Modern City Chic Wedding in East London

We’re off to East London today for the gorgeous nuptials of WWW readers Laura and Kamil. Our pair were wed at Stoke Newington Town Hall followed by a stunning reception at Clapton Country Club. The location was really meaningful to them both, as they grew up in East London, so special!

A modern city chic feel was order of the day and what a glorious day it turned out to be on the 1st September 2018. Laura donned a sublime gown by our Supplier Love members Grace Loves Lace; that train, the lace detail, swoon! Meanwhile Kamil and the gents wore navy blue suits and matching forest green ties. The bridesmaids also had a touch of mint green in their pretty floral frocks. The colour theme continued into the floral arrangements, with a muted palette of greenery and white flowers used to great effect. So fresh and contemporary.

Tropical botanical vibes echo the colour palette in the stationery design, there is a marvellous naked cake creation, tremendous lighting and scrummy cuisine was also on offer to guests. Wow.

Huge thanks goes to the wonderful Curious Rose Photography for sharing these divine images with us today.

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The Proposal

I jokingly showed Kamil an ad that a fb friend had reposted about a TV production company looking for men in London who wanted to propose little did I know Kamil snuck off to the toilet and wrote out an email to them. He secretly went through an application process and was selected to create a video talking about us, getting a proposal ready and then filming the proposal secretly. He secretly filmed with them for 3 weeks, and then they filmed our whole proposal. On the night of, I just thought we were meeting for drinks on rooftop bar in London fields to celebrate Kamil finishing a post-grad degree course. When I got there he led me to a private area on the rooftop decorated with flowers, fairy lights and there was a bench for us with champagne waiting – it was beautiful! Then like a moment out of Punk’d on MTV, 10 mins after the proposal the tv cameras came out of hiding and my parents appeared. I was pretty shocked to say the least, but he had then surprised me again with a pre-booked surprise trip to Rome for the next day to celebrate (and in his words as a “pre-emptive apology” in case I didn’t like the ‘surprise’) but I was very happy!

The Vision

Kamil and I both grew up in Hackney and once we realised the dream getting married in Italy wasn’t really plausible with our large families we decided it made perfect sense to do something very close to home. We met at school 10 years before, so had a LOT of friends we wanted to be part of our special day. Therefore we knew we were looking at a pretty big wedding (or at least bigger than we probably would have originally planned). As we were both from East London and had no ties to the countryside we knew we wanted a city wedding.

I knew straight away I wanted to do our service at Stoke Newington Town Hall having both grown up in and around Stoke Newington – it was an added plus they have a beautiful art deco room.

The Planning Process

We very quickly found our venue so knew our date about 15 months in advance. We had lots of time and spent the first few months booking in all the big stuff, like the Town Hall and food. As we were getting married in London I knew things would book up quick, so I also made sure we booked our key things in advance. Such as the venue, the pizza caterers and the photographer. We then had time over the subsequent months to build on the basics and slowly add all the little touches to make the day feel more our own.

Budget

£18-19k

Beauty

I wanted my hair dresser at Blue Tit Dalston to do my hair, however she had a holiday booked so she got in another very talented hair dresser at the salon to come to my house the morning of the wedding. I had two trials ahead of the big day to practice and make sure I knew what I wanted.

I actually did a bridal photo shoot for my wedding photographer, Laura, 5 months before the wedding and met Tabby, my make-up artist for the wedding, on that shoot. Tabby did my make up pretty much exactly how I wanted it for my own wedding so I was very lucky she was available to come to me on the day.

Your Outfits & Accessories

My dress was from Grace Loves Lace, I happened to find the brand when looking at Instagram (yes most of wedding inspo was found on Instagram). I immediately loved their style as it felt bridal but not too traditional (which isn’t me!). Luckily, they recently opened a studio near us in Shoreditch so it was very easy for me to book an appointment and fall in love with my dress. I bought some Jimmy Choo gold stiletto’s second hand about 6 months before the wedding but freaked out in the weeks leading up to the wedding that I wouldn’t be able to walk – especially because of the cobbled path up to the venue. I luckily then found some really cool gold platforms from Office a few days before and bought them on a whim – so grateful as I felt so much more comfortable and like me in them.

Kamil’s suit was from Hugo Boss, he knew he wanted a summery blue suit and went with his best men one day suit shopping. He got his shoes from Sons of London.

The Readings & Music

Sonnet Xvii – by Pablo Neruda – read by Kamil’s parents once in Spanish by his mum and once in English by his dad.

Most Beautiful Girl in the Room – song Flight of the Conchords – read by Laura’s 15 year-old nephew Charlie.

We knew straight away we wanted Kamil’s parents to read a Pablo Neruda poem as a nod to Kamil’s Chilean heritage. This was poem we actually came across quite quickly and really liked the beauty and intimacy of it. We then spent ages and ages looking at readings online for our second one, none felt very personal or relevant to us. In the end we decided to go very untraditional and asked my 15 nephew (who is a great performer) to read a Flight of The Conchords song “The Most Beautiful Girl in the Room” it was fun and meant a lot as we were obsessed with that song when we first started going out at 16 and 18. My nephew had everyone laughing!

Penny & The Quarters – “You and Me” – we heard this song years before when watching Blue Valentine and would spend many nights dancing to it in our kitchen we knew that we wanted it as Laura walked down the aisle.

Drake – Kamil and I are both big drake fans and had to fit him into our ceremony. Joanne and Gabi sang acapella “Hold on we’re going home” whilst we were signing the register.

These two are two of my best friends and both are amazing singers so I knew I wanted them to sing on the day! It definitely made the songs mean a lot more and there were lots of tears.

Bridesmaids

I had a difficult challenge with finding my bridesmaid dresses as I had 5 bridesmaids and 2 maids of honour. My maids and I spent months and months searching. I knew I wanted green as that was our colour scheme but it was very difficult finding affordable dresses in a forest green. In the end, I decided I preferred a non-classic bridesmaid dress that my girls would hopefully wear again. One of my maids found the dress we ended up choosing from Oasis and, rather amazingly, they all loved it. It truly did look great on them all!

Groomsmen

Groomsmen found their own blue suits and were given matching green ties and white pocket squares.

The Flowers

Jess Lee

We were very lucky that a friend of ours trained as a florist and as a present to us did our flowers for us and assisted by her boyfriend who was one of Kamil’s groomsmen. We went with her a year before to Covent Garden Flower market to see what flowers would be in season in early Sep and get some ideas. I knew I wanted my flowers to be simple in colour scheme with mainly whites and greens. Apart from that I trusted Jess to have a better idea than us! Every time she sent us suggestions or ideas they looked brilliant so it was very easy to let her have full creative freedom very quickly.

The Venue

Clapton Country Club : Kamil happened to see Loyle Carner do a food event at this venue months before and thought it looked very cool. Once we viewed it, we knew straight away we wanted it, as it had so much character and was pretty much slap bang in the middle of my parent’s house and Kamil’s mum’s house. (10 min walk!) These were both the houses where we did most of our growing up so it added an extra level of poignancy to the style of the place.

The Cake

We’ve never really liked traditional wedding fruit cakes and knew from the beginning we wanted a lifelong family friend of Laura’s to bake our wedding cake as she had made other amazing cakes previously. She made a beautifully tier naked cake, that was different flavours from lemon to elderflower to Victoria sponge.

The Details & Décor

Clapton Country Club has so much character I didn’t feel that fussed about décor. We knew we wanted pick n mix for all my nieces and nephews (that’s was the excuse anyway!) and we wanted to make sure there was always drinks available and something to nibble on handy such as beigals from brink lane and Nonna Gelato’s ice cream bike arriving later in the night.

My dad and brothers arranged a beer brewing workshop for themselves and Kamil as a “welcome to the family” gesture and they brewed three different craft beers which were served at the wedding – each one was named and labelled with a separate design providing a nod to a different aspect of us.

We set up a little photobooth using the same imagery and theme we created and applied to our seat plan, table place cards, background projected image etc. to capture some of our guests’ fun throughout the night and also added some additional fairylights to the venue and a few choice embarrassing childhood photos of Kamil and me on a small separate “wall of shame”.

The Honeymoon

We are going to Mexico for 2 weeks. Kamil and I are massive foodies so we are exploring/eating ourselves around Mexico City at the beginning then having 5 days of relaxation and treating ourselves to Hotel Escondido on the Oaxacan coast. After so long without a real holiday while saving for the wedding, we can’t bloody wait.

Your Photographer

Curious Rose Photography

I discovered Laura on Instagram (my fav searching platform ha!). I saw some photos she did on her website at another wedding in Stoke Newington and knew straight away she was the one! I loved her style, felt very natural and she seemed to capture gorgeous shots.

Memorable Moments

Walking down the aisle towards Kamil with my dad whilst my best friends sang “You & Me” was beautiful.

The speeches – were ALL epic and very emotional. We had the traditional speeches but then we also had Laura’s mum, the two maids of honour and Laura do a speech which was great! Screw tradition!

Kamil and I also prepared a little surprise dance routine for our first dance. Which was to Sister Sledge “Thinking of you”.

Advice For Other Couples

I was advised early on not to scrimp on your photographer as those are your memories, and the last thing you want is a well-intended friend to offer and then get too drunk or take all the photos with the wrong settings on the camera (which we’ve seen happen)… Best advice someone gave us, we love our photos and it’s so true how much they can send you right back even if the day felt like a blur at the time!

Decide what’s important for you, there will be lots of people with opinions but just remember this is your day and you should do what you want. Put the majority of your budget into those things.

Credit Where Credit Is Due

How spectacular?!

Laura and Kamil, thank you ever so much for sharing your wedding story with us today xo Lou