A Christmas Wedding in London – Sequins Dried Flowers & Candles

When you think of that week inbetween Christmas and New Years Eve, cosy family fun times comes to mind right? Well how about holding a Christmas wedding with all of your loved ones rather than lazing in your PJs or eating shed loads of buffet food at your Aunty’s?

That’s exactly what WWW readers Danny and Susi chose to do and they had the most beautiful winter wedding on the 28th December 2019. Firstly they were married at the Asylum Chapel in London, followed by a fantastic party at St. Barts Brewery. What do I love about their day? Well the sequin dresses for one (whoa), the gorgeous dried flowers throughout and the vegan wedding food sounded awesome.

They added lots of cosy lighting with candles and fairy lights, live wedding music (wedding supplier directory member Tailored Entertainment gave a helping hand) and their very cute pup came to visit too. I cannot thank Joseph Kinerman enough for sharing these utterly gorgeous images with us today.

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St Bart’s Brewery Wedding

The Proposal

Danny and I had been together for 8 years when we got engaged in 2017. We were in New York in December, it was a trip I’d wanted to go on for so long (I am a sucker for a Christmas movie and couldn’t wait to see all the decorations and skate under the tree at the Rockefeller Centre). We were a bit jet lagged on our first morning there and woke up really early. Danny asked if I wanted to go up to the hotel rooftop to watch the sunrise over the city. When we got up to the top, he asked me to marry him. It was perfect for us and made the trip even more special.

The Vision

We didn’t have a particular vision in mind, the main thing we were focused on, and really wanted out of the day, was for everyone to have a great time. You can spend so long planning (and paying) for your wedding so we just wanted to make sure that our guests enjoyed themselves as that would make it all worth it. We actually spent the most time picking out of everything picking all the little touches for our guests, such as the musicians, the travelling gin company, photobooth and bus to make sure they were entertained all day.

The Planning Process

We were both pretty relaxed through the planning process and decided to give ourselves 2 years to pick the perfect wedding for us. I’d never had a specific vision in mind and we considered so many different types of weddings, seasons and countries to get married in, including eloping in Vegas. In the end, we decided we wanted to have our friends and family with us (and we weren’t sure they’d forgive us if we did it without them too!).

We’ve always loved the Christmas period and how much everyone is up for a party so in the end we thought this would be best for us and the whole planning process just naturally came out from there. We got loads of inspiration from the beautiful weddings we saw on blogs like WWW and mixed this up with what we loved to make it perfect for us.

The Venue

As soon as we decided we wanted a cosy winter wedding, we were on the hunt for venues we could dress up with candles, flowers and fairy lights to get that cosy winter feel. When we went to visit both of the venues we chose fell in love instantly and knew they were right for us.

We had our ceremony at the Asylum Chapel in Peckham. The venue was so unique and beautiful and absolutely perfect for our ceremony. The venue itself doesn’t need much decoration but we opted for some flowers down the aisle, as many candles as we could fit in the alter and some fairy lights and that was perfect for us.

After our ceremony we drove round to our reception venue, St. Barts Brewery, a pub/restaurant right near Smithfield market. We loved the design and the team were absolutely amazing. They helped us to co-ordinate every aspect of our wedding and were so friendly and relaxed too which really suited us. The chefs also made us a bespoke 3 course vegan meal which was based off of our favourite dishes.

Your Outfits & Accessories

I got my dress, and all my bridesmaid’s dresses, from ASOS. As we’d opted for a winter wedding, I loved the idea of having loads of sequins and when I saw them all I knew they’d be perfect for us. We also managed to find really similar pink sequinned dresses for my two beautiful flower girls from Matalan and they looked amazing walking (or being carried) down the aisle matching their mums. Danny and the groomsmen’s suits were all from Moss Bros. Danny was really keen on getting a green suit and this one was the perfect colour and style for him.

Beauty

I am a little fussy about my hair and make up and spent quite a long time searching for the perfect artists to get me and my bridesmaids ready on the big day. After lots of Instagram searching I found Katy Angelidi and Kate Morris for our make up and hair respectively. They were both really flexible and helpful and worked with me to find the perfect style. My bridesmaids and I all loved our hair and make up – they’re both so talented.

The Readings & Music

We wanted the ceremony to be quite informal so we just had one reading which 2 of our best friends picked and read for us.

We had some amazing musicians on our day too. Louis Coupe was with us at the Asylum singing and playing piano. He sang for our guests from when they started arriving and all the way through our having photos and cocktails after the ceremony. He also sang one of our favourite songs, the wonder of you, whilst I was walking down the aisle.

In the evening we really wanted a band that would help get everyone up dancing and for this we picked Sega and the Boombox. They are a 90’s/00’s cover band and we knew all of our guests would love singing and dancing along to their songs. They had so much energy and were so much fun all night.

Why not check out our wedding readings and wedding music pages too for lots of inspiration for your ceremony.

The Flowers

We picked Maples Flowers to design our flowers for the big day and were so happy we did. We knew we wanted a mix of dried and fresh flowers and lots of neutral tones to compliment the dried flower centrepieces we had made for our tables. Shane understood what we wanted straight away and showed us loads of flowers he thought would work perfectly and he also knew he could get hold of over the Christmas period (we picked one of the toughest times of the year for flowers). He gave us suggestions of what he could do to make the space look as full as possible and they built the flowers in a way that made it easy for us to move them between both venues so we could have them all day. They looked so beautiful and the bouquets lasted for so long too – we’ve even kept some of the dried flowers from my bouquet and have them in vases round our house.

The Cake

We are both vegan and really wanted all of our food to be vegan on our big day too. Because of this it was really important to us that all the food was delicious so all our friends and family enjoyed it just as much as we did. Danny found La Sweet Galerie through Hitched and we were so happy we decided to go with them. The cake was amazing.

Your Photographer

We searched online for a while to find a photographer that would really suit us. We are both a bit camera shy and really wanted someone who could work with us to get some beautiful photos of our friends and family enjoying the day without having anything too cheesy. We first had a skype with Joe and knew straight away he’d be perfect for us. He was really nice and totally understood what we were looking for from the off. On the day, he brought along Rhys and honestly they were both so lovely and made us feel so comfortable. They were fun and friendly and got on with everyone but also took the most beautiful photos for us. He also sent them all back to us so quickly (we were still on honeymoon when we received them). I don’t think we could have asked for anyone better and I would recommend them both any day.

The Honeymoon

We were really lucky to get to spend a month in Bali just before everything shut down due to coronavirus. We had such a lovely time and got to travel all around the island soaking up all of the Bali sun and making so many amazing memories.

Memorable Moments

The whole day was honestly full of incredible moments but there were a couple that really stood out.

The most amazing moment for me was when I walked into the chapel to see our little Cockapoo, Woody, standing at the end of the aisle next to Danny. Not only was I so happy to see Danny (as all I’d wanted to do all day was see him and give him a hug) I also had no idea my dog was going to be there – Danny and our amazing dog walkers had planned to bring him in secret. It was honestly the most wonderful surprise as we are self-confessed crazy dog parents. It also really made me laugh and took away loads of those pre-wedding nerves. He was wearing a suit and a top hat – it was too adorable for words.

We also rented a lovely vintage cream bus to take all our guests between venues on the day. My little sister was in charge of the music and picked the most amazing playlist with everything from The Dixie Cups to the Spice Girls. Everyone on the bus was singing and dancing along and it made the journey through London even more fun.

Credit Where Credit Is Due

Oh my goodness, I love it ALL! Didn’t Danny and Susi look so gorgeous and stylish too?!

A massive thank you to Danny and Susi for sharing with us their very festive wedding day xo Lou