A Modern and Contemporary Wedding at Wiltons Music Hall in London

Good morning lovelies, Annabel here – what a  week it has been! In the early hours of Monday, Philip, my husband and I, found ourselves making our way on a busy train from our peaceful, calm North Yorkshire home to the hectic city buzz of London – me, having had just about 3 hours sleep for reasons I’ll explain another time after staying up late to see to our frankly ridiculous BT situation (we have a case with the Ombudsman right now which I’m tempted to tell you all about over on our new blog once we launch next month – get Sunday 10th December in your diaries loves, we’ll be hitting the go live button on A Life Loved® that very morning).

Were were in London to work for a few days and arrived back home Thursday afternoon. Dare I say it, since returning home, I’ve started to feel that sleepy, seasonal feel creeping over me. I really MUST get out on some long, late Autumnal walks – blue skies and crisp weather, the kind of leg stretchers I adore this time of year. What have you been up to? By the way, if you’re not yet following our new Instagram account @alifelovedblog, now is the time to do so!

This breathtaking wedding was held at one of my very favourite London venues, Wiltons Music Hall, where Jas, a Freelance Sustainability Consultant married multi-award winning Years & Years band member Emre at this historic venue on 11th August this year. It’s wonderful to see that Jas teamed her gorgeous Truvelle  gown with a veil she ordered online from our Little Book For Brides members, Britten Weddings.

“My ‘Carrall’ dress by Canadian bridal designers, Truvelle (which I purchased from Heart Aflutter in East London) was the second dress I tried on, and I just loved it. It was a different, especially as it wasn’t pure white. I kept finding that overly ‘bridal’ wedding dresses made me feel a little icky – like I was dressing up as someone else – but this one felt just right. So I came back to it. It’s also Canadian made, which made it even more special. I purchased my veil and my earrings online from Britten Weddings, based in Bath.”

Photography by We Heart Pictures

The couple chose our London favourites, We Heart Pictures, to capture their wedding in images.

“We chose Hector of We Heart Pictures because he takes beautiful photos that really capture the spirit of the day; we loved his laid back, spontaneous and documentary style photography. Quite a few people who feature prominently in the photos mentioned they hadn’t even noticed we had a photographer, which is testimony to his stealth and ability to capture natural and spontaneous moments, without people noticing or feeling self-conscious.”“Hector also shot a wedding at Wiltons before, and we loved the photos and lighting, so I knew he would nail it. He captured so many lovely, humorous and whimsical moments for us. We just love our photos. I think they really captured the personality of the day. He also cycled over less than a month after the wedding to hand deliver the photos on a lovely carved USB stick in a beautiful wooden box. Such a nice touch. We can’t thank them enough!”

“Keeping things simple and personal was a priority. I worked full time in a pretty intensive agency job right up until a few days before the wedding, while Emre was touring at festivals every weekend of the summer on the run up to the big day – so I wanted to keep fiddly details to a minimum.”

“That way we could enjoy all our visiting family and friends the week before the wedding and avoid all-nighters making flower garlands.”

“We used Paperless Post and sent e-invites to our wedding. It was easy, significantly cheaper and also allowed me to track RSVPs online, chase up responses etc.”

“My perfume was Miu Miu – Emre bought it for me while he was on tour as a ‘perfume is what husbands buy their wives in a last-minute-airport-panic when they’ve been away on business, right?’gift.”

“Elaine Lynsky and Ben Talbott are the glam crew for Years & Years, whom I’ve gotten to know really well. They both do quite a lot of editorial and celebrity work, so I was fortunate enough to have my two mega talented mates hang out with me the morning of the wedding and make me look pretty.”

“I follow Grace and Thorn on Instagram and love how wild, creative and distinctive their bouquets are. After a consultation with them, I realised I essentially wanted a mix of their ready-to-wear White Noise and Keep It Green Bouquets and table vases. It was so easy and I think the flowers were beautiful.”

“I bought my bridesmaids dresses online because I wanted to go ombre with the colour palette. Most of my friends live all over the place (only one of them is in London), so fittings were out of the question,  I went with JJs House because they had a huge selection and I could get the same dress in different colours in a lovely pastel palette.”

“I let my ‘first ladies’ pick the colours they liked best and we ended up with a pastel pink/mauve ombre affect. I’m not usually a pink person, but I liked the femininity of them and felt they’d suit my mates.”

Emre’s family is located in Turkey, whilst Jas’s is located in Canada – so London offered the perfect middle-meeting point for their wedding.

“We got engaged less than year after we swiped the right – a proper 21st century whirlwind romance ?. We got married ten months later. Wilton’s had two dates available for 2017 and we took the first one. London is also where we met and live now, making it easy for everyone and saving us a bunch of far flung venue recces!”

“Wilton’s was the first venue we looked at and it felt perfect: beautiful, memorable, atmospheric and romantic without being feeling like a typical ‘wedding venue’. It also meant having an indoor wedding, so we didn’t need to count on British weather! The music connection had a nice resonance with Emre’s passion – and the grand hall felt like it could handle a good party, which ticked my main box.”

“In hindsight, we had a strong family thread all the way through. We incorporated a lot of Turkish, Polish and Canadian touches in the food, alcohol and music. We had a whole room dedicated to family photos and video montages, plus my awesome big brother officiated the marriage ceremony, which was incredibly special for Emre and I.”

“Emre wore a Paul Smith tuxedo, purchased from Selfridge’s. The week before the wedding – whoops! My father bought Emre, himself and my brother matching bowties from Scotland.”

“I grew up in rural Canada, so the only element I absolutely had to bring into the day was a bit of nature. We got these really beautiful blossom trees to frame us up on onstage during the ceremony, which felt really special at the time and brought some whimsy.”

“Luckily, the venue is so cool and has so much personality, we didn’t feel it needed a theme or any over-styling. I really wanted to avoid an over-stylised day – we just wanted a great party that felt like us.”

“We were pretty laid back and mainly we just picked individual things that we loved (whether the dress, the flowers, the food, the bridesmaids dresses, the cake etc.), which hopefully worked well when they were finally thrown together on the day.”

“At first, I felt guilty about not engineering and crafting every single detail – I’ve been to some amazing weddings with miles of homemade bunting and themed centre pieces, but then I remembered I’m not particularly crafty (or into bunting!), so I gave up on all that and stopped looking at Pinterest.”

“Emre took charge of the cake – and went big. We got a semi naked, four-tiered cake decorated with flowers. Each tier had a different flavour; lemon drizzle, carrot, victoria sponge and red velvet.”

“I think the music was one of the highlights of the whole day. Because the venue has a stage, there was no way we couldn’t get a band. And we were so lucky that we could draw on Emre’s musician pals, who were coming to the wedding anyway. We ended up getting Tor and Joel, who are the Years & Years’ backing vocalists, to front an 8 piece function band called The Cover Ups.”

“They did a completely tailored set list, bringing on different mates as special guests to perform different songs. They even surprised us by performing with Emre’s bandmates Olly and Mikey, playing my favourite Years & Years song, Memo, and a mash-up of ‘King’ and Rage Against the Machine, which somehow worked! It was really special and people are still talking about how amazing the band was.”

“Our first dance was to 1,2,3,4 by Feist. We ended up dancing as soon as the band came on, so we didn’t make a big fuss when our official ‘first dance’ track came on. We picked it because it’s one of my favourite love songs, which always turns into a big group dance with people singing along – and I love Feist (another Canadian). As it happened, I think Memo ended up acting as ‘our dance’ at the wedding, because it was really special.”

Words of Wedded Wisdom

“Think about what will really make you happy on the day, and prioritise those. What we wanted was to throw a really fun and memorable party. For me, every good party needs lots of chatter between new and old friends over tasty food and lots of wine, followed by a banging dance party with people dancing like crazy and singing along into the early hours. It took me a while to figure out that – although I totally appreciate those amazingly thoughtful, personalised little touches at other peoples’ weddings (like DIY favours) – crafts aren’t really my thing. So, I stopped worrying about having a ‘wedding font’ and making a unique seating plan chart, or making flower garlands for the tables.”

“I took the path of least resistance (using existing seating plan templates off the internet, ordering simple bouquets for the tables instead of hand-made garlands, etc.) to get those things done and out of mind. That way I had time and headspace to focus on the things I knew Emre and I – and our guests – would really enjoy and be memorable.”

“Everyone says this, but delegate to your mates. I was so lucky to have very helpful friends and family. I need to give a special shout out to my incredible friend Mika, who came with me to planning meetings and led the whole set up on the actual day with Marie-Laure, the caterer. It was like having a wedding planner – she knew the whole schedule and flow of the day and who everyone was, so she could keep an eye on timing and last minute changes/deliveries etc., so I didn’t have to worry. She was amazing and it allowed me to let go and enjoy the day.”

“On the guest list – our wedding venue couldn’t accommodate more than 130 people for dinner, so it was a challenge to whittle down the guest list. We decided to have a second wave of friends arrive after dinner, for bubbly and cake, the dancing and the after party. Because we were in London, it worked really well. We had an extra 40 people come for 8pm, who injected fresh energy into the group dynamic. Splitting the day like that is great way of including everyone you want to, without totally breaking the bank (or venue capacity rules!)”

“I would have ordered more alcohol! We ordered the upper volume recommended by our caterer, but still somehow managed to run out of bubbly before dinner (I don’t know what that says about our guests!). The caterer ended up having to order in extra supplies on the fly.

There are perhaps tiny details here and there, but actually, it was such a wonderful day that I didn’t really mind at all when it came down to it! All the important things were there and some of the best bits were the unexpected surprises that came out of the day.”

What a stunning wedding – love and gratitude to both Emre and Jas for sharing their super gorgeous, fun and effortlessly glamorous wedding on Love My Dress. You can see more Wilton’s Music Hall Weddings here, including this, my favourite and most moving wedding on Love My Dress of *all* time.

Have a lovely Sunday all,

Annabel x