Our Wedding Part 2: The Ceremony & Reception

Hello again,

I hope you're having a lovely Wednesday!

It's time for the second installment of our wedding story, thank you so much to all of you who left lovely comments on my previous wedding story posts ~ they had me beaming all day long! In case you missed it, I shared my inspiration board for our wedding here and Part 1 of our wedding story ~ getting ready with the girls.

Venue

Our venue was Grove House, part of Roehampton University in South West London. We wanted a country manor type feel without our families having to travel miles out of London. I did my teacher training at Roehampton Uni and fell in love with Grove House and the surrounding grounds. Everyday I passed it or had lectures there was like stepping into a Jane Austen novel. Zee, however, took a bit of persuading…he felt that the building looked like it had ‘been on fire’. {That would be the vintage charm then!}

Decor

The rooms inside Grove House were so darn beautiful that we didn't feel the need to go to town on the decor. I bought loads of tealights and tea light holders and scattered them all around the tables/grounds. I also I bought fairy lights to hang from a doorway leading out onto the grounds. They looked really pretty as day turned to dusk.

The Portrait room, where we had our ceremony, was missing a portrait in the centre of the room {we were rather pleased about this as it was a dark, ugly eyesore!} but it did leave a blank wall to be adorned. I was actually inspired by another bride who I had seen use letters spelling ‘LOVE’ as a focal point during their ceremony so I bought some off white, wooden ‘LOVE’ letters from the fabulous Not On The High Street.

Flowers

Zee calls me his English rose so there was really only one choice of flower for our wedding. I love how traditional and classic roses are. My bridesmaids had small bouquets of ivory roses, which looked stunning against their blush pink dresses. The groomsmen had simple ivory rose buttonholes. We decided against foliage and requested small roses (but in hindsight, I would’ve liked bigger, more open roses with a leaf or two). The centerpieces were vintage-looking glass vases filled with a simple arrangement of mixed roses.

I had a posy of mixed peaches, pinks and cream roses for my bouquet, with a couple of fluffy white peonies thrown in for added gorgeousness. I adored my bouquet but in all the excitement managed to misplace it after dinner and subsequently forgot about the whole throwing of the bouquet ritual oops! (I’d like to apologise to all the female guests hoping for a proposal in the near future!)

Groom & Groomsmen's Attire

We envisioned all the men wearing sharp black suits with matching ties and ivory rose buttonholes. So we asked them to wear their own black suits, explaining that we’d provide the rest. Zee, my charmingly disorganised fiancé, was in charge of the men’s attire and, much to my dismay, they did not all end up wearing the (expensive) matching blush pink ties we ordered from Dessy and one groomsman even turned up in a grey suit!

Unlike me, and all my dress dilemmas, Zee was very laid back about his suit…so laid back in fact he ended up rushing to Oxford Street a few days before the wedding to buy it!

On the day he looked so handsome all suited and booted in a crisp white shirt, black waistcoat, black tie and black suit. Walking down the aisle towards him, I felt so honoured and proud to be marrying him and couldn’t wait to be walking back up the aisle as Mr and Mrs Muhmood!

Entertainment

I saw a feature on Rock My Wedding about a singing male group called The Testostatones so we had a look at their website, listened to their audio tracks and loved their quirky acapella versions of doo-wop songs such as ‘Earth Angel’ and modern classics like ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ {I’m a big Glee fan so that sold it!} but the icing on the cake was that they offered a package where they dressed up as waiters and surprised guests by bursting into song unexpectedly!

On the day itself, Zee and I were giddy with anticipation when we spotted them serving drinks and canapés at our reception…It was great to see all our guests’ faces looking perplexed, then smiling and laughing. They were superb!