Vicky & Fraser

We've long been a fan of a cheese tower as an alternative to a traditional wedding cake, especially when they're as beautiful as todays masterpiece. It's fits in beautifully with the industrial Brixton East wedding venue and compliments the colour scheme of this city wedding to perfection with its herb, grape and fig decor. Vicky and Fraser's contemporary style shines through in their fashion choices too. Whilst the Bridesmaids don Jumpsuits from Zara, bride Vicky opts for a gorgeous figure hugging gown from Belle & Bunty. The captured of her (and her girls) by Joanna Bongard Phography outside the pink door is literally bridal perfection. With bags more personality and fairy lights to swoon over, you'll be hard pressed not to be bowled over by this adorable couple and their wedding.

Our Story

Emily the Bride: We met in the usual, post 2012 fashion - Tinder. Minutes into our first date however we realised we had actually worked together years previously; spoken on the phone, exchanged emails but had never ac-tually met face to face. We were engaged one year after our first date at the same North London pub.

Our Wedding

London was the obvious location for our wedding, we wanted to invite our family and friends to cele-brate where we lived and spent our time together. We knew we wanted something relaxed and fun that felt personal to us. We both wanted to keep the day as simple and stress free as possible, so put a lot of trust in our suppliers to run the show for us. We made a lot of the decisions early on with regard to the planning so that we could just enjoy a year of being engaged.

The Fashion

Being all of 4ft 11 (at a push) I knew a lot of dress options were out for me. It quickly became very clear if something was going to suit me or not - there were some outfits I literally pulled up as far as my knees and knew they weren’t going to work! I had seen Belle and Bunty while doing my research and loved their contemporary take on vintage dress styles. Located in Kentish Town near where we live in North London, I loved the idea of championing some local designers. Alice and Hannah the owners could not have been more helpful and encouraging, I really looked forward to visiting them at my fittings!

Grooms Attire

Fraser is not known for his love of fashion, he's more of a ‘shorts and t-shirt kind of guy’. The thought of wearing a suit generally fills him with dread. We decided to look in Paul Smith one Saturday for ‘ideas’ but he tried on the first suit he saw - a striking racing green and bought it then and there. Yes, the man is decisive.

Bridesmaids

I knew I didn’t want the bridesmaids in traditional dresses and started a hunt for jumpsuits. I found these silky Zara ones online and was delighted when all the girls were happy. My gorgeous niece Heidi was our flower girl, wearing a beautiful, white Monsoon kids dress.

The Flowers

I was incredibly fortunate that one of my best friends and bridesmaids Marianne had recently started her own floristry business, Wolves Lane Flower Company. Together with her business partner Camilla, WLFC created all the installations at Brixton East and beautiful decorations for our trestle tables. The bouquets and buttonholes were from the brilliant Scarlet and Violet.

The Ceremony

We wanted to keep the ceremony as personal as possible, choosing my brother and sister-in-law to play two acoustic numbers - ‘At Last’ by Etta James as I walked down the isle and ‘My Cherie Amour’ by Ste-vie Wonder during the signing of the register. We walked out to Huey Lewis and The News ‘The Power of Love’ from Back to the Future - one of our favourite films. Our readings were from Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernières and Douglas Adam’s ‘So Long and Thanks for all the Fish’ - read by two of our guests who had travelled from Perth (Australia) and Pennsylvania (USA) respectively. The whole ceremony felt very relaxed and it was so brilliant having all our friends and family there to share that special moment.

The Photography

I had read about our photographer, Jo Bongard on Rock My Wedding. When I saw her website, I could see she did a lot of city weddings, so wouldn’t be phased by the lack of stately home or rolling fields at our wedding! I loved her style straight away and my hunch that she would be great was confirmed when we first met up. She was so lovely and answered the million questions I had for her so brilliantly. She blended in so well with our guests on the day, a lot of our friends actually thought Jo was an old friend of ours!

The Reception

Brixton East was the part of our wedding we actually decided upon first! We knew we were looking to accommodate approximately 100 people in a venue in central London that was a blank canvas we could decorate and make our own. I’d seen Brixton East whilst doing my research online and as soon as we walked in to be greeted by the owner Andy, we knew this was where we had to have our reception. Andy was really helpful answering questions / giving advice and his whole team were really great at ac-commodating all our requests. On our second viewing at Brixton East, a wedding was being set up and the auntie of the Bride was raving about the caterer they were using and kindly emailed me their details. A few months later we met with Kris and Caron from Feast and liked them straight away. They totally got the laid back communal feel we wanted for the meal and created a bespoke feasting menu which in-cluded Chicken Marinated in thyme and garlic with salsa verde, roasted beef marinated in balsamic, rosemary and garlic with fresh creamed horse radish, three different types of salad, artisan breads, goo-ey double chocolate brownies and eton mess for pudding. They even made sausage rolls for the bus journey! Our cake was a tower of cheeses decorated with figs and grapes.

Entertainment

We are lucky enough to be mates with DJ Joe Carter (who is also married to Bridesmaid Hollie), and we simply gave him he brief of ‘wall to wall bangers’. Music was something we really cared about and we wanted the dance floor to be full all night. Joe did not disappoint, playing an outstanding set combining funk and soul, RnB, pop classics and even a bit of UK garage! Our mates absolutely loved it.

Memorable Moments

I think the speeches were probably the most memorable moment of the day. Fraser surprised me with an animation he and his team at Cub Studio had created for the day. I was sort of speechless, I think my face in the photos probably sums up how I felt! Another moment that stood out for me was getting ready for the day with my Mum and Bridesmaids in Holloway with the help of hairstylist Lara Zee. My Bridesmaid George had kindly offered to do my make-up for me and as a total beauty expert I knew I was in safe hands! The whole morning was spent relax-ing in our dressing gowns and having fizz!

First Dance

Our first dance was to ‘This Must Be The Place’ by Talking Heads.

Advice

I would tell any bride-to-be... Pick great suppliers and trust them to do their thing! Delegate - I had the most awesome team of bridesmaids all of whom are married so had been there and done that to help me out! On the day just go with the flow, oh and take a night nurse the night before!