True Love Ways.

Emily and Henry married in April 2012 at the fantastic Soho House, London.

Yes we are in London folks

Emily and Henry chose Soho House because they loved the idea of getting married in central London and also Soho House has a roof terrace that you can open up… If the sun shines.

Sadly it absolutely poured with rain all day long so the roof was never opened, but it didn’t stop them having an amazing day to remember forever. Henry our groom has a few words to say in today’s report so I have picked him out in bold and plain text. Emily is in italic.

Photography today is by the super cool Lisa Devlin. Enjoy.

The First One

My dress was by Ugo Zaldi and was the first and only one I tried on! A few weeks after we got engaged I spotted that Brides magazine was doing a big sample sale with some of the proceeds going to charity. It was at The Langham hotel so I went along with a friend with the intention of having a nosey around and a few drinks in the bar. I ended up finding the dress at the Blackburn Bridal stand – something of a coincidence as I live in Blackheath and had planned to go to the shop once my ‘proper’ wedding dress hunt started!

I fell in love with the top of the dress and all of the detail. After a bit of pondering and remote consultation with my mum via picture messages and a phonecall – I took the plunge and bought it! Although I missed out on the typical wedding dress buying experience of appointments and champagne etc I actually loved the spontaneity of the evening and there was a real buzz about the place. Russell Blackburn and colleagues looked after me so well and my dress, my friend and I still made it to the lovely hotel bar for a few celebratory glasses of wine!

1930s Feel

I chose not to have a veil as it wouldn’t really have gone with the style of wedding or my dress. I didn’t want too much going on with my hair accessories due to the detail on the shoulders of the dress but found a lovely vintage hair slide that went with the slightly 1930s feel. I got it from Sheena Holland she has a shop in Derby and a very good selection of vintage accessories available on the website.

On the morning of the wedding, Henry (via my best friend Hannah) gave me some beautiful earrings from Johnny Rocket – the jeweler in Greenwich who made my engagement ring and our wedding rings. I knew I wanted to wear them and luckily they went perfectly!

I also wore a grey pearl bracelet from Fenwick which I had bought the previous day…

Ivory And Crystal

My shoes were by a designer called Pedro Garcia. They were high heeled ivory coloured satin with a peep toe and Swarovski crystal detail. I found them on Net-a-Porter not long after I got my dress. They were surprisingly comfy so I managed to keep them on until fairly late in the evening when I changed into some sparkly white ballet pumps from Topshop! The flats actually came in very handy earlier in the day when I had to walk the short walk from my hotel to the venue in the rain as I could keep the heels pristine! (a brilliant idea from our photographer Lisa Devlin…)

A Last Minute Change

I had always planned to have my hair and makeup done by someone that could come to the hotel but a few days before the wedding I was let down by my hair/make-up person so ended up with a very different plan… After an hour of furious googling – I called Daniel Hersheson salon in Mayfair who managed to squeeze me in for both hair and makeup the morning of the wedding! They were fabulous and despite the short notice I managed to meet Andre the hair stylist for a consultation that same day. As things often do it all worked out for the best on the day as I think I would have gone slightly mad in my hotel room for the whole morning and a trip to the salon was a lot of fun! Lauren Hersheson did my make-up and did an amazing job.

Peonies Throughout

Vic Brotherson from Scarlet and Violet did our flowers.

Vic was recommended to us by Shoreditch House during a site visit. We knew we wanted the flowers to be relaxed and colourful and loved the slightly vintage style of Vic’s arrangements. We had a few meetings to discuss what we wanted but she is just brilliant at picking up on what you say without you really realising it.

Rather than specifying certain blooms we talked more about a general style and colour theme for the flowers and then Vic worked her magic! We actually had two slightly differing styles as the colour schemes in the different rooms we used for our ceremony and party were slightly different. My only real demand was for peonies if they were in season and Vic pulled it off with peonies in my bouquet and throughout the arrangements! I almost cried when I got back from my hairdressers to find my beautiful bouquet!

We have had lots of positive feedback from our guests who all thought the flowers were beautiful, and many of them were happy to take some of them home at the end of the wedding!

My 4 year old niece in particular was so taken by her flower girl posey she didn’t put it down all day and even carried it around with her the next day. She was convinced the peonies smelt like ice cream – adorable!

Henry – having previously told Emily that the flowers were entirely her domain I was quite surprised by how interested I was when we first met with Vic to discuss, and I ended up having quite strong opinions! In the end Vic used a small rose bud called ‘bombastic’ as the centerpiece of my buttonhole, and I think we all thought that was quite appropriate! I loved it and Vic managed to match the colour with the colours in my outfit superbly.

Two Best Men

Henry – Emily decided not to have any bridesmaids, but I had two best men. I left it to them to sort out their own outfits, and as a stroke of luck they ended up complementing each other (and me) quite nicely!

Emily’s niece Nancy was our flower girl, and Emily and her sister chose a pink flowery dress from Monsoon for her to wear. She loved it but not quite as much as she loved her posey!

Groomzilla

Henry – I thought I’d tell you about my outfit, before I leave it to my wife to describe how she felt!

I wore a suit from Acne which I bought in the January sale and had adjusted closer to the wedding. My shoes were from Folk on Lamb’s Conduit Street in London. I knew I wanted a white shirt and red colours in the outfit (red being my favourite colour). The shirt was from Paul and Joe and (groomzilla moment coming up!) I actually had it sent over from their store in Paris! I originally saw it in the window of their Covent Garden store, but they were all out of my size, so I emailed Paul and Joe in France and they were brilliant, and told me they had one left in their Paris store. After a short call using what remains of my A-Level French, I managed to get it sent over and it was perfect!

My bowtie was made by Dolbeau and I had it embroidered with our initials and the date of the wedding, so it will make a nice keepsake. The pocket square was from The Hill-Side and I also bought it at Folk.

The final detail was a watch which Emily arranged for my best man to give me on the morning of the wedding. It is rose gold and I had seen it a year or so before in a shop in Liverpool, and it was a lovely surprise to receive on my wedding day.

Although I had seen each part of Henry’s outfit I had not seen it all together until the big day! His attention to detail paid off and he looked both handsome and incredibly stylish stood there at the end of the aisle waiting for me!

Team Lisa

My sister knew of Lisa Devlin through one of her friends and as soon as we saw her website we knew she was exactly what we were looking for. Her photos are so beautiful and really give you a sense of what the people are like. We met her for a coffee and got on really well. Despite saying we would never do an engagement shoot, we decided to go for it on Lisa’s recommendation and we are glad that we did. It was fun and helped us get used to being photographed in busy places – useful for Soho on a Saturday afternoon!

We saw the first set of photos when we were away on honeymoon and just loved them. Lisa has done a fantastic job of capturing how we felt on the day as well as all the details!

Lisa always works with a second photographer and we were very lucky to have the lovely Lisa Brown! She met the boys at their hotel and was a great help – particularly with buttonholes and in getting things going with the Polaroid camera…

If you can I think having two photographers works amazingly well as you can cover so much more and get the natural photos we were after.

We also loved having the Lisas around on the day and they were valiant in their efforts to get everyone out in the rain for a group shot!!

Cupcake Tower

We knew we didn’t want to do formal cake cutting and are both big cupcake fans so went for a cupcake tower. Crumbs and Doilies did a fantastic job – I actually found them through Rock My Wedding but coincidentally my friend knows the girls who run it. We had a mix of flavours, sizes and decorations for guests to munch on throughout the day. In fact they were such a success that we didn’t get to see some of the individually decorated cakes as our guests had eaten them!

Henry – as well as cupcakes I was keen to provide an alternative for our guests, and so we bought a box of Hostess Twinkies from Cybercandy in Covent Garden. I love Twinkies and they also feature in some of my favourite movies (like Die Hard!), so it was nice to have them as part of the day. I didn’t expect them to be such a hit, but I found myself only left with one slightly battered twinkie hidden in our crate at the end of the wedding, the rest having been devoured by our sweet-toothed guests!

Rock N Roll

We hired the lovely Vanessa Mallinson – one of the resident DJs at Soho House for the evening. She did a great job and kept people on the dancefloor all night! We gave Vanessa a mix of music that we wanted to hear – a good dose of 50s and 60s rock n roll as well as some particular songs that we love. The official evening ended on a high with Empire State of Mind… A nod to our engagement in New York last year.

Two First Dances

Henry –The first dance was the focus of much discussion! We went round the houses but got it down to a shortlist of two – True Love Ways by Buddy Holly and In My Life by The Beatles. We love Buddy Holly and although we hadn’t heard the song before, we fell in love with it and the fact that it was written for his wedding. We also love the Beatles and it was nice to have a reference to Liverpool (the city where we met). In the end we had both!!

I was a bit reluctant to do a first dance but it ended up being one of my favourite moments. A few people joined in part way through the first song and having the second song gave us some time to ourselves just to take everything in!

Wedding Scent

We had scented candles in the ceremony and by the guest book. I had been to Jo Malone for a wedding consultation (a bit of fun and a free arm massage!) and fell hook line and sinker for the idea of ‘scenting the wedding’!

Our florist and Soho House provided candles throughout the venue which were gorgeous in the evening. We added a few personal touches like the knitted Bride and Groom dolls and the table plan which was designed by Henry and based on our USA honeymoon to California, Montana, Wyoming and Colorado!

Sticklers For Detail

Originally we seriously considered getting married in California. We both love the states and have always pondered a wedding on the Pacific Coast. However we soon realised that would mean that very few of our friends and family would be able to attend and there was no way we wanted to get married without those people there. In the end we decided on central London. We have lived here for almost 8 years and it is home to us. It also meant that almost everyone could come (including my lovely little nieces and nephew who were a big part of the day) and seeing how happy they were for us made our day really special.

For us making sure we were both involved in all of the planning made sure the day was a representation of what we both wanted. It was never the case that Henry only nodded or vetoed each decision – we are both sticklers for detail and put a lot of time and effort into getting things right. It was so nice to see that all the tiny decisions we’d made all had an impact – from choosing a single venue for the ceremony and reception to embracing the rainy weather with a couple of nice umbrellas and the music, food etc.

Henry – my advice would be don’t be afraid to try and use your creativity. When I decided to design the table plan and invitations myself it was a bit daunting but in the end I really enjoyed it and the result was more personal. We also had a lot of fun – particularly doing our save the dates using the photobooth app on the iPad!

Venue – Soho House

Photographer – Lisa Devlin

Dress – Ugo Zaldi

Hair Slide – Sheena Holland

Shoes – Pedro Garcia

Florals – Scarlet and Violet

Hair – Daniel Hersheson

Make-up – Lauren Hersheson

Cake – Crumbs and Doilies

Entertainment – Vanessa Mallinson

A bit of a fashion-fest this one. Henry is one seriously dedicated groom in the clothing stakes… He knows exactly what he wants and he is going to move heaven and earth (well, a shirt from Paris) In order to get it.

Emily isn’t letting the side down either – the Ugo Zaldi dress and Sheena Holland are a seriously classy combination.

I love London, it is a shame the sun didn’t shine for our lovely couple but they embraced the bad weather and made the most of it. Lisa Devlin did the same and managed to pull off some impromptu photographic magic – that last shot of the brollies is an absolute corker.

Adam.