Louise & Chris

Well this is a brilliant way of celebrating the bride and grooms cultures if ever I saw one. Spreading their wedding across three amazing London venues with the help of wedding planner Revelry Events. First up they had an intimate ceremony at The Hospital Club in Covent Garden, followed by a Chinese wedding breakfast at Hutong at The Shard, and last but by no means least an evening reception at warehouse venue, Brixton East with Trinidadian steel pan players to kick off the party. Both of them look sensational in stylish wedding attire. The cold shoulder sleeves on Bride Louise's Reformation 'Poppy' gown are just heavenly, and really set off her bridal up do by RMW favourite Victoria Ralph Hair. All of the captures by Story + Colour Photography are full of emotion, and will make your heart swell they are so adorable. Enjoy.

Our Story

Louise the Bride: Planning a wedding seemed like a daunting task for us, we both work busy jobs and had so little free time. We knew that we'd need some help with the planning so our first task was to find ourselves a wedding planner. After a lot of research online we came across Revelry Events and we're so glad we did - they were instrumental in the planning. We only had a few must-haves for our big day: 1) We both wanted a relaxed and fun day so nothing too formal. 2) Food is very important to us, we consider ourselves foodies and like to eat out a lot. From growing up in our respective homes, we believe food brings people together so we wanted the food throughout the day to be interesting and flavoursome! 3) We wanted a small, low-key wedding but also wanted to celebrate with our friends and extended family. This drove our decision to split our day up on to two parts; a small ceremony with immediate family and a few friends and then a celebration in the evening with everyone else. 4) We wanted to bring the culture of both families’ heritage to the day; Chris’ family are originally from Trinidad and Tobago and Lou's parents are Chinese.

Brides Fashion

“Poppy” dress ordered online from Reformation with quite a few alterations made to the skirt done by a lovely lady called Inguna at The Greenwich Sewing Atelier.

Grooms Attire

The Bespoke Club, made to measure 3 piece suit & shirt IWC watch Drake's tie Joseph Cheaney & Sons double monk shoes

Venues

We wanted to pick venues that had a lot of character but were relatively informal. Holly from Revelry Events provided a short list of venues based on a quick conversation we had about the kind of places that we wanted and we were so pleased with the options she provided. We would never have discovered our ceremony venue or evening reception venue without her. We started with a late-morning wedding ceremony in The Forest Room at The Hospital Club. From there we then transported our guest to Hutong at The Shard for a Chinese lunch. From there we transported everyone to Brixton East 1871 to celebrate with the rest of our guests and family.

Colour Scheme/Decor

• Our ceremony venue had the most amazing forest wallpaper so we kept the decor really simple with additional greenery together with golds and whites to complement what was already there. • We didn’t need to do much at all at Hutong so we simply added some red origami birds which acted as place card holders to complement the existing oriental decor in the private dining room. • For Brixton East, we wanted to keep everything quite simple to allow the character of the venue to shine through with the exposed brick walls and ceiling beams. We did however want to add lots of greenery with some pops of colour using cream and pastel coloured flowers. We also roped in Lou’s sister and cousin to hone their calligraphy skills to do all the signage and Chris’ brother Bernard designed a template for a projected image (a gobo) which we beamed onto a wall. He also designed and printed our wedding invites. • Touches like the festoon lighting and mirror ball came as standard with the venue hire so that made things really easy for us. • We added simple DIY large white balloons with ivy tails to both The Hospital Club and Brixton East.

Florist

Annie at Bunch London did the most amazing job with our flowers. She created a beautiful low-fuss bridal bouquet and two large urns full of wild greenery and flowers which we displayed on plinths and were placed either side of the ceremony table. At Brixton East, she made a feature of the exposed beams with ceiling garlands and the staircase with climbing foliage. She also added lots of mixed height jars across the venue with pastel florals and interesting greenery.

Wedding Party Fashion

The best men wore navy suits with red pocket squares and ties. There were no bridesmaids but Lou’s niece accompanied her down the aisle in a lovely little dress from Next.

Ceremony

We had 2 readings during the ceremony: • He's not Perfect (Bob Marley) • A Lovely Love Story (Edward Monkton)

Entertainment

Chris’ dad organised for Trinidadian steel pan players to welcome our guests to Brixton East which got everyone into the party spirit! We then hired a DJ for the evening dancing.

Food

Oysters supplied by Oyster Meister, prosecco and cocktails were served on arrival. We then had a series of street food-style stations provided by Jimmy Garcia Catering. • Taiwanese steamed buns with pork belly • Caribbean station with jerk chicken or vegetables with rice and peas • Make your own tacos • Soft serve ice cream bar with endless options for toppings and sauces We provided some benches and communal tables, and to keep things relaxed guests could go up to each station and help themselves

Cake

Our cake was made by the wonderful Hannah of Butter Beautiful. We initially tasted her cakes at a wedding fair and were blown away! For our tasting, we selected 3 possible flavour combinations and she brought along a 4th wildcard flavour. We actually ended up going for her wildcard which was a pear and ginger sponge for our bottom larger tier and a passionfruit and coconut sponge for our top layer. We asked for a peach-coloured brushstroke effect against a white buttercream and she added loads of extra detail like gold dipped cherries, gold leaf and macaroons which we absolutely loved.

Photographer

We picked Story + Colour because we really liked their creative style of photography. We were looking for natural pictures which capture the moment and would be able to bring back vivid memories of our day. Neither of us are particularly comfortable in front of the camera so we arranged to have a practice photoshoot a few weeks before the wedding itself which allowed us to get to know Dan and helped us to feel more at ease on the day. We’re extremely pleased with how the pictures turned out.