Kerry Ann and Ian’s Big London Pub Wedding. By Maureen Du Preez

Happy Friday everyone! I hope you have that Friday feeling? I certainly have. It’s been a long and tiring week here at Boho HQ lots going on at the moment both work wise and personally so I am looking forward to a day off tomorrow to catch up with friends and family and try to relax a bit. What about you? Have you got anything exciting planned? Before we get there though we have a fabulous fun wedding for you. It’s a London wedding with a London theme, all set in a pub, both the ceremony and the reception, which kept everything nice and easy for the couple and the guests. Big thanks to Maureen Du Preez for the photos.

‘An amazing quirky party with a short-but-sweet legal bit. Crazily good fun!’

Kerry Ann & Ian were married on October the 26th at The Knights Templar, London. ‘We had visited The Knights Templar ages before we got engaged, when we noticed a sign advertising that it was a fully licensed wedding venue. From then on, it became a bit of an on running joke that we’d get married there someday – for us, the idea of a pub wedding was just amazing! When we got engaged, it was the only venue we viewed. We had 100 guests during the day and 150 for the evening. We were engaged for 51 weeks in total – we were determined to be engaged for less than a year! We booked the wedding in December 2012 for October 2013.’

How they met
We met online in 2010, a few weeks after I’d accepted a job offer in Istanbul, Turkey. Cue one year of long distance visits, several months of trekking across London every weekend, two years of living in a cosy flat, one unusual proposal and one crazy wedding!

The proposal
It wasn’t exactly what most people would imagine a romantic proposal to be, but for me it was perfectly unperfect. We had travelled to Brussels for the weekend, and Ian had originally planned to propose in the champagne bar at St Pancras station before we boarded the Eurostar. However, his plan was wrecked due to long boarding cues. So, the following day, having carried the ring around the whole city as we went sightseeing (and deciding that nowhere was quite right), he ended up proposing in the corridor outside of our hotel room!

How did you allocate your budget?
For us, the priorities were the venue, the photographer and making sure our guests had a good time. Other than those things, we begged, borrowed, eBayed and made stuff.

Why did you choose your photographer?
We saw Maureen’s work on a wedding blog and instantly fell in love with her quirky, beautiful style of photography. When we discovered she was available for our wedding, and was totally on board with the style of the day, we were over the moon!

The dress
My dress was ‘Alexis’ by Alan Hannah (Matchmaker – Brentwood, Essex). My hairband was from The Tiara Bar (thetiarabar.co.uk), the shrug from Phase Eight, and my shoes were eBay bargains – Vivienne Westwoods which I managed to grab for £40! For jewellery, I wore earrings with ‘evil eyes’ on them for good luck. My bracelets were from Accessorize, apart from one which was my ‘something borrowed’ from a friend.

The suit and bridesmaids
Ian’s suit was from Ted Baker. He wore a Thomas Pink shirt, with customised cufflinks and a Marks and Spencer tie. My gorgeous bridesmaid, Charlotte, wore a cobalt blue halterneck dress from Coast, some casual sandals and a J by Jasper Conran shrug.

Theme or colour scheme
We had a loose London theme, that was tied together by the amazing invitations and the seating plan.

Flowers
We had silk flowers from Silk Blooms (silkblooms.co.uk).

Decoration
Minimal – the pub is so incredibly grand that nothing else is really needed.

Food
Pie and mash! It only seemed fitting with the London theme.

Wedding Cake
More like wedding cakes! As we’re huge cake lovers, we decided to have a range of different cakes – chocolate, carrot, Victoria sponge and chocolate and vanilla checkerboard, all of which were purchased from M&S. One of my darling aunties, who is a prolific cake baker, also made an amazing Black Forest gateau to add to our cake table.

Entertainment
We didn’t really. We wanted the whole day to have a relaxed feel.

Buy or DIY your Stationery?
Our invitations were made by the amazing Fred at Yours Occasionally (yoursoccasionally.co.uk). We then made the table plan from a vintage tube map and the table signs from Instagram pictures.

Special moments or highlights
Saying our vows, watching all of our guests throwing some incredible shapes and catching some sneaky pictures in a snow machine that was left over from the shooting of a Sky TV Christmas advert directly outside the venue!

Biggest surprise
Discovering that Sky TV were shooting their Christmas commercial directly outside of the venue, and then the wonderful cast and crew coming in to share drinks with us after letting us use their snow machine for some magical photos. Also, discovering that my mother had covertly written to Boris Johnson (bit random, but hey), asking him to write to us congratulating us on our marriage… With his reply being revealed during the Best Man’s speech!

Advice for other couples
Relax. Have things your way, but keep it in perspective – the marriage is more important than the wedding. Oh, and take 5 minutes out on the big day to stand back with your husband or wife and watch all of your guests.

Supplier Shout Outs:

• Stationery- yoursoccasionally.co.uk
• Silk flowers – silkblooms.co.uk
• The Tiara Bar – thetiarabar.co.uk
• Photographer, Maureen Du Preez: www.maureendupreez.com

For more information on Maureen’s work go to:

www.maureendupreez.com
[email protected]
07902 593 832
FACEBOOK
@MaureenDuPreez_

I’m a storyteller & artist who loves her job. I provide organic, quirky & artistic wedding photography for couples planning a meaningful day filled with love. My home base is Glasgow but I travel all across the UK (& beyond!) for weddings.