This is definitely a wedding I wish I was at. Louisa and Richie sure do know how to throw one hell of a party! The styling for the celebration was really centred around their venue – the basement of Shoreditch Town Hall called The Ditch. An unusual choice maybe (and one with no natural light!) but it fit perfectly with what the couple wanted. Louisa’s dress was designed by Catherine Deane. She wore Badgley Mischka and her veil was vintage.
“We just wanted our wedding it to be a big ol’ party with all our friend and family”, began the bride. “We didn’t stick to a script or colour theme or particular look. Every detail was there because we thought it was cool or beautiful or unusual. We weren’t trying to be shabby chic or retro or Rock and Roll, we were just being ourselves.”
“Richie proposed to me on a deserted beach in Sardinia, as we watched the sun go down across the sea we sat on a rug we took from our villa and he popped the question”, she continued. “We ended up buying the rug from the owner of the villa so we could take it home as a little memento. We took our little Sardinia beach rug to our wedding and we both stood upon it whilst we said our vow to each other.”
As the venue was a complete blank canvas they had to decorate it themselves. “I work in fashion and I have a real passion for vintage Indian and African textiles”, Louisa explained. “I had just finished a big project when I started to plan the wedding so I had lots of scrap pieces of sari silk left over. I made little napkin tie from the sari scraps, added Christmas baubles and they looked a treat. When it came to the big day and we sat down for lunch all our nutty friends and family loved these brightly coloured sari napkin ties so much they all immediately proceeded to tie them around their heads. They all looked very stylish!”
“Most of the décor like the table flowers, wall hangings, chair flowers and posters, I made myself which must have saved us a lot of money. Also my wonderful friends and family contributed there time and talents; our friend Sophie made the wedding cake, my Dad made food to go into the hampers, my godmother and her family made some amazing paper flowers. But its not really about saving money, I think when everybody gets involved the wedding becomes extra special.”
“One of my favourite parts of the wedding was the food! “We had an Italian picnic for lunch. Each table had a hampers full of antipasto treats, bread, cheese, chirizo, prosecco and we ordered loads of pizza from our favourite restaurant, Il Bacio, in Stoke Newington. It went down a storm.”
“In terms of the budget, the lighting was the major investment and I’m so glad we spent what we did. Our venue, The basement of Shoreditch Town Hall is a wonderful space, mostly left untouched with Victorian fireplaces, layers of beautiful original wallpaper. Its generally used for theatre nights and fashion shows because it has real dramatic impact. We knew it would be perfect for our wedding with the right lighting. We hired Ash Events who were just amazing and understood our vision completely. They set the scene perfectly and added a tough of magic to our wedding.”
