The one factor no person advised me to count on about our marriage ceremony was how little of it I’d bear in mind. Nearly a month has handed since we mentioned our vows and I’m nonetheless accumulating reminiscences like confetti, clamouring for the tales from those that have been there within the hope of piecing all of it collectively. There is a lot that feels prefer it was swirling round me – the unlikely collisions of individuals from totally different elements of our lives, the a whole bunch of conversations they’d, the hundreds of tiny bubbles rising in every clutched glass – and so all I’ve to supply is a brief model of 1 take.
The issues I bear in mind clearly: rising from a black cab with my bridesmaids and mum to see my dad, brother and my husband’s college associates. Walking behind all of them right into a wall of color created by our associates of their gladrags, beneath the sunshine we hadn’t dared to count on. Watching sparrows hop by means of the blossom of the bushes that overhung the partitions of the bombed-out church the place we held our ceremony. The searing white of my gown within the miniature variations of myself mirrored in my husband’s eyes. The rush of noise we walked into – 110 individuals cheering as we took our seats at dinner – the glow of the chandeliers in mirror glass and brass bud vases, the odor of white narcissus on the tables. Waiters making their manner across the toddler, asleep bum-up in a pram outdoors the kitchen door. My mum’s greatest mate whispering conspiratorially, “Oh Alice, he’s just gorgeous”. Stroking my bridesmaid’s daughter’s curls on the desk after dinner. The agency cushion of endorphins we perched upon for days afterwards.
Our marriage ceremony was 10 days after we obtained married, in a authorized ceremony so secret I advised my household by posting on the WhatsApp group earlier than Matt and I and our two beloved witnesses went to Noble Rot for a protracted lunch. It was a Tuesday morning. Florist Milli Proust dropped off a bouquet and buttonhole of dwelling-grown spring flowers and we walked by means of the park earlier than taking the bus a number of stops to Southwark Register Office in Camberwell. I wore a Batsheva X Laura Ashley cream moire gown beneath my Marfa Stance quilted jacket, and passers-by shrugged off London froidure to congratulate us because the solar got here out.
The Batsheva gown Alice wore to get married in.
Jay Rowden
Our invites – designed and hand-painted by Caroline Kent of Scribble and Daub – had two venues on it: St Dunstan within the East and Brunswick House. Both good London secrets and techniques. Churches have been constructed, destroyed and re-constructed on St Dunstan’s Lane – a hidden pocket of the Square Mile – since 1100. Now, the remnants of Christopher Wren’s 17th-century design stand within the open air for a congregation of palm bushes, vines and moss. I discover deep magnificence within the life that grows from artifical ruins, and it appeared like a hopeful place for us to share the story of our love and make guarantees for its future.
I’d discovered the gown throughout an environment friendly excessive-road safari a 12 months earlier. Off-white and pleated from Self-Portrait, it felt modern and unfussy for this reluctant bride, and I favored the classic references of the crochet and excessive neckline. I had it altered by an older unsmiling French lady in Chelsea, who was pleasingly insistent that I mustn’t lose any weight earlier than the marriage, because the match was now good. My mum made the hair bow from a silk remnant she had hanging round. My bridesmaids have been ok to unearth their clothes: darkish inexperienced, ’70s-impressed and babycord (for colder April climate) from Warehouse. The puffed sleeves and ruffles echoed my twin nieces’ flower lady clothes, which mum created from a ’90s Laura Ashley sample.
Ushers handed cremant round in paper cups earlier than company boarded routemasters for Brunswick House, a Georgian mansion improbably perched on Vauxhall roundabout. Matt and I jumped in a black cab to try to make sense of the giddy groundswell beneath our ft.
We’d chosen Brunswick House as a result of we hoped the place – half-restaurant, half-architectural antiques firm – would make our marriage ceremony really feel like a home celebration, and it did, albeit one with priceless furnishings and a grand piano (duly performed, at one level by a rock star and a 5-12 months-outdated concurrently). It’s a lovely, unprecious place; one the place kids ran feral up and down the spiral staircase and associates and family launched themselves outdoors the loos. They served up a seasonal menu, which meant we didn’t have to consider the meals a lot.
There have been no favours; I scribbled out the desk plan and identify locations a few nights earlier than. We didn’t beautify past an Alice Gabb banner impressed by considered one of our readings and flowers; I requested India Hurst of Vervain Floral Design to do as she wished. I’m a gardener, so there have been at all times going to be flowers, and so they have been at all times going to be seasonal, British and, for essentially the most half, dwelling-grown. India stuffed the place with fritillaries and blossom; she grew meadows from mantelpieces.
Matt mentioned he wished a pile of beignets as a substitute of a marriage cake and in order that’s what we had, the tip consequence being everybody scoffing doughnuts earlier than cocktails have been served within the cellar, and some making their manner into purses for the best way dwelling. I had a fancy dress change for a gown higher suited to dancing – a easy LBD I discovered after I wasn’t trying in Cos final winter and my grandmother’s pearls round my neck. We interrupted the gaggle of below-eights raving to “Don’t Stop Me Now” to have a primary dance (Syreeta Wright’s “I Love Every Little Thing About You”) then Britney, Paul Simon and Robyn all performed out beneath the glitter ball till the splintering synths of Candi Staton’s “You’ve Got the Love” marked the ultimate track of the night time. My mother and father had barely left the dance flooring.
Our marriage ceremony ended the place it had begun: at dwelling. That morning, my bridesmaids and mum had arrived so we may prepare within the consolation of realizing the place the tea baggage have been. In the primary minutes of the following, our front room full of these hardy sufficient to maintain the celebration going. A lone genius ordered in pizza, one other cobbled collectively some drinks, and Matt and I embarked upon our marriage as we had begun it – surrounded by love and laughter larger than we may have imagined.
