"Happy wife, Happy life"- a piece of marital advice for Olie written in one of our wedding cards.
So true.
This blog post is extra special to us as it covers that important date - our wedding. We decided to get married in London for a variety of reasons, however we also wanted to share this special day with family and friends in Australia. With social media and other technology, this was all made possible. Our wedding day was an amazing moment in our lives and the photos and detail about the planning, ceremony and reception will stay with us as a record of this life milestone - to laugh at and reflect on for many years to come.
Small and intimate
Planning for this wedding kicked off many months ago when we decided to get married in London with just a small, intimate number of guests (15 including us) to help us celebrate the day. We wanted the day to feel more like a themed cocktail party, rather than a formal dinner - which we still plan to have in a couple of years time back in Australia.
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Stuck together forever
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Project Plan
The wedding project plan kicked off with a spreadsheet, a budget and the desire to make the wedding unique and reflective of a theme - London, Britannia. Using tips picked up from the BBC series "Don't tell the Bride", we created a short list of key activities that needed to happen - date, venues, invitations, dress/suit, rings, photographer, transport.
We picked a date based on a couple of criteria. 1) a weekend that we hadn't booked any travel or London events in; 2) late Spring to get the best of the English weather; 3) Saturday to enable us at least a day to recover before heading back to work. We had initially settled on April 28th, which was close to the date of our engagement - April 25th and the date we had started dating April 27th. This was Olie's idea to consolidate everything to the one anniversary period. However, we then changed the date to May 19th on the event that April 28th clashed with a NKOTBSB (New Kids on the Block/Backstreet Boys) concert that two of our close London friends were attending. For the record, April 28th was a complete wash-out in terms of weather, so we are happy that the date moved.
Ceremony Venue
Selection of a venue was a difficult choice as there are so many historical buildings around London that have a license for civil ceremonies. A castle or historical estate would have been ideal, London Eye or Tower Bridge or Shakespeare's Globe would have been unique; however the rental costs were prohibitive. We had initially selected York House in Richmond as the venue, a grade II listed property with private garden next to the Thames. However, when we reassessed that the venue was perhaps too large for the number of guests that would be attending, we looked into registry offices. We found Wandsworth Registry by chance via Google, as our local council didn't have any openings and the buildings looked very tired. Wandsworth had the added appeal of a webcam option, only 25% of the cost of York House and was close to train transport back to central London and our Reception venue.
Reception Venue
We short listed a number of restaurants based on proximity to our house (for the cab ride home), offered a private dining room and have a very modern vibe. The Baltic in Southwark fit the criteria perfectly, offered cocktail masterclasses and homemade vodka shots, and amazing food. After a single meal there we made our booking. The staff were extremely helpful and we received amazing customer service - top recommendations from us for any private function, dinner or party.
Invitations
These were quite easy to organise and purchased in a 10 pack from Clinton Cards (a stationary shop) with a Forever Friends theme. Olie went above and beyond by hand decorating each with a range of London / Britannia inspired stickers from PaperChase. The Save the Date cards were even simpler - just a Facebook event invite.
Dress and Suit
In keeping true to our theme, Olie dressed in the colours of Britannia - red tie, white shirt, white waistcoat, navy blue suit and union jack cuff links. Mei adopted the colours of England - white dress, silver accessories and red nail polish and bouquet. Olie's suit was from TM Lewin - the first suit bought when we arrived in London for the purpose of job interviews. Mei's dress took four attempts to purchase using online shopping searches and came from Coast (a UK company) with tiara and flats from Debenhams and necklace from the British Museum shop.
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| The pendant is based on Queen Elizabeth's brooch, originally owned by Queen Victoria in 1897 in celebration of her Golden Jubilee. |
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| Jon Richard Cherry Blossom Tiara |
Rings
Many of our colleagues recommended to us to visit the shops at Hatton Garden for our rings. There were countless jewellery shops and it took us a whole afternoon of walking around and getting quotes. Our criteria was something simple, matching designs and a laser engraving of our names and the text "London 2012". We bought our rings from the Wedding Ring Shop, crafted in palladium - a relatively new precious metal that has the same chemical properties as platinum in that it won't rust and is quite strong.
We also chose to have the commemorative Jubilee Year hallmark stamped inside the ring of the Queen's head. This sits alongside the hallmarks for the metal (a warrior's head representing the Goddess Athena), the metal weight, the hallmark for the maker Brown and Newirth and the hallmark for the London and Birmingham Assay Offices where the rings were tested.
Photographer
We had originally selected a photographer based on a recommendation from a friend, however during the week leading up to the wedding, she unfortunately became ill but assisted in finding us a replacement. We met Jo only on the day before the wedding and he was happy to keep to our plan of a London landmark photo shoot and also the cocktail masterclass at the reception.
Transport
We had researched the cost of hiring a traditional limo for the wedding car, however the rental price and standby fee was quite high. In the end, we opted for a range of different transport types, including a local mini cab from our house to the first photography shoot location (£5). Then a London black cab hailed from the street to get us from Tower Bridge to London Eye (£10), then Tate Gallery to Wandsworth Registry (£30). From the Registry office we actually found it difficult to get a cab back to Southwark for the reception. The only option was to head for Wandsworth Town National Rail station, catch the South West train to Waterloo and then the Tube to Southwark Underground. We did get some interesting looks from our fellow passengers, but it was a very cheap form of wedding transport!
One Week before the Wedding
One week before the wedding we started to receive wedding cards from our family back in Australia, an electric can opener present from Mei's sister in law (requested), a wedding presentation with gift and card from Mei's colleagues (catching her completely by surprise as her boss booked in a fake meeting to ensure she was at her desk), and Olie's work colleagues organising a night out where Olie ended up in a smurf outfit (the 'something blue' part of wedding tradition) and we finished up the night singing karaoke in a restaurant in Soho.
Wedding Day Arrives
In order to get the London landmarks in our photo shoot before the tourist spots became quite busy, Mei had the less enjoyable task of getting her hair and make up done at sunrise. Her wake up call was at 5:30am with the make-up artist from the mobile beauticians Return to Glory arriving at 6:15am - lucky for us she lived in the next suburb and had just walked over. Nails had been done the day using Bio Sculpture gel that even 72 hours later were still fully intact and glossy.
Michelle, Olie's sister also woke up around this time, but both Olie and Michelle's husband Marius, managed to extend their sleep in for a little bit longer. The flowers were delivered just after 8am, with the bouquet and button hole consisting of Grand Prix red roses tied with a union jack ribbon by local florists - Hayford and Rhodes.
Photo Location One - Shad Thames
With all the last minute checks done, we were out of the door by 8:40am and met up with the photographer at 9:00am on the dot. Our first stop was Tower Bridge / Shad Thames where the London morning sunshine showed itself (thankfully) and we took a short stroll down Queen's Walk to Hays Galleria where we posed with a couple of red phone booths with flag props before taking the black cab to London Eye / Southbank.
Photo Location Two - London Eye
At London Eye, Michelle and Marius acted as good ushers of tourists, directing bystanders around the photo-shoot area to minimise the number of people we had in the background. They also did an awesome job carrying all our things, and helping Mei do shoe changes from heels to flats in between photos. From there, we took a few photos of Big Ben / Houses of Parliament from across the river, then walked along the Thames to the OXO tower jetty and Millenium Bridge / St Pauls Cathedral. After those locations were done, we hailed a cab from Blackfriars Bridge and headed for Wandsworth Registry office where we had plenty of time spare to do the interview / paperwork before the ceremony commenced at 12:45pm.
Ceremony
Walking into the room, the background music was Leonardo's Bride "Even when I'm sleeping" from the Registry's own collection. Our guests were spread across the two sides of seating along the central aisle. The web cam was mounted high on the front wall and whilst the ceremony progressed, we knew that at least 40 people around the world were watching it live on the internet.
The ceremony, paperwork and exchange of rings took about 20 minutes, and then we had group photos on the marble staircase within the council buildings and outside in the courtyard using union jack umbrella props. After a couple more photos we headed for the pub - Brewer's Inn opposite the council buildings where we relaxed to a pub meal, a glass of Pimms and watched the first half of the Championship League Playoffs. At 4pm, we tried unsuccessfully to get a cab, so we ended up walking to the train station and arrived back at Southwark Tube by 5pm, where we took some final photos with a London Underground sign, double decker red bus, Barclay's bike (thanks to Farrah's membership card) and headed for the Baltic restaurant.
Cocktail Class - The Baltic
Our wedding reception kicked off at 5:45pm with drinks and some really addictive popcorn. We then revealed the 1st surprise activity to our guests - a cocktail masterclass. With the bar area to ourselves, we learnt how to make a summer punch (including Hendrik's gin, lemon juice, champagne and cucumber), a beetroot martini (with chili and pepper vodka) and a traditional mojito with each person taking a turn to mix up at least one drink and the bartenders mixing up the rest so that before dinner, we were already tipsy from the 3 cocktails..
Private Dining Room
Just before 8pm we were ushered upstairs to the private dining room where we had organised for the tables to be arranged in a box, so that all guests were facing each other and a small dance-floor (although we had to climb under the table to reach it) was created in the centre of the room. It was here that the guests found out about the 2nd surprise - which was special for all the Chelsea fans (particularly Uncle Collin, Marius and Olie), where we organised for a TV (no sound) to show the ITV broadcast of the Champion's league final 'discretely' in the background - except when Chelsea scored and when the match went into penalties, as the entire room's attention turned to the screen.
Wedding Dinner
Dinner was a three course menu of a shared starter, selection of main and dessert with a hand picked selection of wines and two vodka shots (cherry and plain) - with the taste testing session part of the venue selection process. After dinner and when the football finished, the music came on and soon we had a variety of song choices from RnB, Michael Jackson (Olie doing the moonwalk at one stage) to 90's boy band cheesy-ness courtesy of the iPhone docking station that was next to the speaker. With everyone playing out requests, it was like a mini karaoke / nightclub upstairs- we had many DJ's and two wedding dances in the centre of the tables.
Gift for our guestsThe night finished up just shy of 1am and each couple that attended as our guest received a small personalised bonbonniere of a bottle opener with a favourite photo of us from our travels to Oktoberfest.
Thank you to everyone who came to celebrate our wedding, we had an awesome time and hope you did as well: Michelle, Marius, Uncle Collin, Farrah, Roopa, Rob, Allee, Rob, Meei-Lin, May, Francis, Lindy and Will; and many more who tuned in online to watch the ceremony.
We also chose to have the commemorative Jubilee Year hallmark stamped inside the ring of the Queen's head. This sits alongside the hallmarks for the metal (a warrior's head representing the Goddess Athena), the metal weight, the hallmark for the maker Brown and Newirth and the hallmark for the London and Birmingham Assay Offices where the rings were tested.
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| The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee hallmark available on gold, silver, platinum or palladium until 1st October 2012, stamped on the inside of our wedding rings. |
Photographer
We had originally selected a photographer based on a recommendation from a friend, however during the week leading up to the wedding, she unfortunately became ill but assisted in finding us a replacement. We met Jo only on the day before the wedding and he was happy to keep to our plan of a London landmark photo shoot and also the cocktail masterclass at the reception.
Transport
We had researched the cost of hiring a traditional limo for the wedding car, however the rental price and standby fee was quite high. In the end, we opted for a range of different transport types, including a local mini cab from our house to the first photography shoot location (£5). Then a London black cab hailed from the street to get us from Tower Bridge to London Eye (£10), then Tate Gallery to Wandsworth Registry (£30). From the Registry office we actually found it difficult to get a cab back to Southwark for the reception. The only option was to head for Wandsworth Town National Rail station, catch the South West train to Waterloo and then the Tube to Southwark Underground. We did get some interesting looks from our fellow passengers, but it was a very cheap form of wedding transport!
One Week before the Wedding
One week before the wedding we started to receive wedding cards from our family back in Australia, an electric can opener present from Mei's sister in law (requested), a wedding presentation with gift and card from Mei's colleagues (catching her completely by surprise as her boss booked in a fake meeting to ensure she was at her desk), and Olie's work colleagues organising a night out where Olie ended up in a smurf outfit (the 'something blue' part of wedding tradition) and we finished up the night singing karaoke in a restaurant in Soho.
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| The smurf and smurfette |
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| Blue Smurf at M and M World. |
Wedding Day Arrives
In order to get the London landmarks in our photo shoot before the tourist spots became quite busy, Mei had the less enjoyable task of getting her hair and make up done at sunrise. Her wake up call was at 5:30am with the make-up artist from the mobile beauticians Return to Glory arriving at 6:15am - lucky for us she lived in the next suburb and had just walked over. Nails had been done the day using Bio Sculpture gel that even 72 hours later were still fully intact and glossy.
Michelle, Olie's sister also woke up around this time, but both Olie and Michelle's husband Marius, managed to extend their sleep in for a little bit longer. The flowers were delivered just after 8am, with the bouquet and button hole consisting of Grand Prix red roses tied with a union jack ribbon by local florists - Hayford and Rhodes.
 |
| The bouquet |
Photo Location One - Shad Thames
With all the last minute checks done, we were out of the door by 8:40am and met up with the photographer at 9:00am on the dot. Our first stop was Tower Bridge / Shad Thames where the London morning sunshine showed itself (thankfully) and we took a short stroll down Queen's Walk to Hays Galleria where we posed with a couple of red phone booths with flag props before taking the black cab to London Eye / Southbank.
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| Displaying the Britannia / London theme |
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| Hays Galleria |
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| Butler's Wharf |
Photo Location Two - London Eye
At London Eye, Michelle and Marius acted as good ushers of tourists, directing bystanders around the photo-shoot area to minimise the number of people we had in the background. They also did an awesome job carrying all our things, and helping Mei do shoe changes from heels to flats in between photos. From there, we took a few photos of Big Ben / Houses of Parliament from across the river, then walked along the Thames to the OXO tower jetty and Millenium Bridge / St Pauls Cathedral. After those locations were done, we hailed a cab from Blackfriars Bridge and headed for Wandsworth Registry office where we had plenty of time spare to do the interview / paperwork before the ceremony commenced at 12:45pm.
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| Southbank |
Ceremony
Walking into the room, the background music was Leonardo's Bride "Even when I'm sleeping" from the Registry's own collection. Our guests were spread across the two sides of seating along the central aisle. The web cam was mounted high on the front wall and whilst the ceremony progressed, we knew that at least 40 people around the world were watching it live on the internet.
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| A photo of the online ceremony from the other side of the world |
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| Waving to our friends and family |
Cocktail Class - The Baltic
Our wedding reception kicked off at 5:45pm with drinks and some really addictive popcorn. We then revealed the 1st surprise activity to our guests - a cocktail masterclass. With the bar area to ourselves, we learnt how to make a summer punch (including Hendrik's gin, lemon juice, champagne and cucumber), a beetroot martini (with chili and pepper vodka) and a traditional mojito with each person taking a turn to mix up at least one drink and the bartenders mixing up the rest so that before dinner, we were already tipsy from the 3 cocktails..
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| Cocktail masterclass - Beetroot martini |
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| Making mojitos |
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| Measuring the ice |
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| With Michelle and Marius |
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| At the bar with Farrah |
Private Dining Room
Just before 8pm we were ushered upstairs to the private dining room where we had organised for the tables to be arranged in a box, so that all guests were facing each other and a small dance-floor (although we had to climb under the table to reach it) was created in the centre of the room. It was here that the guests found out about the 2nd surprise - which was special for all the Chelsea fans (particularly Uncle Collin, Marius and Olie), where we organised for a TV (no sound) to show the ITV broadcast of the Champion's league final 'discretely' in the background - except when Chelsea scored and when the match went into penalties, as the entire room's attention turned to the screen.
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| Wedding dance |
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| No room for big twirls |
Wedding Dinner
Dinner was a three course menu of a shared starter, selection of main and dessert with a hand picked selection of wines and two vodka shots (cherry and plain) - with the taste testing session part of the venue selection process. After dinner and when the football finished, the music came on and soon we had a variety of song choices from RnB, Michael Jackson (Olie doing the moonwalk at one stage) to 90's boy band cheesy-ness courtesy of the iPhone docking station that was next to the speaker. With everyone playing out requests, it was like a mini karaoke / nightclub upstairs- we had many DJ's and two wedding dances in the centre of the tables.
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| The boys celebrate with Olie |
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| Mei and the girls do some dancing |
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| Uncle Collin and Olie |
Gift for our guestsThe night finished up just shy of 1am and each couple that attended as our guest received a small personalised bonbonniere of a bottle opener with a favourite photo of us from our travels to Oktoberfest.
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| Wedding bonbonniere - a bottle opener |
Thank you to everyone who came to celebrate our wedding, we had an awesome time and hope you did as well: Michelle, Marius, Uncle Collin, Farrah, Roopa, Rob, Allee, Rob, Meei-Lin, May, Francis, Lindy and Will; and many more who tuned in online to watch the ceremony.
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| Our friends in Melbourne watching our wedding ceremony |
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