Callie & Dan

Firstly lets start by saying bride Callie looks absolutely fierce in her lace Oleg Cassini gown from David’s Bridal, clinging in all the right place to show off her amazing figure. But being a plus size fashion blogger promoting body confidence all over the world we wouldn't expect her to be anything but stunning. Not only does Callie know a thing or two about fashion, she's also a dab hand at DIY and decor. Spray painting tin cans and bottles in rose gold paint to match the sequin ASOS bridesmaid dresses and sourcing the most fabulous calligrapher to write on brown paper bag wedding favours and menus. I would also very much like to try an ice-cream sandwich from Milo & Hector's Ice Cream Italian Piaggio. Those flavours. Nom, nom. Contemporary 06 St Chad’s Place in London was the home of this stylish wedding, with images captured by the very talented Kirsty Mackenzie Photography.

The Dress

Callie The Bride: When choosing a dress I wanted something simple yet elegant and being plus size finding a dress wasn’t that easy. Many of the dresses I saw online which were plus-size specific seemed to focus on the A-line style cut which just wasn’t for me. I then visited a David’s Bridal store in London and I tried 6 different styles and shapes and finally settled on a beautiful Trumpet V neck Ivory dress from the designer Oleg Cassini. As I am half-Spanish I really wanted to incorporate that side of my heritage into my wedding and the dress and so, I looked specifically for a traditional lace, mantilla style veil to wear with it. The veil I found was perfect, it was floor length with lace detailing with a gentle sparkle to it, which really made the dress.

The Grooms Attire

Dan is pretty laid back so he wasn’t fussed on wearing anything designer, instead he opted for a modern blue suit from River Island, and braces and a bow tie from ASOS. For shoes, he went for brown brogues were also from River Island and added a stylish, vintage touch to the look.

The Venue

We chose 06 St Chad’s Place as our wedding venue after just one visit, it just felt right to us. It had everything we wanted in a venue, a big space, a bar and kitchen already available to us, an outside space and a very central location. It also felt important to have our wedding in London as it was where Dan and I met and have built our lives together. We loved the industrial vibe the venue had with the concrete floor, brick wall and wooden beams, it just felt very us.

Colour Scheme/Décor

We took a lot of décor and colour inspiration from my engagement ring that Dan had handmade. It was rose gold with a blush morganite stone so we decided to incorporate that into the theme. I didn’t want anything over the top just gentle touches, so I ordered a mix of neutral and blush tone colours for the pom poms that dressed the wooden beamed ceilings of the venue. I DIY’d our centre pieces by spray painting industrial tins a copper rose gold colour and my bridesmaids all wore blush, nude and rose gold dresses. My friend also sprayed cans of cider and bottles of beers gold, which we then gave out as a drink to enjoy on the walk from our ceremony to our reception venue. Outside the venue, we had an amazing vintage bike that had a sign in the basket directing people into the venue that we hired from the amazing Hey.

Florist

I found choosing flowers overwhelming, there were just so many ideas especially if you start looking on Pinterest. I decided to strip it right back and focus on greenery being a big part of the décor as it really fit with our warehouse venue. I actually found my florist Wild Renata Flowers on Instagram super last minute and she was wonderful in helping me when things got stressful. We met up just a couple of weeks prior to the wedding and she completely got my vision and found flowers within the blush and greenery scheme I had in mind. We had lots of Eucalyptus and Israli Ruscus to dress the tables and the flowers were in the industrial tins as centrepieces as well as forming my bridesmaid’s bouquets and mine. Lara and my friends actually dressed the venue on the morning and it looked perfect.

The Wedding Party Fashion

I had four bridesmaids in total, and from the start, I decided I wanted them to wear a dress that represented them instead of making them all wear matching. I decided on the colour theme being rose gold and blush with some sparkle/se element. The PR team at ASOS kindly offered to provide the dresses for them, it took a long time to find each person their perfect dress but right at the last minute it all came together and the girls looked perfect.

Ceremony

Finding the ceremony venue was easy we chose Camden Town Hall as it was just a six-minute walk around the corner from St Chads and it had a beautiful marble stairwell that I just fell for immediately. We saved on travel costs by walking and the walk was actually one of the nicest moments of the day. I gave a reading, at the ceremony (well just about as I cried through most of it) of a Roy Croft poem called Love. I thought I would out-do Dan with the emotional reading but unfortunately he got one up by making his wedding speech extra special. His speech was a day in the life of our lives, where he explained bit by bit an average day we spend together, it was so personal and special the whole place was in tears especially me and it is something I will never forget.

Food

For food we knew we wanted something that people could share rather than a three course formal meal something like a Tapas style menu. We were incredibly lucky that the chef at St Chad’s place was actually Spanish and we ended up with an authentic tapas menu, which included our favourites such Calamari, Patatas Bravas, Tortilla, stuffed cod and Paella style aranccini balls. Everyone raved about the food, which was so great. For dessert, again we wanted something fuss free and instead of a sit down dessert, we had homemade ice cream sandwiches, which were served from a vintage Italian Piaggio van right outside in the sunshine. We had four flavours, peanut butter, Salted Caramel, Strawberry Ripple and Nutella and coconut all of which you could choose to be sandwiched between homemade cookies and topped with a sauce of your choice – they went down a treat. I knew from the start that I wanted to make edible favours, as Dan and I are such foodies. Me and my girls, made a big batch of homemade chilli jam/Sauce which we then put in jars and hand tied with labels saying let’s get saucy. The idea being that they would perfect for dipping the 40 Italian Stone pizzas we ordered from Pizza Union just around the corner. Everyone grabbed a box and ate outside on the pavement when the sun was coming down, it was the perfect food for prepping everyone’s stomachs for the rest of the night partying. Later in the evening, we cut our very simple two-tiered cake we had made at Konditor and Cook. We chose a Victoria sponge with strawberry Jam and Buttercream, which is our favourite flavour. We also had MR AND MRS made out of donuts and decorated in rose gold from donut extraordinaire Vicky’s Donuts.

Photographer

I actually met Kirsty our photographer whilst I was studying at University in London, and later found out she was a wedding photographer when she reached out to me. As soon as I saw her work I knew, she was the one for us, and by the time, we got married, we actually became quite good friends! She knew from the start we wanted documentary style photography rather than the traditional and she nailed that for us, it felt so nice to have a photographer that knew us as a couple and that really reflected in our images.

Videographer

I met Insta Wedding at The Curious London Wedding fayre and we hit it off immediately, Sarah and her husband Mason are just wonderful and we really loved the style of their videography. Mason who came on the day arrived at our house early to get some behind the scenes shots, but I hardly noticed he was there, and he made everyone feel so at ease.

DIY

I started collecting oversized industrial tins from work and I searched on-line for the perfect copper/rose gold spray paint and I re-sprayed them all to make the centre pieces. I loved the idea of having old school American style lunch bags to put the wedding favors we had for each guest in and also loved the idea of having our wedding menu on display, so I decided to combine the two together. The illustrator Ella Masters hand wrote the menu’s on each and every favour bag in both Spanish and English. It looked amazing and really added that personal touch. As I only had 45 guests in total I didn’t see the point in doing something over the top for a table setting. Instead I attached Polaroid print style photos (Printed from Sticky 9) of everyone’s face onto the paper bags and had everyone just’ Find their face’ Donut Favor Boxes – As well as homemade chilli jam we also gave everyone a mini donut from Vicky’s Donut, I wanted them to be in a cute box individually so I handmade and designed the boxes myself. I used a supplier called the Chelsea Paper Co on Etsy for the little boxes and I made a design up on Canva which said ‘You Donut know how much you mean to us’ One thing I learned from reading wedding blogs was that people often forget to bring confetti! It was so important that we nailed a good confetti shot so I decided to make my own little confetti envelopes to give out and Ella my calligrapher also hand wrote ‘Throw the confetti’ on them. I bought rose gold/ copper confetti from Ebay and packed them all up to be places on the ceremony chairs ready for people to throw for when we left.

Memorable Moments

A few really memorable and unique moments that made our day extra special was the Spanish style guitarist that Dan and I found for the day. Our singer unfortunately was no longer able to make our wedding so we were desperate to find someone last minute. We actually found Sebastian Diaz our guitarist after we saw him busking at Kings Cross on the way back from our final menu tasting at St Chads, it felt a little like fate so we took his email address and booked him! Walking into the venue to the beautiful sound of the guitar whilst being greeted with a fresh ice cold sangria was so special, for a moment it felt like we were somewhere in Spain! Another memorable part was during the night time party when Dan and I reenacted Beyonce's Drunk in Love on the dance floor whilst our friends circled around us cheering, it is something we all still laugh about now! Our DJ Abz was a huge part in making our day special. We love old school music like Garage, Hip Hop and R&B he completely nailed this for us, people were dancing from the moment he started till the very last song at 2am. We also absolutely LOVED our modern berlin style photo booth that we hired from The Flash Pack. We not only had traditional strip prints but also a GIF booth which was the cause for many laughs!

Advice

If I could impart any advice it would be the same as I am sure every bride says, do not sweat the small stuff. Things will go wrong, it happens, it’s life and things can always be fixed, believe me there is always someone there to save the day no matter the situation.