A Prea James Bride’s Elegant London Pub Wedding Captured by Helaina Storey

The Dress

Prea James

I wore the Prea James Penelope Corset + Sadie Skirt for my bridal look.

I bought the Penelope corset from a beautiful bridal store called The Fall Bride. The team at The Fall was extremely helpful and attentive – which meant that I was able to try on multiple looks before finally saying yes to the dress. 

I bought the Sadie skirt separately in a sample sale at Prea James Australia. All conversations with the store were handled online and their team was efficient and responsive (despite the time-zone difference) – sending me multiple photos beforehand and helping me navigate the process of buying a wedding garment from overseas.

A hack for fellow brides who go down this route – open a global bank account which makes it free to convert your funds into a different currency. 

I knew from the beginning that I wanted a sleek, simple and modern wedding look for our city wedding – strapless; with no embellishments.

While I tried on various styles from minis to sleeved dresses, I came full circle and landed on Penelope and Sadie – which ticked all the original boxes.

I love the beautiful structure of the Penelope corset against the elegance of the silk Sadie maxi skirt and train. It added an edge to my bridal look, which is exactly what I was looking for. 

I added two very special accessories to my bridal bouquet. The first is a little horseshoe that my grandfather gave my grandmother on their wedding day. The second is a small blue heart, which was a gift from my maid of honours on my wedding morning – my ‘Something Blue’.

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The Ceremony

We held our ceremony at Islington Town Hall (we met in Islington!) and our reception at Singer Tavern, both in London.

Our page boy and my bridesmaids walked down the aisle; followed by my dad, Peter, who accompanied me, to the sound of ‘River’ by Leon Bridges.

Our vows were short and sweet – written to each other as ‘13 promises’. 13 is our lucky number (and the date of our wedding). We both agreed to include some silly, non-serious promises in there as well as the more heartfelt, meaningful ones. 

We asked two of our close friends (one of whom was my bridesmaid) to each surprise us with a reading. My bridesmaid decided to write her own gorgeous poem, and our other close friend read the lyrics to In My Life by The Beatles.

Our wedding rings are very special as they were handcrafted using the same melted-down precious metals. One of the metals came from the rivers of Lancashire in North West England. The other was originally the wedding ring of Liam’s late grandmother, who married his grandfather in 1948. 

This is why we chose Jacqueline and Edward – they’re a small and ethical business who were able to repurpose a treasured heirloom into a set of matching gold wedding bands. My engagement ring is a marquise diamond, bought from 77 Diamonds. 

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The Reception

Singer Tavern was one of the first venues that we viewed, having come across their wedding fair online only hours earlier. We immediately fell in love with the space – from the tiled interior to the rustic brickwork, the blossom tree, and the huge lit up bar which is a central feature of the main room.

The space is flooded with natural light and decorated in greenery – it was the perfect backdrop for our day. The Black Tie attire is also a perfect contrast to the ‘new-meets-old’ relaxed pub setting. The external building is very elegant and looks great in our black and white photos!

With us being ‘the Gayle-Greens’, we played with a lot of greens on the day to break up the black and white – incorporating this into many details such as our flowers, confetti and some special-guest outfits. Our reception venue also features a lot of gorgeous green foliage as well as forest-green tiled walls. 

Our flowers (including bouquets, buttonholes and a tablescape) were created by @hyperfloral. Genna was wonderful to work with – she was communicative, knowledgeable and nailed the brief. We agreed that less is more and chose a clean, elegant and striking white calla lily bridal bouquet, calla lily buttonholes, and white sweetpeas for the bridal bouquets with some greenery for extra movement. For our tablescape, we had a variety of long-stemmed whites with some very dark red (almost black!) flowers, all in bud vases, to complement our black candles. 

All food and drinks at our reception was provided in-house by the wonderful Singer Tavern team. Our talented friend, Chow Davis (@hy_chow), baked our gorgeous three-tier wedding cake for us. She worked closely with Liam to choose the flavours – carrot, Victoria sponge, and chocolate and Guinness – all of which were a delightful surprise for me.

My mother-in-law kindly prepared little Lindt chocolate boxes for our guests. Guests were also able to take home their personal illustrations, sketched by our wonderful illustrator, @Merlinporterart. Merlin is such a gent and was a huge hit with our guests! 

Our gorgeous monochrome stationery – from our food and drink menus to our welcome signage, OOTD and cocktail hour signs – was hand-drawn by my extremely talented bridesmaid, @cardsforhumanityco. It was printed by a small business called Blissetts for a great price. 

We hired our lighting equipment from Powerhouse Production Services.

I loved our Cocktail Hour. It took place in the early evening, after the speeches and wedding breakfast, when everyone could relax, dance and let their hair down. The hidden 5CC cocktail bar in the basement of Singer Tavern is the ideal space for a surprise change of scene. The ‘speak-easy’ style of the room set the tone for our guests to kick off the party, and the rum punches and espresso martinis that were laid out on the bar were a hit!