6

Aug

2014

Rachel & Jez’s Gold and White Camden Wedding. By Matt Parry

When the groom goes to the trouble of winning a heart-shaped mood ring to propose to his bride with over fish n chips, you just know the wedding is going to be all kinds of awesome! Photographer Matt Parry is a regular to the pages of Boho and you can understand why, when you look at these gorgeous images of Rachel and Jez, who tied the knot in a rule-breaking bejewelled Temperley gown in a truly contemporary, urban celebration. Cue big gold love balloons and 1000 (yes!) origami dinosaurs.

‘We had a contemporary city wedding with an informal feel. We weren’t concerned with traditions and broke some of the rules!’

1 Rachel & Jez's Gold and White Camden Wedding. By Matt Parry 2 Rachel & Jez's Gold and White Camden Wedding. By Matt Parry

Rachel and Jez were married on Saturday 10th May at Camden Town Hall with their reception held at The Prince Albert, also in Camden. “We live in London and love the city so it was an easy decision to make as to where we were to have the wedding. We had been to the Prince Albert many times before when my sister lived nearby and I knew that they had a lovely space for parties. We went to look at Camden Town Hall and really liked the main staircase which we thought would be perfect for photos. Plus it was really easy for all our guests to get to.”

3 Rachel & Jez's Gold and White Camden Wedding. By Matt Parry

4 Rachel & Jez's Gold and White Camden Wedding. By Matt Parry

How they met
We both worked at the Natural History Museum and our eyes met across the animatronics T Rex five years ago.

The proposal
Jez proposed over take-away fish and chips on Brighton Pier with a heart-shaped mood he ring he had painstakingly won on the arcade machines.

5 Rachel & Jez's Gold and White Camden Wedding. By Matt Parry

7 Rachel & Jez's Gold and White Camden Wedding. By Matt Parry

9 Rachel & Jez's Gold and White Camden Wedding. By Matt Parry

10 Rachel & Jez's Gold and White Camden Wedding. By Matt Parry

11 Rachel & Jez's Gold and White Camden Wedding. By Matt Parry

How did you allocate your budget?
We had a tight budget so we worked out all the known, fixed costs, such as the minimum spend at the pub and the registry office, and then split out the remaining budget across all the key areas, dress, decorations etc.

Why did you choose your photographer?
We saw Matt’s photos on The Prince Albert website and we really loved his unique style. We particularly liked that the shots were un-posed and told the story of the day.

12 Rachel & Jez's Gold and White Camden Wedding. By Matt Parry

13 Rachel & Jez's Gold and White Camden Wedding. By Matt Parry

15 Rachel & Jez's Gold and White Camden Wedding. By Matt Parry

16 Rachel & Jez's Gold and White Camden Wedding. By Matt Parry

17 Rachel & Jez's Gold and White Camden Wedding. By Matt Parry

The wedding dress and accessories
My dress was from Temperley and my shoes were from Office (in the sale).
I borrowed the jewellery from my mum and my clutch bag was my grandmothers.

The suit and bridesmaids
Jez’s suit was from Marks & Spencer’s, trainers by Adidas, tie from Reiss. We got one of the bridesmaid dresses and ballet pumps from Mini-Boden and customized the belt with a gold ribbon. We then found a similar lace dress on ASOS for my sister.

19 Rachel & Jez's Gold and White Camden Wedding. By Matt Parry

20 Rachel & Jez's Gold and White Camden Wedding. By Matt Parry

21 Rachel & Jez's Gold and White Camden Wedding. By Matt Parry

22 Rachel & Jez's Gold and White Camden Wedding. By Matt Parry

23 Rachel & Jez's Gold and White Camden Wedding. By Matt Parry

29 Rachel & Jez's Gold and White Camden Wedding. By Matt Parry

The theme
As my dress was patterned I kept the colour scheme simple in gold and white and used the spotted design on the invitations as a theme by incorporating gold dots.

The flowers
I wanted the flowers to complement my dress so went with white ranunculus and peonies for the bouquets and just white ranunculus for the reception displayed in simple glass vases

The decoration
We used the invitations as theme and used the same design for the order of service and the menu cards. Upstairs at the pub for the sit-down meal we had gold balloons spelling LOVE, white flowers, gold sprayed table numbers and gold dot table confetti. I bought some clear gals tea light holder for the tables and used the pub’s large glass candle holders.
I bought some colour in to the decorations downstairs and made 1000 origami dinosaurs for luck (not cranes) because Jez and I met at the Natural History Museum. I displayed these in tall vases and made paper chains from the rest. And one more set of gold balloons spelling LOVE downstairs.

30 Rachel & Jez's Gold and White Camden Wedding. By Matt Parry

31 Rachel & Jez's Gold and White Camden Wedding. By Matt Parry

32 Rachel & Jez's Gold and White Camden Wedding. By Matt Parry

33 Rachel & Jez's Gold and White Camden Wedding. By Matt Parry

34 Rachel & Jez's Gold and White Camden Wedding. By Matt Parry

35 Rachel & Jez's Gold and White Camden Wedding. By Matt Parry

The food and wedding cake
For the sit-down meal we had halloumi vegetable stack, roast lamb and chocolate brownie.
For the buffet we had cheese (from our cake), a charcuterie board, bread, olives etc.
Our wedding cake was from the Godminster Cheddar Company and was a stack of cheese. We added a Cashel Blue as it’s Jez’s favourite cheese. We included an Irish (Jez’s family), Welsh (my family) and English cheeses. The cake topper was a heart-shaped cheese and two ceramic sugar-mice with their tails tied together.
For non-cheese lovers my aunt made a small traditional fruitcake which was decorated by a friend.

The entertainment
We transported our guests from the ceremony to the pub in an old route-master bus
As the name place we used die-cut speech bubbles (from Etsy) and asked guests to write their advice for the bride and groom on the back and post them in a box.
We bought cardboard photo-booth props from Etsy for each table the table so that our guests could take photos during the meal using our Polaroid camera. The pictures were stuck in our guest book next to the advice for the bride and groom speech bubbles
For the disco we gave out glow-sticks

36 Rachel & Jez's Gold and White Camden Wedding. By Matt Parry

37 Rachel & Jez's Gold and White Camden Wedding. By Matt Parry

38 Rachel & Jez's Gold and White Camden Wedding. By Matt Parry

39 Rachel & Jez's Gold and White Camden Wedding. By Matt Parry

40 Rachel & Jez's Gold and White Camden Wedding. By Matt Parry

41 Rachel & Jez's Gold and White Camden Wedding. By Matt Parry

Buy or DIY your stationery?
Luckily I have a friend who is a graphic designer so he designed the invites for me from a design I had seen on a 1960s classical music album cover. I also used the design for the order of service and the menu cards
I bought the evening invitations from the V&A shop

Personal or handmade touches
I put an order of service for each seat at the ceremony using the same design on the invitation and tied this with a ribbon to glassine bag (Etsy) filled with confetti and sealed with a gold dot for each guest (Amazon).
I made the seating plan from a large piece of black foamex with teach table list on white card, and decorating with gold dots
I made gold dot confetti for the tables and coloured dot confetti for the cake table downstairs.
I made 1000 origami dinosaurs (with some help from my friends)
And spray painted the table numbers and horse shoes

42 Rachel & Jez's Gold and White Camden Wedding. By Matt Parry

43 Rachel & Jez's Gold and White Camden Wedding. By Matt Parry

Special moments
Partying with all our family and friends, they are all there willing you on. Everything comes together, all the stresses of planning are forgotten and you really do end up having one of the best days of your life.

Advice to other couples
Something will probably go wrong, our first dance song cut out (no fault of the DJs) but we just started it again and the E of the LOVE burst but a kind friend replaced it with a no 3 instead (all he could find in the nearby party shop) so just take it in all your stride and enjoy the day.
Be brave to be different. Traditions are nice but who’s to say you can’t make up new ones together.

Biggest surprise
How much fun it was, how fast the day went and how much we both got totally wrapped up in all. Try and take a breath and take it all in before getting too tipsy.

44 Rachel & Jez's Gold and White Camden Wedding. By Matt Parry

45 Rachel & Jez's Gold and White Camden Wedding. By Matt Parry

Supplier Shout Outs:

For more information on Matt’s work please go to:

www.mattparryphotography.co.uk
www.mattparryphotography.co.uk/blog
FACEBOOK
@mattparryphotos

Why not visit our Supplier Directory

Comments

    Jean Joseph

    Lovely photo’s and lovely dress I hope you will be very happy and good luck for the future xxx

    Reply

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