Alice and Tom’s beautiful vineyard wedding of 10th September 2022 was held at Amelonas Vineyard in Corfu.

The couple, who met at Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide Music Festival a decade ago, are huge fans of travel and wanted to plan an informal day in sunny, overseas climes, and fill their natural and rustic venue with bright and punchy colours.

The bride wore beautiful separates that look like they were made just for her, along with a veil – by Halfpenny London which she teamed with the most perfect mid-heel, pearl covered mules by Jimmy Choo.

If you’re planning a destination wedding, I very much hope this inspires you. Photography by Olga Rozewin.

Bridal Beauty & Accessories

I wore a 100 inch picot-edge veil in silky tulle – also from Halfpenny London. It was very classic in style.

I wore The Amara Pearl Sandals, by Jimmy Choo. I’m 5 ft. 11 inches, and don’t wear heels often, so really wanted a pair of shoes with a small heel that were elegant and that I could slip on and off for dancing. These were perfect – I had many complements.

I wore a solid gold lion necklace, which used to belong to my beloved grandma, Marjorie. I am a Leo, and so was she 🙂

I kept my jewellery simple and understated, as the skirt part of my dress was very detailed and ornate. My necklace was a short, solid gold lion pendant, which used to belong to my beloved grandma, Marjorie and so has a lot of sentimental value. I am a Leo, and so was she. My earrings were bought by a group of my friends and were a pair of beautifully simple, twisted gold hoop earrings, from Missoma.

My perfume was Byredo’s ‘Bibliothèque’, for no special reason, I just love it.

Bridesmaids

I wanted my bridesmaids to wear whatever they wanted, rather than having to stick to a specific style or designer. I just asked them to stick to a colour scheme of yellows, oranges and golds.

It was great because we had a lovely range of beautiful, bold colours and styles. George wore a yellow Alice + Olivia mini dress, Helen B wore a long, yellow, silk De La Vali dress, Helen W wore a Walker & Walker linen, mustard two piece, Ellie wore an orange, ruffle, midi dress by Never Fully Dressed and Lisa wore an orange wrap dress, also from Never Fully Dressed.

Tom wore a pink-ish mixed woo suit from Moss Bros and a navy polka dot knitted tie from Reiss.

Ceremony

My wonderful dad Trevor walked me down the aisle. We had a traditional Greek band, the Alkinos Corfu Band, playing acoustic music to accompany us as we walked down the aisle (and again as we walked back down after the ceremony).

Our best friends Will and George (who was also a bridesmaid) lead our ceremony. We wanted our friends to do this as we wanted everything to be quite informal and we felt that having our two friends, who knew us so well do the ceremony would make it really special. It did.

We wrote our own vows. Mine were done the day before around the pool, because I kind of wanted it to be natural and not to overthink them too much. But mostly it was because I was putting it off as I was scared about reading them!

Our ‘official’ legal wedding was held the month before at Lambeth Town Hall in Brixton, which was fun! We all went to the local pub after. I wore an off the shoulder white dress by Lovers and Friends and tom wore a light blue linen Moss Bros suit.

Our rings were by Aimee Craddock Jewellery. We had our wedding rings designed and hand made by Aimee who works out of a lovely studio in Folkestone. We decided to use Aimee as we just loved her previous work and because she’s SO lovely. She asked us lots of questions we hadn’t even considered, and explained all the possible options to make sure the rings were exactly what we wanted.

She completely took onboard our brief (which was mainly to make my wedding ring work alongside my antique engagement ring – which has some beautiful carved detailing along the band) and the resulting rings were stunning – exactly what we wanted. And even Tom (who was unsure of wearing a ring) absolutely loves his!

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Photography

Our photographer was Olga Rozewin. I actually used to live with Olga many years ago, and we had kept in touch via instagram. When thinking about a photographer I instantly thought of Olga and decided to look through her business insta page and just really loved her photographic style and her creative vision!

Olga was honestly amazing on the day, we really couldn’t have asked for someone better. She really listened to our brief which we shared with her beforehand, and although we barely noticed she was there for a lot of the time (a very good thing – as we wanted a lot of candid, natural and non-staged shots) she was also incredible at taking charge and making sure everyone was listening and getting into the right places during the family/bridesmaids/best men shots.

The resulting images were just incredible. She really captured the spirit of the whole event – the beautiful surroundings, the light, the laughter, the dancing, the friendships. Some of the more ‘staged’ shots of me and Tom (which I was dreading), were honestly some of our favourites. A wonderful combination of incredibly lit, intimate, B&W shots and then some more relaxed, sillier ones, which reflect our relationship and our personalities perfectly.

All of these have now taken pride of place on our mantlepiece at home. We honestly couldn’t have been happier when we got the selection through, they bought back such incredible memories from the day which we will cherish forever.

How They Met

We met as Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide music festival in the south of France in 2013. Although we had mutual friends, we had never actually met. Tom got a ticket very last minute, by chance, as someone could no longer go – so perhaps fate was working its magic!

We got engaged in a little taverna in Corfu town. I kind of had an inkling as Tom decided to go ‘souvenir shopping’ towards the end of our holiday, but absolutely insisted that I couldn’t go with him. He ended up buying a beautiful little holding ring from a shop in town, and although I was certain he might try and hide it in my moussaka that evening, he got down on one knee on the cobbled streets of the taverna after quite a few glasses of local wine. Perfect!

We got engaged on 10th Octotber, 2020, so nearly two years before we got married.

We share a huge love of travelling – so although we looked at a couple of venues in around London, we soon knew that we had to get married abroad. We are not very formal as a couple, so we knew that we wanted a informal/ non-traditional wedding to match our personalities. A natural, rustic venue, ideally with nature all around and lots of beautiful, wildflowers. A midsummer night’s dream comes to mind – with some punchy colours thrown in.

Evening & Dancing

Our first dance was to Roxy Music’s ‘More Than This’ – a real classic and a song we both love. The lyrics ‘You know there’s nothing, more than this’ also just sums up how we feel about each other too. Haha.

We hid DJ Molinari play a selection of tom and my favourite playlists and tracks.

Words of Wedded Wisdom

It can seem quite stressful, particularly at the beginning, when you have what feels like a never-ending mountain of admin and tasks to sort. But I’d say just try and set aside an evening each week, where you and your partner blitz through two or three tasks – it made it much more manageable for us rather than trying to fit bits in here and there.

Our main bit of advice would be to ENJOY EVERY MINUTE, take it all in, have a glass of something strong to calm the nerves, and laugh and dance with everyone around you. It truly was the best day of our lives and we wish we could do it all again.

We spent approximately £25,000 on our wedding, including an amazing boat party around the island the next day. This was what we had budgeted originally so we were happy.

This didn’t include our dress, suits and shoes however, which were probably another c.£6k.

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