Gemma & Adam

This morning's wedding is a special one as gorgeous Bride Gemma is actually a wedding photographer herself and some of the imagery from her wedding appears in the Rock My Wedding Book, Your Day Your Way. If you haven't purchased your copy yet, then you can do so here on Amazon. We thought we'd treat you to the whole wedding this morning, it's an absolute corker - a Christmas house party wedding complete with secret santa and a seriously stylish wedding party in all black. Oh and Bride Gemma looking like a total Elfin Princess Babe with her Kelly Spence headpiece. Images come from Lee at Robbins Photographic, who has captured everything in his usual relaxed and fun style.

The Bride

Gemma the Bride: I’m very lucky as my wonderful and talented mum is a dress designer and maker by profession and she made my gown for me. We designed it together and went to Joel & Sons in London for the fabric. I went to Kelly Spence's boutique shop at her home as I loved her headpieces. We chatted for ages in her shop and between us we came up with some ideas of how we could add to the dress. I bought a headpiece that we used across my back to hold my dress together a little. Kelly also made me a bespoke belt made with gold leaves – She also made me matching bespoke earrings which we also made into hair pins for my 3 bridesmaids. My shoes were silver sparkly heels from Carvela at Selfridges.

The Flowers

Lovely Steph from Fairynuff Flowers did a wonderful job on all the flowers. I have met Steph several times as I work in the wedding industry and I have always loved the flowers she has done for my couples so she was the first person I went to for the flowers. She nailed it! We had large hand tied bouquets for me and my bridesmaids with gold trailing streamers and ribbons. Adam, the best men, ushers and some family had hand tied button holes with rosemary and sage in. We then had two large olive trees with fairy lights at the service venue with berried eucalyptus decorating the aisle – we also placed lanterns down the aisle with candles. Steph also decorated our reception venue for us as well with pretty flowers in vases and some other flowers that she painted gold – I’ve forgotten what they’re called. We then took all the flowers and bits and bobs with us from the service venue to the reception.

The Venue

We got married at The Priory on Abbey Road in Camden. We chose the Priory because it wasn’t too far from where we were having the reception – it was also one of the few places that would let us have proper candles and also some food as well. All our mates made cakes and so we had an hour or so drinks reception after the service before heading to the reception venue. We made mulled wine and festive whiskey and the ushers were in charge of warming it up in the kitchen and dishing it out! After the service all the guests got on two London buses. Which were accidentally party buses with blacked out windows and lazers playing the venga boys. I think people secretly loved them, ha ha! 
For us we’d hired an Indian ambassador car to pick me and my dad up to take us to the service and to take Ad and I to the reception. We went to India a few years back and loved it so we both liked the idea of a nod to India. Plus I love the inside of the car. We had our reception in the apartment at the Hoxton Bar & Grill in Shoreditch. We spent ages looking for somewhere different and we absolutely loved Hoxton’s apartment. It has it's own door and intercom – kitchen / lounge etc. We decided to make our wedding a house party theme. So we placed booze around the house and various games / activities and just had people help themselves. Everyone at Hoxton was amazing and treated us really well. They did everything for us but yet it wasn’t stuffy or wedding-y which we didn’t want. It was very chilled. We had bespoke cocktails that they did for us in the kitchen that became a bar in the evening and the food was really good.

The Bridesmaids

My Bridesmaids chose their own dresses. I went with black as I thought it was a bit different and also it meant they could all pick a dress they liked themselves and they’d all match. They had the matching hair clips that Kelly made in their hair and a necklace from Mint Velvet. I also bought them fake fur scarves that matched mine in black. They were from Zara. We all loved them, think we all ended up with one in each colour! My lovely friend Laura who works for Chanel did my make up and the wonderful Elbie did mine and my BM’s hair. I chose Elbie as I had seen her work in the wedding world and I liked that she was a bit funky and different and not cheesy.

The Groom

Ad bought his suit from Ted Baker. All the lads we just told to wear what they want. We just wanted to be relaxed and chilled about it all and we didn’t want anyone spending loads of money buying matching suits they might not wear again.

The Stationery

Ad is a graphic designer so he designed and built a website for us which was how we invited everyone. We then made these little packs that were everyone’s place settings. They had a map in that explained the layout of the apartment and explained what was in each part of the apartment. (I’ve attached a PDF of it – if it helps explain the theme we were going for). We also spent ages personalising a game of Cards Against Humanity. We called it Cards Against the Wedding and we deliberately tried to stitch up our mates with rude stories about them. Think this went down pretty well, everyone was playing it on their individual tables and it kept everyone in a good boozey mood!

The Entertainment

We had music playing in the background at the Priory. We did a playlist of Beetles songs seeing as Ad loves the Beetles and we were married on Abbey Road. We then had a playlist we created playing at the Hoxton. We also had a live band put together by the awesome Nick at Tailored Entertainment - Nick’s a good friend of Ad’s and they used to play in a band together so there was no debate over who we would get into play at our wedding. Ad and his best man also played and sang a few songs on the night as well.

The Photography

Being a wedding photographer myself was really important to me. We went for Lee as we loved his editing style and funky portfolio. He was also really laid back and friendly – not at all pushy or over powering. Nothing cheesy either – which we liked. He had a lot of weddings that he had shot that we felt were similar to ours in style etc so we knew he’d nail it.

Final Thoughts

We really wanted the day to be all about our friends and family having a good time. We wanted good food, good music and good boozey banter. We also wanted something a bit different and un wedding-y – so we went for a Christmas house party theme. We wanted people to feel like they were at a house party and could just help themselves to booze and games. We had a homemade photobooth in one room and twister and various other games in another. We had beer pong and darts in another room. We also did a secret santa. Everyone bought presents and put them under the xmas tree. Everyone at the wedding also did several shots of Tequila in one big tequila drinking group in honour of my big brother who we sadly lost in 2011. We also couldn’t have our dog, Busby with us so we made cardboard cut outs of him and placed him around the apartment as if he was there, like losers!