Pippa & Jack

Pippa and Jack's wedding truly embraces British culture, with a street party complete with bunting, a party in a pub and a table full of delicious looking cakes, all created by some of London's very best wedding suppliers. Pippa looks gorgeous in a high street wedding dress, beautifully customised by her Mum and proving that adding a giant pink bow is always a good idea. Her hair and make up was done by one of our recommended suppliers, Laura Anne, who Pippa describes as doing a 'wonderful job of translating the soft delicacy of my outfit through into my hair and make-up.' Sounds (and looks) like she did a perfect job to us! The decor is gorgeous - very fun, a little bit rustic and perfectly in keeping with the surroundings of their warehouse reception space. But then we'd expect nothing less when the Bride herself is a stylist. Right, let's enjoy it shall we? Images come from the wonderful Marianne Chua.

The Bride

Pippa the Bride: I love 1950s style, nipped in at the waist, calf length dresses as it really suits my shape, so I was quite clear on the type of dress I wanted, and the Cressida dress from Phase Eight, ticked all the boxes. My wonderful Mum made me a Oscar-de-la-renta style silk bow belt that matched my pale pink Salvador Ferragamo shoes, she also embellished the lace with pearls and crystals and made the skirt fuller – making it unique to me. Laura-Ann did a wonderful job of translating the soft delicacy of my outfit through into my hair and make-up. I decided against a headpiece as the dress was so intricate but I kept some cornflowers, daisies and lisianthus from the table vases as a last minute addition to my hair. I was so happy with how I looked on the day and if I could offer one piece of advice for brides out there, it would be to make sure that you feel confident and comfortable, quite simply like a enhanced version of myself. There were times when I felt I should look more sexy or traditional, but sticking to what I knew would be best more me made everything else on the day so much easier, as I wasn’t worrying about my arms or holding up my long skirt – which would have driven me nuts!

The Groom

Jack the Groom: I knew that I didn't want a traditional wedding suit. I was looking for something that would stand out, but wouldn't look overly formal. I’ve always liked tweed, but wearing that in the summer seemed like a bad idea, and so I spent a lot of time looking at other fabrics that had some texture to them. Most importantly, I also wanted to find something that fitted well, I always find that the arms come up way too long on me, which wouldn't do on my wedding day. I looked at a lot of bespoke suit makers but didn't find them to really fit with what I wanted, and to be honest the whole process wasn’t something that I was comfortable with. In the end I found a suit that I loved completely by accident, while walking through John Lewis. I bought some wood buttons to make it a bit more interesting. And to ensure that it fitted perfectly I had it altered, with the arms shortened from the shoulder to ensure that the cuffs were maintained. I knew I wanted to pair it with brown brogues, but finding the perfect shade was difficult, it seems I am fussier than I thought. Having a shirt made solved the short arms problem, and buying liberty ties for myself and the Groomsmen was my way of making us match, without doing the “wedding” thing and wearing the same suits.

The Venue

Jack: I grew up in Hackney, and Pip and I have always lived there while we have been together. So we wanted to keep the event as close to home as possible. We chose Stoke Newington Town Hall for the ceremony, which has an amazing art deco room with a gallery for some of the guests to sit on. Then it was on to my parents for the afternoon reception. My parent live in the square that is the inspiration for Eastenders’ Albert Square, and the central garden is usable by residents. This was where we decided to have our afternoon reception. We decorated the garden with lots of bunting, and had a band, canapés, and Prosecco. The sun came out which made for a perfect afternoon garden party that felt miles away from central London. Finally it was over to The Russet, a restaurant in a warehouse in Hackney. The combination of urban setting and quite rustic furniture and garden felt like the perfect venue for the meal and evening dancing. We rented some wooden tables and chairs which really made the venue feel special, and the team there did a great job of setting everything out how we wanted it. After the meal we were able to stand and sit outside while they moved the tables for dancing.

The Decor

Pippa: The look and feel of our wedding was super important to me, being a designer and stylist. The colour scheme we decided on for our wedding was soft pastels, with pops of yellow and rustic textures, this travelled through the decor and linked into my outfit – kind of country wedding, in the city.

The Flowers

Pippa: Rachel Husband at The Rose Shed is a childhood friend and her arrangements are simply stunning, I love how she creates soft natural combinations of flowers in a structured way – this style was perfect for our wedding. Jack and I spent quite a long time deciding on flowers as we both had strong views on what we liked and didn't like! In the end Rachel worked with us to curate the perfect list, especially as it was really important to me that the flowers were as seasonal as possible. As Rachel is based in Bristol and we had family bring up the bouquets and buttonholes on the day, all the table arrangements were done by our family and friends. Jack and I got up very early a couple of day before the wedding and experienced New Convent Garden Flower Market, it was amazing – albeit a little quiet as Chelsea Flower Show was on. We retuned home with a car full of flowers and our wallets a lot lighter! The vases on the tables were just milk bottles from Ikea and just to make it a little more personal I collected many weeks of Abel & Cole box string and tied it around the neck.

The Wedding Party

Pippa: I started off telling my bridesmaids that they could wear whatever they likes, this then changed to anything as long as its pink, but ended up with me choosing the dress for them to wear, bridezilla! The dress that really caught my eye was – also from Phase Eight – was the Hayley Spot Dress. They both loved it and it suited them both really well. Once again my Mum’s amazing sewing skills came in handy for making the flower girl dress, which was made from the same silk as my bow and overlaid with hand embroidered fine netting. Jack: I didn’t want to have everyone wearing the same thing, it didn't feel right. Instead, I asked everyone to wear a blue suit, and then tied it all together by getting everyone matching ties, as with my tie we went for liberty print, this time with lots of zoo animals on it!

The Entertainment

Jack: During the day we had The Melody Jazz Trio for the outdoor part of the party to provide some background music and atmosphere to the garden. In the evening my brother arranged for one of his friends – Carlos Hawthorn – to DJ (my brother works in music). The DJ played a great assortment of tracks to get everyone dancing.

The Food

Pippa: We wanted our wedding breakfast to be a relaxed family affair, like a very large Sunday lunch and we were really grateful that The Russet could accommodate this, cooking whole roast chickens for our quests to carve at the tables. My Mum made some aprons for the carvers, to save them getting messy and also as a souvenir. With this we had a medley of three salads – beetroot, goats cheese and walnut; broad bean, mint couscous and boiled new potatoes. To start was quiches and dips and on the table we had jars of Abel & Cole mayonnaise and Holy F**k hot sauce – our favourite. I have been to enough weddings where the wedding cake is in addition to the desert and therefore doesn't really get eaten. We were dead set against this and wanted to create a desert table. I had a vision for the and thanks to the staff at The Russet, it was perfect. The centre piece was a vanilla, raspberry and white chocolate 4 tiered cake by Lily Vanilli, either side of this we has towers of Meringue Girl kisses and mallows in a variety of flavours, from The Marshmallowist. During the champagne reception The Canababes served a selection of bite-sized treats to us, including; Beetroot cured smoked salmon Bellini, pulled pork on tortilla and prawn, mango and chilli on a gem lettuce leaf.

The Photography

Jack: We chose Marianne Chua as our photographer because we were looking for someone who would capture the day without adding too many staged or set up shots. we wanted to look natural and capture as many of our guests as possible. She really was very good at what she did, she made us feel comfortable while she was taking photos. She herded our families into position for the traditional photos (this took so much more time that I expected), we really could not be happier.