Katie and Dan’s wedding is a lesson in how to do effortless, modern, city wedding style beautifully and with a riot of colour and joy. The couple chose Bourne & Hollingsworth Buildings in Clerkenwell, London, to host their nuptials and talented creative Jo, of Joasis Photography to document their day. Both venue and photographer are trusted partners of Love My Dress and you’ll find them in our beautiful Wedding Directory.
Bourne & Hollingsworth Buildings was such a good fit for the kind of celebration Katie and Dan wanted to create; modern and stylish but still relaxed and full of atmosphere, with the different floors allowing the day to move naturally from ceremony to dinner and dancing whilst keeping everyone together under one roof. Before heading to the venue, the couple also shared a private first look at the Georgian townhouse where they got ready that morning, carving out a little time together before the celebrations properly began and the rooms filled with family, friends and all the excitement of the day ahead.
From the vibrant pink, orange and yellow florals to Katie’s chic, pre-loved MWL Bride gown and the handmade, illustrated details that Katie created herself for every guest, this wedding was full of beautiful decisions that thoughtfully reflected the couple and their personalities. Friends and family embraced the colourful brief wholeheartedly too, including both mums in incredible shades of bright purple and electric blue that brought even more life and character into the day.
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The Venue & Location
Our venue was Bourne & Hollingsworth Buildings in Clerkenwell, London. We looked at more than ten venues and in the end we, of course, chose the first one that we saw!
We loved the chic aesthetic, that we could host all three elements under the same roof (but on different floors), and that we knew the food would be delicious even when served to 90+ people. The only thing missing from B&H was a space to do hair, makeup, and get ready.
We found a gorgeous grade II listed townhouse in high holborn through the production site Scouty, which we fell in love with on first viewing. It provided the most beautiful setting for us to prepare for our wedding and the most beautiful backdrop for our photos too!
The Dress
MWL Bridal
I wore a dress by MWL Bride. My dress was actually secondhand – in an odd coincidence an old school friend got married in the MWL Austin and was planning on reselling it, so I bought it off her and had it tailored to me. Totally appreciate you may not want to include this detail on the website!
I did a few dress-try-on sessions. One with my mum, mother in law, and best friend to try on a huge range of different dresses to figure out what I like, and also for the experience! I then went to a few other boutiques by myself once I had a better idea of what I was looking for.
Whilst it was a lot of fun to try on dresses with an audience, I knew that I’d find it much calmer going by myself later on in the process.
I knew I wanted something sleek and simple which was surprisingly difficult to find! I went to a few different bridal shops and spent hours scrolling pinterest.
Much as I loved the dress, I knew it wouldn’t be fantastic for boogying the night away, so found a short little party dress to change into from about 10pm. It was the ‘Harper’ dress by Nadine Merabi, which I wore with a pair of white Cowboy boots.
I wore a super long pearl covered veil, bought from an Etsy shop Bridal By Valeria and my shoes were Monolos. I also wore a pair of earrings by earrings by sustainable fine jewellery brand, Linjer and my scent was Le Labo’s Thé Matcha 26.
Dan had a vision of a double breasted dark green suit but struggled to find the right shade and cut. Everything off the rack was too bright and/or slim fit, and even when pouring over the offerings of made to measure sites and the swatch books of many a Saville Row tailor, just couldn’t find a fabric with the right depth of colour.
Eventually, he met with Robbie at Zebel on Berwick street who after an hour of searching managed to pull out the perfect fabric.
The suit was tailored with gold buttons. Dan picked a light pink tie for himself and hi groomsmen, who otherwise chose their own suits in shades of navy blue.
Without a doubt the favourite part of our day was the dress reveal. We rented a large townhouse where we could get ready with our wedding party and have some of the formal photos done before meeting the rest of our guests.
We had spent the whole morning on separate floors, hearing each other stomp around or laughing with friends. By the time we were placed into a room together, eyes closed, and then able to take our first look it felt like laying eyes on each other for the first time all over again.
We were able to enjoy the moment just the two of us (thanks to Jo and my bridesmaid Laura’s skills in herding everyone else out of the way) and take our time to soak it in without being surprised at the altar with all those eyes on us and all that pressure!
The Ceremony
We knew that our chosen venue wasn’t licensed for weddings and so chose to have the legal wedding at Hackney town hall on the Friday with the “main ceremony” with all our family and friends on the Saturday.
Dan walked down the aisle with his Mum first. Then our bridesmaids and groomsmen walked down in pairs, before my Dad walked me down to meet Dan.
My brother, Jamie, had said from the start that he would love to play a role in the wedding and as a natural born performer we decided he was the right person to play the role of celebrant. He was absolutely brilliant (and has been inundated with requests to officiate other weddings since!).
Our friend Emma read ‘Union’ by Robert Fulgham. We felt like it really captured how it feels to be friends for a long time before becoming a couple and felt very modern, which is exactly the vibe we were aiming for across the whole day.
I got a gold band with half infinity diamonds inset, from the Diamond shop. I felt pretty strongly about having lab diamonds so that was my starting point! Dan’s band was from Mapin & Webb.
Our photographer was Jo, of Joasis Photography, was without a doubt the best guest we ever invited to our wedding.
Not only did she take the most incredible pictures, but she became a friend and a confidant and an advisor so quickly and easily. Jo kept us keep us calm and the day running smoothly.
It felt like we had known her for years, so much so that we asked her to eat with us at the top table. Her direction of people and shots was done with such a clear vision that we felt lucky to be a part of her shoot, and the photos that have come out of it are absolutely incredible and better than we ever could have hoped for.
The Reception
I was very keen to hand-craft as much as possible – Dan wisely reined me in a little here (with hindsight, very glad not to have done all of the florals ourselves as originally planned), but I’m so pleased with how all of the hand drawn menus, signage, and handmade bunting turned out!
I drew unique menu/place cards for every single guest. Each place card had a Polaroid style photo of the guest with Katie or Dan (or both!). In a similar fashion, instead of a traditional table plan, we had giant boards with the same but larger photos of guests for each table located near the bar – guests loved it and enjoyed going through photos while having drinks
Flowers were by Botanique Workshop in Exmouth Market. We opted for pinks and oranges as our colour palette. My bouquet was large and structured with gorgeous layers of red anthuriums, pink peonies and orange accents.
For my bridesmaids, I got smaller bunches, with a great variety of florals – each different and unique(my bridesman, Scott, had an orange buttonhole flower as the rest of the boys). Dan and his groomsmen had orange boutonnieres (orange went great with Dan’s gold outfit accents).
We had a heart shaped cake by Em Cakes in West Hampstead. We thought the heart shaped cake could be quite twee, so after HOURS of debate, went with ‘til death’ written on the top to juxtapose this. We also had a figurine of our dog Lola as a topper!
Words of Wedded Wisdom
Pick the food that you really want to eat, everyone else will be too drunk to remember.
Persuade the venue to let you in for preparations as early as possible!
Designate your loudest friend (thank you Emma) to make sure you spend some time together as a couple! Every 20 minutes or so she would drag us back together shouting “spend time with your wife!”. It’s so easy – when in a room with literally everyone you know – to not spend any time together otherwise!
I wish I’d had a few fewer cocktails across the day, but there was truly nothing else I’d change about the day, it was perfect.
And Pinterest was my best friend during wedding planning!
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