'something borrowed and blue', and diamond studs my mother gave me for Christmas - my 'something old'.

I had my hair done at my normal hairdressers, One Drayson Mews Hairdressers in Kensington {ask for Tracy}, but I did my own make-up, using special products I'd bought for the big day, including Chanel foundation. I also had semi-permanent individual fake eye-lashes applied by Lash Lab. This was a huge success, and I'd recommend it to any bride. Long eye-lashes just look super-glam!

My husband wore one of his work suits, with a white shirt and Hermes tie. He didn't want to buy anything new for this wedding, as we were saving our pennies for our big day in Provence.

We bought giant L-O-V-E balloons as photo props, but had a disaster on the day, because the O kept deflating. I'd recommend buying two of each, just in case! We bought our own helium cannister, so we could pump them up on the day.

I didn't have official bridesmaids, but my best friend Tam, and my sister Katy both helped on the day. I would have loved to put them in matching dresses, but we were keen to keep the costs down!

We DIY'd our flowers, with blooms bought from Columbia Road Flower Market the Sunday before. We kept them in a darkened room, but they still opened a bit too much - so in some ways I wish I'd spent a bit more money and bought them from a florist on the day. 

My mother bought up flowers from her garden for my bouquet and the boys' buttonholes. She made me a bouquet out of lily-of-the-valley - my absolute favourite flowers, and the buttonholes were roses from a bush that my grandfather had given her as a present. 

I  decided at the last minute to walk up the aisle with my Dad to Pachelbel Canon in D Major. Luckily the registry office had the music to hand - but it just goes to show even a wedding blogger can forget key details!

Our rings were made for us by F Hinds, who I hugely recommend. I had trouble getting Nick's on his finger, but we succeeded eventually!

I can't remember whether we walked out to any music at all!

Our confetti was another DIY project. My mum and I both kept rose petals, and dried them out in our airing cupboards. We only needed a little bit for our twenty guests, so it worked perfectly. I'd really recommend getting brightly coloured confetti. It makes for better photographs!

Our amazing wedding photographer was Chloé from Caught the Light. I can't remember how I found her, but I've long been a fan of her work here on Before the Big Day, and I booked her over a year in advance for my French wedding. 

When we decided we wanted our London wedding to be photographed as well, she very kindly agreed to help out. Chloé's work is stunning, and I can't recommend her enough. She's wonderful to have around, and generous with her time. At one point she even spotted that my two-year old nephew was making a run for it, and rescued him in the nick of time!

I really wanted to find a green space for our portrait pictures, and luckily there's a park just round the corner from Hackney Town Hall. It had threatened rain in the morning, but luckily the afternoon was clear, so we could have these lovely garden portrait pictures taken. 

My plan was to have champagne and water in the park, so our guests could enjoy a drink while we had our portrait pictures taken. Unfortunately everything was too rushed on the morning of our wedding, and I never managed to organise it. This was definitely a mistake! Remember your guests will be expecting a drink straight after your ceremony - wherever you are.

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A 'Blooming' New Forest Autumn Wedding with DIY Details - Part 2

Take one wedding florist, add a graphic designer husband-to-be, and a group of insanely talented guests, and you have a wedding-made-in-heaven. Jen and Lee celebrated their big day in the autumn, and completely mixed up their wedding schedule, to make sure they didn't lose the light for their pictures. This inspired decision meant the party started straight away, and the lovely Ben Goode got to take these stunning portrait pictures in a gorgeous golden light. It's definitely an idea to steal if you're planning an autumn or winter wedding. As long as you don't mind seeing each other before the ceremony, then it's a winner! There's so many other brilliant details, you'll want to save every shot - from their giant, fairground-style, illuminated initials, to the CD favours made to look like mini-vinyls, and the chocolate brownie pyramid wedding cake. And did I mention Jen is a florist? Wedding flowers to die for! If you missed Part 1, don't!

We got married on the 6th October 2012, at East Close Hotel, near Christchurch in the New Forest. The ceremony and reception both took place here. 

Our photographer was Ben Goode - he did the pictures for a colleagues wedding and we loved them. As soon as we met him, and saw more of his work we were sold. His style was the perfect mix of discreet reportage and creative stuff.  He was SUCH a nice guy to have around on the day of the wedding too; lots of guests commented that they liked his relaxed attitude. Needless to say, we were blown away by the resulting photographs. He caught little moments of emotion that really made us laugh and cry.

We wanted a venue where we could have the whole day, so our guests didn’t have to travel after the ceremony and the party could start straight away. East Close Hotel was the perfect choice!

We had the whole place for the day, which felt exclusive and luxurious, but the hotel is small enough that we didn't feel we were rattling around. I loved that each room had a different feel, but all in line with our taste.

I was my own florist {Jennifer Poynter Flowers}, helped by the girls that I used to work with {from Arcade Flowers in Ringwood}. Flowers are obviously my thing, and I loved having the chance to create exactly what I wanted, with all my favourite autumn flowers and foliage. 

I included lots of roses, spray roses, gorgeous ‘Mambo’ lilies, velvety burgundy gladioli, astrantia, astilbe, poppy seed heads, several varieties of eucalyptus and beautiful pink snowberries. There was also lots of amazing trailing amaranthus which was grown for me by a local lady. She wrapped it all up in fleece every night through September in case of an early frost!

We were lucky to have lots of skills which allowed us and our friends to DIY lots of things… I’m a wedding florist, so the flowers were sorted… Lee is a graphic designer and hand-made all of our beautiful stationery… a friend made the cake… another friend is a DJ and offered to help with that…

My mum is a writer and crafted a very funny reading for the ceremony out of all our guests' tips for a long and happy life together {we asked them to include this with their RSVP}. This all obviously saved us some pennies, but also made the day so much more personal.

My husband designed all of our stationery. It was paired back and simple, concentrating on good design and nice typography {we're a little obsessed with typography!}. It had a slightly art-deco feel, but not too overt, and was mainly printed in black on thick grey card stock. The tables were named after classic print fonts and the signs sat on small silver metal easels that were only 80p each in Ikea and looked wicked. 

Having favours that doubled as place cards reduced the amount of stuff on the table {or 'table crap' as Lee called it!}. Everyone was given a CD of our 'guilty pleasures and firm favourites', as we both love music. I sing in a band, and Lee DJ's as a second job. 

The songs were listed on the back of the sleeve, and the front had the person's name and a little note thanking them for joining us. Lee painstakingly designed, printed, cut out ,and assembled the sleeves which took days. The CDs were burned onto disks that looked like mini 12inch records. 

I like to think people will find them in the glove box in ten years and remember our cool wedding ;-) For the kids we did little boxes in the same style with these awesome mini lego sets inside that they could make a personalised lego name plaque out of. It kept them busy during the speeches.

We weren't going to have a cake at all to begin with but our lovely friend insisted on making one as a present. We went for a big stack of chocolate brownies decorated with icing sugar and autumn figs. Everyone couldn't wait to dig in, and didn't have to because all the pieces were pre-cut…!

My advice to other brides? Everyone will have an opinion about your wedding, but they are only trying to be helpful and may not understand what sort of day you want to it to be…Try to be polite and consider their advice, but make sure you do plan the day your way.

We had a funny structure to the day because we wanted to get the bridal party together for photographs before the ceremony - being a late afternoon ceremony in autumn we were worried about the light, and also wanted to start celebrating straight away. We also weren't superstitious about seeing each other before the 'aisle moment'. A lot of people thought this was weird and unlucky, but we did it and it worked brilliantly - the photographer thanked us for it, and we didn't get struck by lightning!

Planning our wedding was great fun. It was ace to put together a big party for all of the most special people we know, and share our commitment with them. Also, after years working in the industry and seeing so many fab weddings, it was also really nice for me to finally organise my own!

Our first dance was James Vincent McMorrow's cover of Higher Love, which neatly segued into the 80s Steve Winwood original half way through. It was lovely and hilarious at the same time :-D

We splashed out on some amazing fairground-style giant illuminated initials to sit next to the dance floor. We got them from an artist called Andy Willett who makes shop and bar signs, and the quality was so good, that we now have them decorating our house - LOVE them. We soon realised how many of our friends have the same initials as us as they were all having their pictures taken with them in the evening!

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