A Two-Piece Rime Arodaky Gown for a Laid Back, Fuss Free and Informal Restaurant Wedding in London

Good morning folks, how does this find you this fine March morning? Now we’re all for celebrating the detail here at Love My Dress, but there are couples for whom this detail really isn’t important. This morning’s wedding is a prime example of how to pull of such a wedding with complete panache. There are no bridesmaids or groomsmen, no flowergirls, no flowers even, just a couple in love, a great venue and a rather fabulous gown.

Siobhan and Matt tied the knot on 30th January this year – I think this officially makes them our very first 2016 couple! The wedding took place at Southwark Registry Office in Peckham, London and the remainder of the day comprised a low-key style restaurant celebration. Siobhan stole the show and looked uber cool in her two-piece Rime Arodaky gown – a purchase from the fabulous fashion-forward boutique, The Mews of Notting Hill.

“We wanted to keep things relaxed and have great food and drink and a good party with our friends and family. The small touches developed fairly organically – for example we are big gin fans, and the 214 cocktail bar specialises in gin.”

Photography by Jess Soper

“It made sense to ‘upcycle’ and use some the restaurant’s empty gin bottles as table names and flower vases. We also tried to keep financial and environmental costs for things like wedding stationery, decorations and flowers to a minimum, so, all our invites were via email, all the place settings and menus were home designed and printed on recycled paper, the flower arrangements and buttonholes were dried and homemade and the bunting was all knitted by the brides mum and will be being reused at the next family event!”

“My Rime Arodaky dress is a two piece, and I particularly love the full skirt, shaped at the front to show off your shoes. The lace is also absolutely beautiful and I fully intend to wear both the top, and the skirt again (possibly with the train taken up!)”

“We wanted to get married somewhere in the London Borough of Southwark, where we currently live our lives together and we also wanted to keep it simple and relaxed so a registry office was a good, cost effective choice. The Garden Room at Southwark Registry Office is a nice light and calm room, looking out onto a garden. Despite being the middle of winter there were flowers in the garden due to the incredibly warm weather we’d had in the run up to the wedding and we were fortunate to have a sunny clear day.”

Siobhan’s father accompanied her down the aisle to the beautiful Canon in D by Pachelbel.

 

“Our photographer Jess Soper was reccommended through a friend of a friend and we could not have asked for a more talented or lovely photographer to capture our day. Her photographs are natural yet interesting and she did a brilliant job especially with the relatively limited natural light in our reception venue.

We’re certainly not used to having our photographs taken and she was great at giving us direction resulting in some beautiful portraits. You invite a photographer to share the whole day with you so it was really important to us that we got on, and Jess was an absolute pleasure to be around – so many guests have commented on how great she was and how lovely her photographs are.”

 

“We spent a long time researching a reading for the ceremony and in the end decided to use an idea we had come across right at the start of our search! A Lovely Love Story is quirky poem about two dinosaurs that fall in love and grow old together, by Edward Monkton.”

“I’d read about a wedding where the chief bridesmaid had chosen this as the reading, but as a surprise asked the bride and groom to provide adjectives to describe each other, which she then substituted into the poem to personalise it. We did the same – Matt and I both edited sections of the poem about each other, and then Matt’s dad kindly then knitted the whole thing together and read the poem at the ceremony. Along with with our guests, we heard the edited version for the first time at the ceremony which was a nice surprise for everyone.”

“Our rings were from Hearts of London – this is the same shop that Matt bought the engagement ring, and they shaped my wedding ring to fit round the engagement ring.”

“It was also really important to both of us that we were able to share an excellent meal and drinks with our guests and the food and cocktails at Antico never disappoint. We spent a long time planning the details of the reception and food and drink menus with the restaurant and we had so many comments from guests on how much they enjoyed both the lunch and evening canapes and bowl food – so the planning paid off. The other benefit is that we can easily go back to the restaurant and it will always now be that little bit extra special.”

“We had exclusive private hire of Antico Restaurant and their downstairs bar. Again we wanted the reception venue to be near to home and mean something to us both; Antico is by far our favorite restaurant in London and we have spent many hours trying many different gins in the cocktail bar beneath the restaurant – so we felt very much at home having the reception here.”

“One of our favourite moments was entering the restaurant just before lunch – our friends and family all stood up and cheered, clapped and whooped for a solid few minutes! That really blew us away!”

Words of Wedded Wisdom

“Don’t forget that although you may read about lots of the same ideas being used at weddings it doesn’t mean your guests will have already experienced them, so don’t worry too much about trying to be completely original. And as long as you like something, chances are your friends and family will too.

We also wish we’d thought about and planned wedding favours earlier – we wanted to make something personal and useable/enjoyable – sloe gin would have been ideal, but we simply ran out of time!

And finally, we also would have made sure that all the speeches were captured on video. One of our guests captured one speech but it would have been great to have all of them recorded.”  

It’s so refreshing to see a completely relaxed, informal wedding of this nature and a bride utterly rocking it in her two-piece gown. You can see more Rime Arodaky brides here and also more winter weddings here lovely readers.

I hope you have a great morning, whatever you’re up to. I’m on my way to London to see a whole host of industry friends at the Most Curious Wedding Fair tomorrow evening – will you be there?

Love Annabel x

 

Photographer – Jess Soper
Venue + Catering  – Antico Restaurant
Wedding Dress – Rime Arodaky via The Mews of Notting Hill.
Shoes – Shoe Embassy
Grooms Suit – Gieves and Hawkes + Church’s shoes
Cheese celebration cake – The Cheeseboard, Greenwich
Transport – Vintage London Bus
Entertainment – Magician James Pritchard
Rings – Hearts of London
Hair and make-up Artist – Claire Urquhart
Perfume – Chanel Coco
Accessories – Chevron necklace and matching earrings both by Paper and Chain