Maggie & Sam

You may remember a few weeks ago we shared a London engagement shoot with a gorgeous Bride-to-be wearing a particularly lovely midi skirt and mustard yellow jumper...well today we're very excited to be sharing Maggie & Sam's wedding. It's in London again, with two very gorgeous, but very different venues - eighteenth century mansion Clissold House and cool industrial space 06 St Chad's Place. It's a day that's full of colour and fun - the yellow and grey scheme looks fabulous and works perfectly with the little lego men favours, meticulously sourced by the couple. Maggie and Sam also had a Chinese Tea Ceremony as part of their big day, meaning that Maggie got to wear two lovely dresses, one by Catherine Deane and a stunning red dress to honour Chinese tradition.

The Bride

Maggie The Bride: I came across Catherine Deane's dresses while browsing the BHLDN. I later discovered that they have a studio in London and they have all their dresses made in my birth place, Hong Kong. I took a couple of days off in October to go wedding dress shopping with Sam's mum. I rang them up and was lucky enough to find that they had a sample sale on. My wedding dress was the first dress I tried on and I fell in love with it. Since I am quite petite, I took it to their recommended seamstress, Nicola Donati for alterations who did a fantastic job! My second dress was tailor made for the Chinese tea ceremony. Me and my mum went to our tailor in China during my visit to Hong Kong. They had my dress made within a week!

The Groom

Sam bought his tailored suit from Mr. Start in Shoreditch and had mustard yellow linen tie and pocket square made to go with the colour themes.

The Venue

We love London and we wanted our wedding to celebrate what makes it such a special place. Our wedding venue was a Georgian villa set in Clissold park, with our reception venue a former warehouse near King’s Cross. Clissold House is an intimate venue, set on the hill overlooking Clissold park. It was a perfect setting for a relaxed summer wedding, with all our guests enjoying the house and the park. We took a traditional London bus to King’s Cross to our reception venue at 06 St Chad’s place. The large warehouse space has timber trusses and exposed brickwork, which provided a great backdrop to dinner and dancing.

The Decor

Me and Sam cast all the table numbers and plant holders in plaster and the signs were hand painted by us as well! The biggest task of all was making the personalised Lego name card holders. We started collating Sam’s old Lego about a year ago, but we had to supplement it with numerous visits to Lego shop and carboot sales!

The Flowers

My bouquet, the flower girls and bridesmaids bouquets are made by Dansk Flowers Islington on Upper Street. We used to live close by and Sam regularly buys me flowers from them. They’ve also made my headpiece with white spray roses which I wore for the Reception. All the table flowers were prepared by me and one of my bridesmaids. Before the wedding my family collected lots of Kowloon Dairy milk bottles for me from Hong Kong and brought them over the day before the wedding. We filled the bottles with roses and baby breath we bought from Covent Garden Flower Market. We also made the boys’ buttonholes with yellow craspedia, guinea fowl feather and grey ribbon to match our colour scheme.

The Ceremony

The reading was Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare read by my bridesmaid, Janice. We used to sit next to each other in English, studying Shakespeare! We had a string duo from the Royal Academy of Music playing Canon in D by Pachelbel for the bridal entrance and The Entertainer by Joplin for the recessional piece. They are two special pieces of music for us, as me and Sam used to play on the piano when we were kids.

Chinese Tea Ceremony

After the wedding, we had a Chinese Tea Ceremony for which I changed into my Chinese red dress. The traditional ceremony involves the bride and groom offering tea to their family members as a mark of respect.

The Photography

We absolutely love the great composition and vibrant colours of our photos. Laura at Babb Photo has a special and fun way of capturing the moment and telling the story of our day. Laura is very organised and gave us lots of advice which made our day a lot easier. When Laura told us that she's a big fan of Brutalist Architecture, we decided to book her straight away. Since we are both architects, it was important to find a photographer who shared the same interest as us! We had such a great time shooting our engagement photos in the Barbican.

Extra Words On The Day

Be creative and add personal touches to make your wedding unique. Our wedding invitation and personalised legomen were very well received by our guests and mostly importantly, we had so much fun during the process! Most of all, try and take it all in and enjoy the day!