Champagne & Sparkle

Written by: louise

You can't just beat a classic city wedding, and if it's going to be any city of course it has to be London! We're so lucky to have a variety of venues in our capital city - from traditional and elegant to contemporary and quirky! The RSA definitely falls into the elegant category, inside the classic Georgian façade a series of traditional and surprisingly contemporary rooms are revealed. Hannah & Dave let their city chic venue inspire their day - from London skyline stationery to minimal detailing and a soft, stylish palette.

We met years ago when two of our friends dragged us to the pub one summer's evening. Neither of us wanted to be there at first but, we ended up talking all night. Dave proposed on Christmas Day 2012 with messages hidden within boxes under the tree. Then we celebrated by cooking dinner for both our families - the first Christmas that we'd hosted at our house. We really wanted a London wedding because we love the city and the RSA is just the most beautiful venue that we fell in love with on the first time we visited it. The staff there were so friendly and were brilliant in the lead up to, and on the wedding - they really helped make it a perfect day. We took our cue for the look and feel of the wedding from our venue. The RSA is such a glamorous venue that we decided we wanted to keep everything as simple as possible. We wanted to keep the colour scheme simple and fresh so picked neutral, blush coloured bridesmaids dresses and kept to white flowers throughout. We actually found the bridesmaids dresses in Monsoon before I found my dress so, everything else flowed from there. We tried to reflect the glamour of the venue but wanted to keep colours simple so that it wasn't too busy - we're not a very over the top couple! I bought my Jenny Packham dress from White Mischief Bridal, the head piece from Donna Crain and my shoes from Rachel Simpson. I loved my dress so much, I just wanted to wear it forever - I know it'll be the nicest thing I ever wear!

The bridesmaids and I had our hair done by Shelley Godenho - she'd done our hair for my bridesmaid Lisa's wedding a few years ago and I knew we'd love how she styled us. It was great to have Shelley there on the morning of the wedding, she's so friendly and really put everyone at ease. I decided to do my own make-up, I always love taking time out when I'm getting ready to sit there and put my make-up on, so knew that doing it myself would keep me calm in the morning, plus I got to treat myself to some lovely new Chanel bits. We love London and the venue is located just off the Thames with some amazing views so, we based all our wedding stationery on the London skyline. We're very lucky that one of our best friends and bridesmaids, Liz, custom designed everything for us - from our Save the Dates to the images for the welcome screens in the entrance hall - and we loved that it was totally unique. The groomsmen wore suits we bought them from Next and looked just as great. Dave wore a tailored suit from Reiss and the same Jaeger tie as the groomsmen. We picked Wild About Flowers because their arrangements were modern and simple. We didn't have many specific ideas so Leanne was great in helping us pick what we wanted to go for. We didn't want formal arrangements for the tables so instead went for collections of white flowers in lots of little vases. It meant that lots of people could take the flowers away with them at the end of the night as well. Both my dress and the bridesmaids' dresses were so detailed that we wanted to keep the bouquets simple so went for white hydrangeas for me and gyp for the bridesmaids. We had a white cake from Marks and Spencer. My godparents were sadly unable to make our wedding but, my godmother - one of my mum's oldest friends - sent me something she'd taken off my parents' wedding cake, a gold ring with a white dove which meant so much to me that I wanted it on ours. We bought two white ceramic love birds to go with it. Our photographer was Fiona Kelly who is amazing, her style is really natural, light and simple. From the moment we got in touch with Fiona, she was so friendly that we knew we'd love to have her as part of the wedding. We had an engagement shoot with Fiona so felt totally at ease being in front her camera. She also came with us to the venue to work out what shots we might want so, on the day everything ran really smoothly. One of our favourite bits of the day was straight after our ceremony where we grabbed some champagne and snuck off with Fiona to take some photos - it meant we had some time for it all to sink in and I don't think we stopped smiling the whole time.

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