Juliet & James

Those of you who are signed up for our newsletter will recognise Juliet & James' laid back Hackney wedding, as it was one of the real weddings we featured in the last edition. The cool couple basically threw a massive party for their friends and family at The Crate Brewery, and tried to source as many of the details from local places as they could, including their delicious looking cake from The Hardihood. Which was raw AND vegan fyi!!! We love Juliet's crochet Daughters of Simone wedding dress, and especially love that she has styled it with her trusty black leather jacket, with her Bridesmaids in trusty LBDs too. Throw in some rustic bouquets in gorgeous moody tones, and you've got a fabulous Bridal party look. If you're not signed up to our newsletter, and you'd like to be - just follow this link and leave us your email address. We promise not to bombard you on a daily basis, we send out a mini magazine once a quarter, full of exclusive never-seen-before weddings, and fabulous features we think will really help you with planning your big day. And the weddings are always gorgeous, just like this one...

The Bride & Bridesmaids

Juliet The Bride: I wanted my dress and my bridesmaids’ dresses to be both modern and elegant. I originally found the Daughters of Simone ‘Jude’ dress through Instagram, but fell in love with the crochet fabric when I tried it on in their New York showroom. Meeting Brit and Ash who run DOS made me love the Jude even more!

The Groom

James wore a bespoke fitted suit from Beggars Run. Brogues from Barker, hand made in England and a shirt, tie and Trench coat from Burberry.


The Flowers

We had an early morning trip to New Covent Garden Flower Market, with my Dad and two bridesmaids Belle and Tj. Tj and I snipped some Eucalyptus from a big tree in my local park in Hackney (without getting caught!) to represent my Australian side then Belle did a fabulous job at creating the bouquets.


The Venue

Styling the venue very much a DIY job by both families and friends. Especially brilliant were James’ and Juliet’s parents who foraged for greenery - in homes in Cornwall and London - to hang around the venue. Everyone who helped was up until past midnight the night before the wedding setting the tables (tableware hired from Hogs Back Event Hire), tying up the greenery or filling vases with flowers. Not to forget one of the wedding reception’s main men, the lighting and sound guy, Doug Copppell, who does lighting for some of the biggest festivals in the UK. His brief was to get us all dancing like a proper warehouse party and he came back to us with his plan to create a mini Secret Garden Party in the Brew Shed; and he didn't disappoint. James' cousin created a piece of software which pulled images from Instagram under our hashtag #fromhackneywithlove onto a projector screen so guests could take pics and share them instantly with the room. We had canapés and Prosecco on the Crate’s canal boat ‘Alfred Le Roy’ then moved into the Brewery for entertainment and feasting! We wanted to keep things local and as simple, DIY and inexpensive as possible. We achieved this, from the venue to the caterers to the cake makers - almost everything at the wedding was made by locals!

The Entertainment

Pete Heat, magician and comedian, wowed our guests with his walk around magic, during the canapés followed by his show (on our stage, built the night before by Doug Coppel!) - he had our guests in tears of laughter! Giacomo Smith and Kanas Smitty’s band - played jazz while we devoured our meal. Friends and musicians Jim Dale and Hayley Mary played a number of cover songs we’d chosen with them - they were so brilliant putting in hours of rehearsal time before the wedding. We were clear from the beginning that for the ‘first dance’ we wanted to dance with EVERYONE. Hayley and Jim (with help from Doug Coppell the sound/lighting guy) made that happen for us in the best way imaginable: they performed Outkast’s ‘Hey Ya’ and got the whole room dancing. It was one of the best moments of the day.

The Food

Being vegetarians we opted for a fully veggie wedding. The Canababes devised the most delicious menu - many of the guests said it was the best food they’d ever had at a wedding! The Hardihood, custom made a raw and vegan 3 tiered chocolate cake (other cakes for dessert included: a rose, white chocolate & cardamon cream ‘naked cake’ by friend and food stylist Holly Cochrane (no relation!), autumn fruit pavlova by my Mum and carrot cake by James' Dad.

Advice

Be true to yourselves as a couple. Make the event fit your personalities. For us, we made all decisions together and involved as many people we knew as possible - local makers, talented friends and loving family. Although planning everything ourselves (after work and at weekends AND in only 6 months) was overwhelming at times, we wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.