Hello there my fellow wedding obsessives,
For your information (and inspiration), the week ahead on Bridal Musings has a glamourous, city chic feel to it.
I can't wait to share more photos from our epic editorial photo shoot at The Town Hall Hotel in London. (If you missed the film and those incredible Inbal Dror wedding dresses then I highly recommend clicking here.)
To kick it all off, we're heading to Dublin, city of gorgeous old buildings, the iconic Guinness Factory and good craic.
Nancy and David's traditional, winter wedding ceremony took place at a tiny city church nestled between two buildings on a bustling street. Their reception was held at a grand but intimate, candlelit ballroom nearby and the ever so talented Poppies and Me were there to capture every glorious moment.
The groom was dapper in a navy three piece blue suit and textured, claret tie. While the bride was stunning in her Jenny Packham wedding dress teamed with a luxe, golden cardigan draped over her shoulders and sparkles in her hair. You'll love their quirky wedding transport too!
The Style & Vibe
We wanted a traditional old fashioned winter wedding with a vintage twist.
The Attire
I fell in love with my ‘Ruby’ Jenny Packham dress when my bridesmaid took me to their boutique in London. It was the third dress I tried on and I went back the following week and bought it and shared a bottle of champagne with the shop assistant to celebrate. My bridesmaids went through lots of options but in the end settled on Aidan Mattox a glamourous American brand that ships to Europe.
The Flowers
We had ivy and flowers wrapped on the pillars outside the church and our florist also provided beautiful lanterns for the entrance area.
Bride's bouqet: A white and cream bouquet. Roses mix whites and creams, ranunculus, orchid and freesia.
Button holes: Ranunculus heads in white or cream.
The Ceremony
We spent a lot of time putting together the church ceremony readings and music. For our readings we had:
Song of Songs – Old testament, First letter to John – New testament, John 4:12 – Gospel
My brother who sings with the amazing choral scholors acted as our director of music and helped put together an amazing mix of choral music from gregorian chants up to Haydn, Mozart, Biebl, Villiers Stanford, Widor. The choir was a six person group who sang a cappella – unaccompanied for most pieces. The church’s in house organist William Woods was lucky find as he was an amazing musician who happily took on some of the difficult pieces we had chosen. For the processional we opted for the Prince of Denmark, with the joyful Widor piece as our recessional.
The Photography
We chose Poppies and Me because they took the best wedding photos we had seen. They were exactly to our taste, gorgeously taken with a nice vintage feel to them. They were fabulous on the day, making sure somehow to capture all the best moments. We’d really recommend the photo booth too – we got some crackers from this as the night wore on.
Unique Details
Having our wedding in Dublin, where I grew up, was really special. David is English and we live in London but coming back home to get married felt right. Also, all of our guests were delighted to have an excuse for a lovely mini break to such a nice city.
The church and the lovely priest, we love city churches and the Newman church is a hidden gem right in the centre of Dublin. We were able to just walk across Stephen’s Green to get to the club, which was really handy and made the day really easy for people.
We also did a chilly but really fun photo shoot in the Iveagh gardens, another hidden gem just behind Stephen’s Green.
Décor & Details
We left most of this to the club. The club itself is a grand old building with beautiful period features that feels effortlessly comfortable. We had antique silver candelabras on each table which as the night fell, lit the room beautifully. The reception room had stunning fireplaces which were lit as it was mid winter.
The Refreshments
The Stephen’s Green Hibernian Club arranged all of our refreshments, we started with a champagne reception with gorgeous canapes, ranging from oysters with guinness to quails eggs with sundried tomato. Later we had the formal sit down meal which was a hearty delicious food, ideal for our winter wedding. Souffle followed by organic free range chicken.
My sister had made our wedding cake as our gift, which was a traditional white icing cake with flowers and fruit cake on the inside. We will be eating the final top of the cake in a few months when our first baby arrives!
The Wedding Music
In the Stephen’s Green Hibernian Club, we had the wonderful Cotton Club Quartet. We had liaised with Eamonn Moran, the groups head guy, lots over the months before hand to put together our favourite 1920’s and 30’s pieces that would keep everyone dancing. We decided on adding an extra two musicians a trumpet and drummer to really make the sound big and it worked, everyone from the older generation to the youngest were dancing the whole time, with a full dance floor. We opted for a jazz version of ‘My baby just cares for me’ by Nina Simone as our first dance.
For later, we had the amazing Rocky T Delgado, Dublin DJ and close friend of ours, DJing till the small hours, again he kept the dance floor packed with happy sweaty people despite it being mid winter!
Advice For Other Couples
We found One Fab Day really useful for getting our initial ideas. I used a simple but very useful iphone app ‘Wedding Planning Complete’ which allowed me to arrange the guest list, keep and eye on our budget and arrange our tables.
Probably the best advice we’d have is to enjoy the planning. We arranged our whole wedding in four months without any stress as we had a good idea of what we liked and just went with our decisions and didn’t look back!
What 3 words best describe your wedding…
Happy, emotional and perfect.
Thanks so much to David and Nancy for sharing your wedding and congratulations on your little one! Many thanks to Irish wedding photographers, Poppies and Me, for sharing these gorgeous photos with us today too.
