If there was one wedding I had been waiting for impatiently for absolutely ages, it had to be Alanah & Toby’s big day in central London!
The whole day and evening took place at the stunning South Place Hotel, which was absolutely one of the most amazing hotels I’ve ever had the pleasure of attending a wedding at! Here’s what Alanah told me about her vision for the wedding:
“Amy Frank, our wedding planner at the South Place Hotel helped us to plan the day and she was spectacular! We built up such a good relationship with Amy and would email regularly.
We wanted to get married in London and had been researching online for potential venues. I had been to South Place before for a work networking event and remember it looking very modern and feeling very swanky. It’s a relatively new hotel and it’s decorated with art and lots of fun things which appealed to us as it was already wedding ready and we didn’t want anything traditional or fussy. We were lucky enough to hire a lot of the areas and rooms for our day – the outdoor area where we held our drinks reception was our favourite space – it’s called ‘The Secret Garden’ which is very apt as we have many special memories over a number of years spent at The Secret Garden Festival; it’s all in the name!
Gary Foulkes who is the head chef at the Michelin starred Angler restaurant prepared all of our lovely wedding food- that was a highlight, we really wanted quality food and wine and the food tasting was one of our favourite days in the lead up to the wedding. Amy arranged so much for us to taste on the terrace. The sun was shining and we were getting giddy sipping all of the cocktails and bubbles they had prepared for us.
Hattie Whitehead is a friend of Amy’s and Amy recommended her as she had Hattie sing at her wedding. I watched her perform then got in contact and was so happy that she agreed to sing at our wedding. A lot of our guests commented on how beautiful her voice was – one friend even said that he didn’t realise that she was there singing during the ceremony until he saw her as her voice was flawless!
Our bouquets, button holes and floral arch were from Grace & Thorn. We wanted flowers that were autumnal coloured and not structured. I’m into floristry and I had been to one of their workshops where we learned how to make hand tied bouquets listening to hip hop and drinking prosecco! Fran and Jack came early on the day to build the floral arch. The floral arch was also used in the evening as the backdrop to our polaroid photo station which framed our snaps nicely!
My mum had collected lots of vases from various charity shops and Toby and I went to New Covent Flower Market the morning before the wedding to buy lots of flowers and foliage for the 40 vases. My maid of honour and I then prepared all of the floral table arrangements the night before.
My dress was from Pronovias. I took the mums and Toby’s sisters with me and I ended up buying my dress from this lovely shop in Bury St Edmunds called House of Snow. The shop owner Hattie was previously a costume designer and had a great range of dresses in there. In the evening I changed into a gold sequined dress (so that I could dance!) I got this online from a dress shop in Australia and it was a bargain!
Toby wanted to keep his suit a surprise from me – he got a made to measure suit from Edit Suits and double monks from Crocket & Jones, he looked very handsome 😊
One of my close friends, Jazzy did our hair and make up – Jas Virdee Hair and Makeup, it was great having her there as she knew all of my bridesmaids also so immediately what suits each of us and what style we wanted.”
I think that’s more than enough for the introduction, let’s get to the pictures and relive this incredible party. Enjoy!
