Samantha and Harrison's Laid Back, Modern London Wedding by Babb Photos

I have been lucky enough to feature the gorgeous work of Babb Photos quite a lot over the past few weeks, her work is just gorgeous and she really does get to photograph such a mixture of weddings. Today’s wedding from her is modern and stylish, set in the heart of London. Samantha and Harrison were married at The Shoreditch Studios in London on 2nd July 2022. There are so many things to love about this wedding. The clean lines, the minimalistic decoration, Samantha’s stylish two piece gown and the venue! Wow, the venue really is amazing! I love that I get to feature so many different kinds of weddings on the blog, I hope you love this one as much as I do.

‘Harrison and I met at university in NY over 12 years ago (wow!) and were set up by mutual friends, getting engaged in summer of 2019. In Jan 2020, we relocated from Brooklyn to London (great time to move abroad lol). As the pandemic set in, we were unable to see our loved ones who we had then obviously moved very far away from. Many friends and family who had plans to come visit us had to cancel. So, as the situation started to improve and we started to pick back up wedding planning, we decided to invite our close friends and family to our new home city in London, and share our expat experience with the ones we love.
After looking at a few different venues, Shoreditch Studios was a clear favourite for us. The mix of industrial design with warm textures caught our attention, and the functionality of the space where you have two studios and an outdoor option was perfect for our needs. Not to mention, the team was an absolute pleasure to work with.’

Wedding Design
Harrison and I are pretty laid back and wanted our day to feel authentic to us. We wanted to make sure the aesthetic was intimate, not too stuffy, and celebrated the lives we had built together over the past 12 years. So we worked with the amazing team at Halcyon Halcyon to help map out our vision and how it could translate to our big day. We stuck with neutral colour palette and earthy textures such as dried materials. Cater London helped us craft the perfect wedding menu, which was served family style to guests seated at long banquet tables so that everyone would feel connected and relaxed. I worked with the OWN STUDIO for my wedding dress which was perfect for relaxed but beautiful silks and flowing lines, while Harrison wore an emerald green suit that was expertly tailored but still gave off “we don’t take ourselves too seriously” vibes. We immediately clicked with Babb Photo as Laura gave strong emphasis on candids, and authentic, documentary style approach to capturing our day.

All in all the most important aspects to us were creating a day where we could celebrate our love with our nearest and dearest, people who have been part of our story since the beginning. We wanted to ensure people were able to eat, drink and dance to their hearts content – and I think they were able to do just that, surrounded by our love.

Favourite memories of the day
That’s so tough! Either saying our vows for each other under our chuppah, or our first dance, which we spent months choreographing (i’ve been a dancer my whole life) and practicing! It was so fun to bust that surprise out to people and it was a HIT.

Music choices
We’re really blessed that we’ve been together for so long, so we looked for opportunities to give a nod to that throughout the day in our ceremony and drinks reception music. For our first dance, we chose Latch by Disclosure, which we used to listen to together non stop and really articulates our deep love and connection with each other, but with a fun and upbeat vibe. Not to mention, it’s an absolute jam!

Advice for brides planning now

Don’t sweat the small stuff. It’s REALLY easy to get stuck in the details and get overwhelmed, but at the end of the day, all of your guests will be too focused on celebrating you and your partner to notice if the napkins you ordered were sage green or forest green, or what font you used on your invitations. Pick the top three things you really care about, and focus your energies there. For us, that was good music, good food, and a fun party. The little stuff all gets addressed in time.
You’re going to get a LOT of advice, but just remember – Every bride’s experience is different and we’re all on a journey. Friends of mine who had previously planned weddings kept hyping up certain milestones: “When you see your venue for the first time, you’ll just KNOW it’s the one!”, or “When I found my wedding dress, I cried and that’s how I knew it was perfect!” That creates a lot of pressure, and I didn’t have those types of experiences where everything just clicked into place. It took time and a lot of different explorations to find the things we liked best, so don’t feel like you’re doing something wrong if your decision making process is different from others’.
There’s really nothing like having all of your favourite humans in the same place at one time, and the day really goes far too fast. Best piece of advice a friend gave me was to find 10 minutes with your partner where you can step away for a brief period and take it all in. Try and experience the day together as much as you can.
Try to embrace the planning process as much as possible. As stressful and overwhelming as it is, this is such an amazing moment in your relationship, so whenever things get stressful, try and re-center your thinking around what your working towards. That sense of presence calmed me down a few times to say the least.
Bonus points – there’s a lot of waste in party planning – try to work with sustainable suppliers as much as possible and upcycle where you can!