Paula & Geoff

Trinity Buoy Wharf weddings really are the best. It's such an incredible blank canvas, with every wedding we feature from there so different. Plus it's right on the Thames with beautiful views of the city and enough exposed brick and quirky details to keep every industrial loving bride truly happy. Paula and Geoff almost didn't get married here, as you'll read in the wedding report, but we're glad they did, and I think they are too! They enlisted the help of one of our all time favourite wedding planners, Liz Linkleter to help them and the results of their ideas with Liz's vision and organisational skills are just gorgeous. The natural, relaxed images come from My Beautiful Bride and just capture every last detail and emotion to perfection. Enjoy this one my loves, it's not only a feast for the eyes, but Paula and Geoff's obvious love for one another just warms the soul too.

The Venue

Paula The Bride: When Geoff proposed in July 2016 we had already been discussing what kind of wedding we wanted to have. I’m from Spain and Geoff is from New Zealand and although either destination would have made for an amazing wedding, we decided to have our big day in London since that is where we met and where our home is. We started to look online for London wedding venues and very quickly became overwhelmed with the number of options. We set a date for May 2017 and we were shocked to find that a lot of the venues we liked were already booked for the day we had selected – including the venue of our dreams, Trinity Buoy Wharf. The searching went on for a good few weeks and became pretty all-consuming - I remember all I could talk to anyone about was #venuegate! We are both super busy professionals who travel with work regularly so after a few failed attempts at securing a venue, we pretty quickly worked out that we would need help not only with finding the right place but also with organising the day. Having spent a fair few hours on Instagram, I bumped into Liz Linkleter’s page which I absolutely loved so I decided to contact her and we clicked as soon as we spoke on the phone. She did a venue search for us and we settled on a pub/event space in Hackney. We were really excited about the whole inner-city wedding concept but after a really bad dinner at the venue we decided that it was better to compromise on the date and stick to a venue that we loved rather than the other way around – Trinity Buoy Wharf was meant to be! We totally loved the venue for its brightness and airiness, the industrial feel and the amazing flow between the internal and external areas – it was exactly what we wanted. Finding the right venue was without a doubt one of the most stressful things about the whole process so I’d seriously recommend having a list of “absolute musts” and “nice to haves” agreed with your husband to be, it’ll make the process a lot easier!

The Planning

Once the venue was secured the fun started. We decided to hire Liz to help with the design and the running of the day but do all the planning on the run-up to the day ourselves. Using one of the many checklists available from Rock My Wedding we started working our way through every single detail to make our day as representative of to us, our personalities and our story as possible. We went for a simple, “Scandinavian-like” feel and very quickly landed on the 3 things that were most important to us: for every guest to feel included and have a blast, for the food to be amazing and reflective of the modern London culinary scene and for the whole experience to be touching, emotional and memorable. Figuring out what is critical to you both was a big help for us, especially when it comes to making budget decisions – I’d recommend aligning on this upfront so that you don’t end up with one of you wanting to go crazy on flowers while the other one is really fixated on having a cocktail bar!

The Styling

Our colour scheme was a palette of muted pastels like coral and pink which matched the white and wood interior of Trinity Buoy Wharf very well. Our flowers, provided by Grace & Thorn, were simple and delicate with lots of seasonal blossom and plenty of foliage. They were the perfect complement to the mink tulle skirts from ASOS the bridesmaids wore and my very laid back two piece silk and lace dress from Spanish designer Otaduy. No words can describe the amazing feeling of walking into a room and seeing all the work of months of planning come to life – the signage and stationery I designed, the long table arrangements, the sweet station, the projection of a video of Geoff and I growing up as I walked down the aisle...every single detail we had painstakingly planned (including those splurged on during the last two weeks before the wedding which Liz aptly called “f*ck it fortnight”) came to life and it was all more than worth it!

Final Thoughts

Looking back now through the lovely pictures by My Beautiful Bride and the amazing highlights video by Ginger Alice (definitely get one – you won’t regret it!) I honestly don’t think I would change anything despite the huge amount of effort planning a wedding in a dry-hire venue is. We had the most personal and touching ceremony which we translated and projected into a screen so that all my Spanish contingent felt included, we had incredible food and service from Jones & Sons and the best wedding cake ever by my friend Fanny, we blended Kiwi, British and Spanish traditions throughout the reception, we “sang” our first dance to an audience that were both surprised and supportive of our debut as a guitar and vocals duo, we danced the night away to a mix of English and Spanish tunes and all in the sunshine and with the most stunning backdrop of the River Thames. And most importantly, we got to marry each other surrounded by the most incredible bunch of friends and family. We may have gone slightly over budget and it may have been stressful at times but boy was it worth it...

{Watch The Film}