Ria & Jordan

The utterly gorgeous Ria and Jordan held their reception at the infamous Town Hall Hotel - we were lucky enough to attend an event there at the beginning of the year, and it truly is a fabulous place for a party. Opulent, elegant and intimate, Ria filled the space with greenery, white and pink florals and copper accents - all of which were DIY'd by friends and family. On the subject of which, Ria's bridesmaids look seriously HOT in Reformation dresses. And the leading lady herself dazzles in Delphine Manivet. Ria says she was drawn towards French designers and I totally understand why, their gowns have a real sense of understated, effortless beauty. Perfect for this wedding day then, non? Images come from Chris Barber, whose relationship with his couples always shines through in the frolics he captures.

The Bride

Ria the Bride: French French French. After trawling through the internet through countless dresses, I was constantly drawn to French designers. That being said, the dress wasn’t my top priority for the day. I wanted to find the dress and buy it as soon as possible so that I could forget about it and not have to think about it again. I ended up finding my dress at the first sample sale I went to, Brown’s Bride. It was the first dress I tried on and I had bought it within about 15 minutes.

The Groom

Jordan opted for a green suit from Paul Smith. The idea of green worried me slightly initially as I wasn’t sure how it would tie in with all the colours we had going on, but in the end it worked perfectly and it was a colour that we hadn’t really seen before on a groom.

The Venue

We had a religious ceremony at the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Dalston, followed by our reception at Town Hall Hotel, Bethnal Green, London. We had a religious ceremony at a Kingdom Hall in Dalston as we’re both Jehovah’s Witnesses. My dad walked me down the aisle to Jordan, said a few words, did our vows, gave me away and of course did the father of the brides speech later on. Our wedding day ended up being more about him than anything else – which was great as it took a lot of the pressure of us. Town Hall Hotel is such a beautiful place and they really looked after us and managed to take all of the pain out of organising a wedding venue.

The Decor

There wasn’t one initially. The Bridesmaids were asked to choose their own dresses from Reformation. The dresses and colours that they all chose just so happened to tie in together and this was the basis for the colour scheme of the wedding. The idea for the table decorations was purely based around having a multitude of flowers, with a few simple terrariums which my mum kindly made for me! The inspiration for this came from a styled shoot which I’d stumbled across online. My flatmate of 3 years did our flowers, and she absolutely smashed it. We went to New Covent Garden flower market together the day before the wedding (early doors) and walked out with our arms full of blooms. My sister, mum & Tammy my flatmate then spent the entire day doing the table decorations / bouquets etc.

The Wedding Party

The flower girls wore tutus from Children's Salon. The groomsmen were given free reign over their suits, we just asked that they were navy.

The Ceremony

As mentioned earlier, we had asked my Dad to say a few words at the ceremony. He did a beautiful talk for about 20 minutes, giving advice on how to keep our marriage strong going forward. He then did our vows, which were completely riddled with mistakes which all in all made for a lovely & lighthearted ceremony.

The Entertainment

We had playlists during the day and our friend & DJ Spencer Snelman DJed for us in the evening in the evening.

The Food

We had the most beautiful lamb for our main and an Amalfi lemon desert. We chose not to have a wedding cake, as the traditional 'cut the cake' photo always makes me slightly uncomfortable as it's so forced...! We also didn't provide canapés as a way of saving some money.

The Photography

Chris became a friend of ours during the process of planning a wedding, and he also ended up shooting our friends weddings' too. The images he took are carbon copies of how we remember the day, and they're something that we'll always love looking back on. Our second shooter Alex was also incredible to have around and took some amazing images for us.