Amanda & Seamus

What a glam and gorgeous wedding party! It's always a treat to feature a stylish city wedding, especially one as lovely as this. Amanda and Seamus chose to hold their wedding at Town Hall Hotel, which is the most stunning art deco building with incredible spaces. Amanda has styled the day perfectly with subtle nods to the era, rather than full on Gatsby glitz and I'm adoring the clean colour palette of whites and greens. Amanda looks so elegant in a Charlie Brear gown, it's the perfect pairing of lace and silk and fits her beautifully. Images come from Kirsty Mackenzie, who the couple found right here on RMW :)

The Bride

Amanda The Bride: Before I went shopping for my dress I had spent quite a bit of time on Pinterest so I had a fair idea of what I was looking for. Charlie Brear was the first appointment I went to and I instantly loved a number of their dresses and could have easily bought any of them! However, I decided to go with my dress as I liked the idea of it offering me two looks, one for the day and evening, and it was also a dress I could still wear my beloved spanxs under! I originally wasn’t going to wear a veil but as we had a church service I changed my mind a few months before the wedding as I thought it was fitting to the venue, I also bought this from Charlie Brear. I kept the rest of my accessories simple as I wanted the dress to speak for itself. I wore some pearl earrings I found at Old Spitalfields Market and a bracelet I ordered from BHLDN. I ended up having to buy two pairs of wedding shoes as when I had my dress altered the lady advised me that the original shoes I bought could damage my dress as they had sharp edges from the sparkly sequins which could easily catch on the material. So the pair I actually wore were a little less exciting but I still loved them all the same.

The Groom

We hired all the groomsmen suits from Yardsmen in Waterloo. All the groomsmen wore a French Blue suit, however, the father of the bride and the father of the groom both wore a grey suit and we bought matching ties and pocket squares for everyone which worked well.

The Venue

As Seamus is Irish we decided to get married in London in order to make it easy for his friends and family to travel to the wedding from Ireland. I always knew I wasn’t a country manor type of girl so felt that London’s wedding venues offered a good alternative, however, we found that a number of them felt quite corporate for a wedding when we actually went to view them. When we saw the Town Hall Hotel and Apartments in Bethnal Green we both instantly fell in love with it as it was exactly what we were looking for. It offered such an elegant setting but did not feel too cheesy or clichéd. The team at the hotel were excellent as they took care of most of the preparations which was amazing and no request was made to feel too big.

The Decor

Trying to buy decorations was a very long process as I wanted decorations that suited the venue. However, whenever I googled ‘art deco wedding decorations’ I was faced with a whole load of OTT Great Gatsby themed décor. It therefore took a long time going through various websites until I finally found what I was looking for but we were both really happy with how everything came together. We didn’t want to have a colour scheme which is why we went for white and green flowers but then also incorporated some gold within the decorations. My favourite items were our guest book table as we had a Polaroid camera which people could use when signing the book (idea totally stolen from Pinterest!) and our A & S light up letters my sister bought us. We had Irish cream and Irish whiskey for our wedding favours which went down a treat!

The Flowers

We used INDECO for our flowers who were recommended by the Town Hall Hotel. As neither of us know much about flowers we were completely in the hands of our florist but she truly did an excellent job as we couldn’t have been happier with the flowers. She also gave us the opportunity to meet her at New Covent Garden Flower Market on a Saturday morning (7am!) to pick out the flowers we liked. In addition, she used gold tea lights to break up the tables and also decorated our wedding cake with the same flowers.

The Wedding Party

I found shopping for the bridesmaid’s dresses one of the more stressful tasks as it was difficult to find a dress that all four would be happy wearing. I loved the range by Jenny Packham for Debenhams but went with the final choice as thought it added some sparkle for the day.

The Ceremony

We tried to make the ceremony as personal to us as we could by incorporating a number of our friends and family. The ceremony took place at a Catholic church in Hoxton Square and was held by a Priest who was a family friend who had flown over from Ireland for the day. This put us both at ease instantly and felt truly special to have someone we knew marry us and who also married Seamus’ parents 41 years ago! Seamus’ cousins also sang whilst we were signing the register which was a very special moment and brought a lot of the guests to tears! In addition, a number of our friends and family also read prayers and readings throughout the ceremony.

The Entertainment

We wanted a band for our evening entertainment and a friend had recommended Warble Entertainment. There are a huge number of bands on their website but decided to go with the MP3s as we liked their Indie set list and they also added the extra bonus of dj-ing whilst they weren’t playing. The guys did a great job on the night and the dance floor was packed all evening!

The Food

Our cake came from Beas of Bloomsbury and we decided to only get it decorated in cream cheese as we wanted it to be finished with real flowers from our florist. The rest of the food was supplied by the venue which was excellent.

The Photography

We were very particular about our wedding photographer as we didn’t want anything too cheesy or too staged. I spent a long time looking at various photographers on RMW and instantly loved Kirsty’s photographs. We are so happy we chose Kirsty as it feels like she really captured the essence of the day and caught some really great moments which we will always be able to treasure.