Inspiration

This wedding is truly and utterly sublime. In fact I'd even go as far as saying that Emma and Ben's big day is definitely one of my favourite weddings of 2016 here on RMW. For a start the pair are a joy to watch in the way that they respond to one another - so romantically affectionate that I actually got a bit of a lump in my throat when I clapped eyes on the photo of Ben kissing Emma's hand. The pair married in Stockholm, more specifically in a beautiful greenhouse - Rosendals Trädgård - relaxed yet utterly luxurious. And if that wasn't enough to get my heart a-fluttering then just take a look at Emma's blush pink “Lela Rose” frock complete with super sexy detailing and pockets. I know. Genius. I'll let Emma tell you about the ceremony and how it didn't exactly go to plan. To say that I take my hat off to both she and Ben for not losing the plot is an understatement. It's safe to say that this couple are totally cool cats. Come and take a look...
Emma The Bride: When planning our wedding our wedding we had one main goal – that it would reflect us. Neither Ben nor I had dreams of a cookie-cutter wedding, having a huge over-the-top affair or anything remotely pretentious – we just wanted all of our friends and family in one place to celebrate our special day with lots of food, music and bubbles on tap. This, however was easier said than done. Due to our backgrounds (Ben is a Kiwi living in London by way of Zimbabwe and I am Swedish with American roots and I have worked almost all over the world) – trying to find a place and time where everyone could congregate was a difficult task! Originally we thought that England that was the right choice for us but even after viewing multiple venues (and picking one!) I couldn’t shake the feeling that we should be getting married in Sweden. So finally one night (after a few glasses of wine…) I told Ben that I didn’t want to married in England after all and that I knew the perfect place for us to wed in Stockholm. Luckily for me – my husband is a very understanding (and trusting!) man and agreed. I had fallen in love with Rosendals Trädgård years ago. I remember going there with a friend of mine when we were at university. We were sitting in the café and I turned to my friend and said “this is place is just perfect isn’t it? Can you imagine getting married here? How magical.” 10 years later I was lucky enough to convince my fiancée that Rosendals Trädgård offered us the perfect wedding venue – relaxed yet luxurious, outdoors but not too rustic, amazing food and the opportunity to keep partying until 2am.

The Bride's Fashion

I knew I wanted my wedding dress to be classic but being 6ft tall and curvy I was worried that nothing would sit quite right and I wouldn’t be able to find a dress that I loved - fortunately my bridesmaids had me covered. We spent the day drinking champagne and trying on dresses across London but it wasn’t until we went to the final store, Browns Bride and I tried on their dresses from Lela Rose that I found “the one”. It was different to all the dresses I had seen before – classic, but with a beautiful pattern with a soft pink sheen and best all it had pockets! I had planned to throw a jeans jacket over the dress if I got cold (to keep the vibe relaxed and to protect against the unpredictable Swedish summer weather) but we were lucky and the weather was gorgeous on the day and I didn’t need it. I’ve never been one for wearing much jewellery so on the wedding day I kept it simple by letting my beautiful engagement ring from Hirsh London shine and paring it with some gorgeous diamond earring that have been in my family for ages.

The Groom's Fashion

Ben knew he wanted a suit that was well tailored and would continue to serve him even after the wedding. We looked around at various different tailors in London but finally decided to have a dark blue tuxedo one custom made at Dress2Kill. My favourite detail? Sewn in to the lining it says “Ben and Emma, 27th June 2015”

The Venue

Rosendals Trädgård is a beautiful garden on the island of Djurgarden in the middle of Stockholm. We decided to hold both the ceremony and reception there in order to cut down stress and having to move the guests from one venue to another. The ceremony was held in a “secret” garden followed by a drinks reception in the apple orchard. The dinner and reception were then held the two of their greenhouses. I can’t even begin to describe how beautiful it was. It was important for us to try to make the wedding planning as stress-free as possible and our venue allowed us to do just that. We didn’t choose a colour scheme – instead we just decided to let the venue be decorated with seasonal flowers and gave the venue free reign to decorate as they saw fit. The venue was responsible for all of the wedding flowers apart from the wedding bouquet which was made by my mother with flowers from the family garden. As with the flowers the venue also managed the catering. Their cafe produces very high quality food using using local, organic produce. We looked over the menu before hand but hadn’t had a chance to taste test anything before the day so we took a bit of a gamble but it paid off – the food was lovely and very different to your standard three course wedding breakfast.

Ceremony

Our ceremony didn’t quite go to plan.... two weeks before the wedding, after having all of our programs printed, our registrar pulled out saying that she had a conflicting event at the time of our ceremony. I immediately started freaking out but Ben kept a cool head and convinced me that we could work around this. We managed to convince the registrar to wed us on the morning of our wedding day and as there are no restrictions on where you can marry in Sweden we found ourselves standing in the living room of my parent’s pied de terre at 10am tying the knot! While it wasn’t quite what we had planned it was lovely to have a few moments to ourselves before getting swept away with the day. We still had a “ceremony” during the wedding but it was led by my brother and even though it wasn’t what we had planned it was lovely to stand in front of our friends and family hearing him talk about Ben and I and the love we share.

Entertainment

We had the amazing Soul Company play at the wedding both during the ceremony and the reception. They were fantastic!! We didn’t want the traditional string quartet ceremony music so they sang me down the aisle to “God only knows” and we exited to “Signed, Sealed, Delivered”. They also kept the party going until 2 am – making sure the dance floor was packed the entire time!

Photographer

Our photographer was one of the first things that we decided upon and I couldn’t have been happier with Lucy Little! From our first e-mail Lucy immediately put me at ease and was such a star through out the entire process – she even agreed to come to Sweden with us after we changed our wedding venue! On the day she mingled with the guests and, bless her, was one of the last to leave; she truly captured the entire wedding. She understood what we wanted and captured it perfectly – nothing too formal, just all of our friends and family having a wonderful time. We have received so many compliments for our wedding photos and I’m blessed to have them so that we can relive our special day over again.

Advice

If there is one piece of advice I can give to brides is work out what is important to YOU and prioritise it. For us it was ensuring that our friends and family had a great time and that we had a great party. It’s easy to get caught up in the wedding hype but you need to remember that it’s a day celebrating you two as a couple – so it should represent the two of you. As long as you are happy the rest of it will fall in to place – it always does.
Lauren Gautier-Ollerenshaw

Written by Lauren Gautier-Ollerenshaw

Bridal Gown: 'The Mountain' by Lela Rose | Bridal Boutique: Brown's Bride | Venue: Rosendals Trädgård, Sweden | Rings: Hirsh London | Groom: Dress2Kill

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