Hannah & Chris

I can't think of a more perfect wedding to get me in the mood for the weekend than this industrial wedding at Village Underground. There's neon lights, bright blooms and truly fabulous fashion. Bride Hannah looks both stylish and elegant in her Halfpenny London separates and the groomsmen are absolutely killing it in their fitted navy suits. The gorgeous couple take a walk around the urban streets of London with Marianne Chua Photography, who captures some epic portraits of them amongst the graffiti backdrops; not forgetting their impromptu trip to Co-op. Ready to get the party started?

Dress

Hannah the Bride: Halfpenny was the first shop I visited. I’d seen some pictures on Instagram before looking at the website and fell in love with the collection. I’ve never wanted anything very traditional, or over the top, and Halfpenny fit the bill perfectly, understated, but with something just little bit different, and just beautifully done. I did go in to the shop with a very clear idea of the dresses I wanted to try, with one in particular I knew I really liked, but I was trying to be open minded. However, as soon as I started to try on the dress, (actually a separate skirt and top) it just felt right. Once the veil went on too, that was it! All of this, plus a beautiful shop, the most help and friendly staff, and no hard sell all, made it a wonderful experience. As for my shoes, I’ve been saying for years that I wanted to get married in a pair of Valentino Rockstuds, and that’s exactly what happened!

Groom

Chris got his suit from Yardsmen down in Waterloo. They provided a great service by not only making him his own bespoke suit, but we could also hire all the groomsmen’s suits too.

Venue

The venue took us a little while to find. We visited some beautiful places through Essex, but we felt that a county house, or a barn wedding was just going to be too traditional for us, and that really, we needed to be looking back in London. We decide fairly quickly on Islington Town Hall, the council chambers are beautiful, then we needed to find a reception venue. This actually took quite a while, there are some amazing and unique and quirky venues in London, but nothing was quite right. It was either to formal, or to modern, or just didn’t feel right, and then I saw that someone else had had their reception in Village Underground. This for me was perfect, I’ve had many a very good night in there before! I saw it first, and loved it and then Chris went for a visit and he knew it was the right space for us too. It’s a space that lends itself to fun, and whilst it’s a large industrial space, it still feels really personal once every one is together. And of course, it has an amazing sound system!

Decor

Because the venue is so big and has such a strong character itself, you either have to go all out with decorations, or really hold it back. We went for the second option. In keeping with the pared back, industrial style, we choose to go for wooden trestle tables, folding chairs, and rustic style crockery all from Classic Crockery along with some sparkly table runners and wild flowers. I wanted to give a nod to being in London, our invites were of a lovely watercolour of some of London’s icon buildings, so the tables were all named after tube lines, and the seating plan was of the map of the London underground.

Flowers

In regards to our flowers, we were extremely lucky. The business I work for use an amazing florist called Early Hours, so they were always going to be the only place I would consider. Thankfully Lizzie had been to the venue before so knew exactly what was needed. All I told her was that I love pink and peonies and then let her creativity run free, and that is how we ended up with an indoor tree!

Food

With Chris being a chef, and me just loving food generally, the caterer was always going to be really important. We were having lots of chefs, people who work in hospitality and just general foodies, so it had to be right. We spent a long time going through all sorts of options, from street food, to bowl foods to pizza! Eventually we found Rare, run by Kate and her amazing team. The brief was that we wanted our dinner to have a feel of a big, noisy family dinner, food in the middle of the table, with everyone sharing, and they really did deliver. We had slow cooked lamb with some amazing fresh salads, followed by a doughnut wall, mini trifles and mini magnums. Our wedding cake was a cake made of cheese rounds by the wonderful West Country Cheese and the evening food were some beautifully, colourful, textural charcuterie board. We have been told a lot of our guests it was the best food at a wedding they had ever had, so I can only say thank you to all of the guys for that!

Entertainment

Music is also a very important part of our lives, and we had to make sure we had the right venue, especially for a venue that is known for putting on some epic music nights! We didn’t really know where to start, but were recommended to get in touch with Matt Maurice. We put together a play list and sent it off, and hoped for the best. We could not be happier. The dance floor was busy from the very start and it was never empty, he played everything we asked for on the list, the tunes he selected were spot on, and he took requests! Everyone had a smile on their face and I could not recommend enough.

Photography

We wanted to escape anything to traditional or cheesy for our wedding photos, and we were pointed in the direction of Marianne. One look at her website and we knew we were on to a good thing. All of her photos just popped and she has the most honest, fun shots of people. On the day she and Alice, her second photographer, were none stop, they got more shots than I could ever imagine and yet we don’t ever really remember seeing them! We had already meet with Marianne before we booked her, and then we had a skype chat closer to the time, and we knew that she was going to fit in with our party, she was so u for everything and just put everyone at ease straight away which was really important to us too.