Alice & Jon

Alice and Jon's wedding just exudes that understated stylish vibe I absolutely love. When you make excellent choices for the big elements of your wedding day - the venue, your photographer, the fashion, the flowers - you end up with a day that looks beautiful. Alice has a great point about booking a restaurant venue too, this just takes out all the stress of having to organise catering and hire cutlery and furniture. And often, restaurants have gorgeous, cosy interiors that are just begging to be filled with the candle light and laughter of a wedding breakfast. The dreamy images come from Victoria Popova whose beautiful style has captured the emotion of Alice and Jon's wedding day to perfection. There were lots of wonderful moments throughout the day that Victoria brings to life for us with her camera, I can only imagine how special these are to Alice and Jon! Enjoy lovelies ones...

Our Wedding

Alice the Bride: When it came to planning our day we had a very relaxed approach, I’m sure my mum felt it was too relaxed. We wanted to really enjoy the whole process and not have too much pressure on us to create anything too big. Neither of us had a set idea of what we wanted but knew we wanted a relaxed day with a pub reception, tasty food and beautiful flowers (I love flowers)!! After booking the key elements we slowly pulled it together and focused on the details in the month before the wedding...I even did our seating plan the night before the wedding (after a few drinks). Be prepared for things to go wrong I think its inevitable but remember no one else knows and ultimately the day is about you and your husband having the best time and we really did. I smiled so hard all day my jaw ached for days after; I couldn’t have dreamt we would have had such an amazing day.

The Bride

I had no idea of a dress style but wanted something I would feel myself in and be comfortable all day. The ladies at Luella’s Bridal Boutique in Wimbledon village were brilliant. They have a lovely relaxed approach and a gorgeous selection, but as soon as I tried on my Limor Rosen dress I knew it was the one. Sewnright did all my alterations and made my veil (at the last minute). They also made my mum’s stunning coat and Charlotte was awesome and made us feel so at ease. I was surprised in the morning with two gold bangles from Jon engraved with ‘I do’ and our wedding date on the other I wore these along with my Anna Sheffield engagement ring from Liberty’s London. Having a great day also meant having the right people around us and I was so lucky to have so many amazing people on hand to help. My hair and make up was all down to Jo Irving who is such a dream to work with and has such a great energy. She specializes in easy undone wedding hair and mine was just what I wanted and lasted all night.

The Groom

Jon headed straight to Ted Baker for his suit having worked for them when he was younger and knowing they fit him well. He chose a lovely blue light woollen suit. He wanted to give it a slightly relaxed wintery feel and so went for a contrasting waistcoat from Hackett. I treated him to his shoes and matching belt from Russell and Bromley as his wedding gift. All the groomsmen wore blue suits and matching pink ties from Charles Tyrwhitt.

The Flowers & Details

Flowers were the only part that I had an idea of what I wanted and luckily our amazing family friend Claire and her daughter Connie offered their help as soon as we got engaged. We went for loads of foliage and some even came from my parents garden, highlighted with a few of my favourites, amaranths’, protea and hydrangeas. Having my bouquet bought to me by Connie as I was getting ready made me feel quite emosh, they had captured everything I wanted. Inside The White Horse Claire covered everything in foliage and the chandeliers had amaranths highlighting them perfectly. The tables were kept simple with homemade candleholders. Made from glass bottles with eucalyptus suspended in water and tapered candles, they complimented the venue perfectly and a few of them now sit on my mantelpiece and act as a lovely reminder of the day. For wedding favours we opted for mini jam jars filled with tequila to get everyone going!

The Wedding Party

I left my bridesmaids dresses down to my maid of honour Helen who I have know my whole life and has awesome style. She went for a cute tasseled dress from Zara and for Lauren an embellished ASOS number, all in similar tones to my dress. I remembered being a flower girl when I was younger and didn’t enjoy it, partly due to an uncomfortable dress. So we went for tutus from Bob and Blossom and the Jumpers and trainers were from Zara for our flower girls, they loved them. I also made them little goodie bags to keep them entertained during the meal.

The Ceremony

Having booked our reception venue we were struggling to find a good ceremony option. Knowing one of Jon’s school friends had her reception in the same place we hit her up for tips and she sold us on the Guildhall in Priory Park. We ended up booking it without even seeing it and could not have been happier we did. It is such a beautiful location in the centre of Chichester and Laura and Charlotte were amazing from beginning to end. Getting ready at the venue the day before Jon heard a guy playing the Trumpet in the park. After a quick chat he was booked to play as our guests arrived and after the ceremony and he was amazing. It is such a beautiful building so we decided to keep decoration to a minimum, lots and lots of foliage and big balloons. We were so lucky with perfect blue skies, getting out of the car at Priory Park and walking down with my dad and the trumpet playing us in was an amazing moment. I struggled not to sob the whole way down the aisle, its so overwhelming having all your favourite people in one place and the energy they give off, I did ok until I saw Jon. We went for traditional vows and also had readings from Jon’s sister ‘Love is like owning a dog’ Taylor Mali and my maid of honour ‘You deserve a lover’ by Frida Cahlo had us all in tears, it was one of the highlights of the day for me.

The Reception

We booked The White Horse for our reception because it is such a beautiful country pub; it serves great food and drinks and also has 15 rooms. Meaning all our family could stay with us on site. It’s also a venue, which requires very little decoration, plus having not to worry about sourcing caters or ordering enough booze made it all so easy. The whole team, were amazing on the day and we had so many compliments from our guests on the great service. They also let us carry on the celebrations till late and could not have made our day better. We had the option of Prosecco or Sloe gin cocktails and a selection of canapés as our guests arrived from the ceremony. Knowing it would all get a little messy later on in the evening we wanted a hearty filling meal and having had our first date at the pie shop we went for a seriously tasty beef and ale pie and white onion soup to start. We served our cake for desert, which was from Tartufi. Having ordered it very last minute they surpassed all my expectations and where so easy to deal with, plus it looked and tasted amazing!

The Entertainment

For entertainment we had Libby Shone singing as our guests arrived for the reception, she has a great chilled Jazz vibe. We wanted our guests to get up and dance and went for a DJ; we worked with him to get a playlist of party tunes and 80s classics. He was great and also happy to take requests and even supplied a mic when one of our guests decided to give us little rendition of Eminem.

The Photography

Having photographed a few of our friend’s weddings I knew straight away we wanted to use Vika. She has such a lovely style to her work and captures natural moments rather than staged shots. She has a lovely way of working with you and made us feel so at ease and most importantly captured the day perfectly. We could not have asked for more, book her!