Liz and Mark choose to get married in London for a variety of reasons, not least because it would be a great central base for their guests flying in from the States.

They choose a beautiful former bank in the heart of the city, a venue that really set the scene for the rest of their decor and design.

I love the Art Deco inspired invitations and table plan… and that veil? Just Wow really, I don’t know what else to say!

This grand day in the city was captured perfectly by Catherine at Lily and Frank photography.

Oppulent Surroundings

Our wedding was at Gibson Hall in London, on September 10th, 2011. (I am American, and so in backwards U.S. dates it was 9-10-11 which appealed to both of our nerdy natures and love of numbers – plus it is an easy anniversary to remember!)

Because so many of my family and friends were flying in from the States, we really wanted to find a place in London itself – having come so far we wanted to make it as easy for them as possible. Plus, London is where we live, where we met and fell in love and we really wanted to get married in our city. Gibson Hall is right in the heart of the City in London, and its heritage as a bank meant tremendously tall ceilings, marble pillars and chandeliers galore. It is all very grand (much more so than we are as a couple!), but it also reminded us of Mary Poppins (and fun!) and inspired some of our art-deco-ish decorations.

Half Dressed

My dress was half designed by David Fielden and half the work of the lovely dressmaker of Sessay Bridal in North West London. During the months of my dress search I had loved many of David Fielden’s dresses, and when I found my dress in the sample sale at their store in London I was totally taken with the unusual skirt – it had this subtly iridescent white-on-white print pattern that felt ethereal and light without being too over-the-top.

At half price I couldn’t really stop myself from getting it, although I wasn’t terribly taken with the bodice. So after few months of quiet panic I steeled myself for hacking apart the top half of my dress; only to be totally reassured by the talent and lovely atmosphere at Sessay Bridal. The dress was transformed. The combination of the more modern skirt with the delicate lace (oh, I do love lace) on the top was perfect. It came together better than I could ever have imagined, and I ended up with a dress that I can totally call my own.

Seriously Vintage Veil

I wore the T. family veil – a veil that dates back to sometime in the mid-nineteenth century! The story of this veil having been ‘lost’ haunted both my mother’s and my childhoods, yet somehow my mother managed to locate this family heirloom with third cousin Irene (or Emma? Or Betsy?) and get it over to me. It was gorgeous, but a bit delicate given its age. After a little restoration work it was safe to wear and I was honoured to be able to wear the same beautiful veil as my grandma, and several generations of women before her.

Granny Shoes

I chose comfort over style pretty big-time with the shoes. I got them from Easy Spirit, a shoe store in the States renowned for catering to the mature, sure-footed, crowd. They were grannie shoes, and I was proud of them. But my feet were in good shape the whole day!

A soothing Presence

I very rarely wear any make-up at all, and in terms of hair styles I didn’t really know where to start. Happily a good friend recommended Justina from Beautiful Brides to me, saying that she did a lovely job and that she had just been a wonderful, soothing presence on what can be a very stressful morning. And she was right! I ended up with a look that I thought was natural (so I recognised myself in the mirror), but also made me feel special.

Colour Crisis

I had a bit of a ‘colour crisis’ when trying to select my colour scheme – and thus my flowers – for the big day. Though I am normally much more drawn to blues and greens, for some reason the dress made me thing of more romantic deep pinks and purples. In the end I decided that officially the colours of the day were ‘teal and raspberry’ (which somehow sounds much more wedding-y than ‘blue and red’), and I would bring out the teal in all things stationery and go with the raspberry for the flowers and dresses.

Rachel Morgan Wedding Flowers was great at taking my vague ideas of ‘something raspberry, but not too red and not too pink’ and bringing them to life! So we ended up with a selection of beautiful roses, a few berries, and some leaves (green!) for the bouquets, and the same selection plus big purple hydrangeas for the table centres.

Bargain Hunting

The girls wore dresses that we bought in the post-Christmas sales last year, and were a very pretty raspberry colour that went great with the bouquets. The boys hired morning suits, and had cravats and pocket squares that were more on the burgundy side, and complemented the girls nicely.

Straight To The Top

Mark’s outfit was defined by his truly excellent top-hat. Originally, it was actually my dad who (only half-jokingly) insisted that if his daughter had decided to live in and get married in the UK, he was sure as heck going to wear a top hat to her wedding. And with a top hat comes a morning suit. And if my dad was insisting on wearing one, then Mark was going to need to look even snazzier! Mark totally embraced the idea and looked positively dashing on the day.

Quietly Confident

We made a decision early on in our wedding planning that the biggest requirement we had for finding people to help us with our day was simply to like them. Yes, we looked at portfolios and costs and everything to narrow down the mass of wedding suppliers out there, but then we just wanted to meet them and like them. Catherine at Lily and Frank photography just made that so easy. We already knew we liked her work from her website, but from the first meeting she was considerate, funny, attentive, and quietly confident. We trusted and liked her and her work.

Yummy And Not Untraditional

We got cake from the English Cheesecake Company – two big cheesecakes with strawberries, and one big double chocolate pile of chocolatey-ness. We didn’t really want to spend a lot of money on the traditional wedding cake thing, and we wanted something yummy.

Loony Tunes

During and after our ceremony a lovely quartet called Celebrations played a mixture of classical pieces and more modern songs interpreted for classical instruments (the Loony Toons theme song was a particular favourite). They also provided accompaniment to our ‘group sing’ during our ceremony of the song ‘So Happy Together’ by the Turtles – a highly entertaining endeavor for a room full of extremely enthusiastic but not-always-so-talented singers. The band that played in the evening were called The Rockpins, who were fab and kept everyone on the dance floor all night.

Upbeat And Fun

Neither of us are particularly musically knowledgeable, so it was really by chance that we stumbled into the Plain White T’s 1-2-3-4 on YouTube one day. We both loved the lyrics, and we liked that it was sweet but a bit more upbeat and fun, too.

A Magnetic Ice breaker

We had decks of playing cards printed for all our guests. Mark and I like all games really, so cards were really a perfect fit for us and also something that hopefully wll have a little bit of practical use for people. Continuing in the same vein, all of our table names were anagrams of things that were important in our lives – so the top table’s name of ‘Newd dig’ was an anagram of ‘Wedding’. The letters were put onto magnetized boards and the especially keen guest could unscramble the letters if they were so inclined.

Paper Pretty

Because the venue itself was so grand, together with the flowers it didn’t need a great deal more dressing up. But, I did fold little golden origami cranes to go on everyone’s place names. Oh, how I folded those cranes. Somehow, months and months before the wedding I thought that folding well over a hundred cranes was a good idea…

All In One Room

Overall, my biggest piece of advice is to take a moment during the day just to reflect on the fact that on that one day all your favourite people are in one room, and are there to celebrate the fact that you are marrying the person you love. Relish it. And then go back to having fun.

Venue Gibson Hall

Dress David Fielden adapted by Sessay Bridal

Shoes Easy Spirit

Flowers Rachel Morgan Wedding Flowers

Hair and Make-up Beautiful Brides

Photography Lily and Frank

Cake English Cheesecake Company

Quartet Celebrations

Cake The Rockpins

Such a simple way to engage your guests around the dinner table – magnetic anagram table names…SGNEUI! (genius).

I may well be ‘borrowing’ that idea – it’s one that could be adapted to suit pretty much any theme or fit into any decor plan really easily. Thanks Liz and Mark!

Right, I’m spending the rest of my day working out amusing anagrams on the fridge door…

Adam.

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