Sara and Simon tied the know on 20th August 2022, at the beautiful RSA House in central London.
The couple very much wanted to embrace London on their wedding day so chose the classy and elegant city wedding venue, RSA House, which they filled with beautiful modern wedding flowers by BUD Flora. Sara chose the super sensuous Roxy gown by Suzanne Neville, a discovery at Suzanne Neville’s store itself.
These beautiful photographs were captured by The Shannons. Enjoy!
I wore a simple, Chapel length veil with cut edge from Lace & Favour. Whilst I love embellished and lacy veils, I felt like they would detract too much from my dress.
My shoes were Aquazzura – I wanted open toe shoes to lengthen my legs and also because they’re more comfortable to dance in.
I loved the long, crystal Jennifer Behr earrings that my grandparents bought me – they gave me film-star vibes.
The Ceremony
Our ceremony was at the church I went to growing up, St. Monica’s Church in Palmers Green, close to where my family live in Winchmore Hill. It was important to us to have a proper London wedding – we live in East London and though we met at Bristol University, we didn’t get together until many years later through that uni friendship group in London.
My dad walked me down the aisle to the sound of Zadok the Priest by Handel. He kept telling me to slow down because he thought I was walking too fast!
My family are of Italian descent so I’ve grown up as a Catholic, and so Catholic priest, Father Mehall Lowry, officiated our wedding.
Our rings are from Queensmith in Hatton Garden, which was where Simon got my engagement ring.
Our readings included an extract from The Book of Ruth 1:16-17 (https://www.lovemydress.net/blog/wedding-readings/book-of-ruth-1-16-17).
Photography by The Shannons
The Shannons were absolutely incredible, not only in terms of their photography on the day but also to deal with during the planning process – Vicki was so on it and responsive, it was such a pleasure to work with them! We also loved that they were a husband-and-wife team.
We loved Vicki and Pete’s informal but chic style – neither of us are used to having our picture taken so we weren’t a big fan of loads of super-posed shots.
How They Met
We met at Bristol University but didn’t get together until many years later through our uni friendship group in London. Funnily enough, Simon’s parents and grandparents also met at Bristol University, so it’s become something of a family tradition.
Simon proposed two years into our relationship in April 2020 in the spot where he first realised he loved me, in Berkeley Square in central London, during lockdown.
We were engaged for a year and four months before we got married.
As I said before, we wanted to have a London wedding so picked RSA House in the heart of London, had routemaster buses taking people from the church to the reception and named our tables after London date spots we’d been to, mostly restaurants like Naughty Piglets in Brixton, Allegra, near where we live in Stratford and Con Gusto in Woolwich where we went when we first started dating. Our wedding car was a white London cab too!
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Bridesmaids & Bridesman
It was great to be able to have different styles of dress in the same fabric to tie everything together. I was obsessed with how the bright bouquets popped against the grey lilac of their dresses (from Wed2B).
My bridesman wore a grey M&S suit so that he was in keeping with the girls and a coral tie and pocket square from Moss Bros to tie in with the flowers.
Evening, Dancing & Favourite Moments
Our first dance was to ‘Tiny Dancer’ – the Florence & the Machine version. Simon’s musical and his parents are music teachers so we loved the line ‘You’ll marry a music man’. Plus I’ve always danced as a hobby, so I guess I’m ‘The Tiny Dancer’.
We had neon lighting by Marvellous Neon, in the words ‘Til Death Do Us Party’. The neon light looked amazing against the exposed brickwork in the Vaults.
It’s too hard to pick my favourite part of the day but when I go to friends’ weddings my favourite bit is the speeches and they were brilliant at our wedding – my dad, Simon and Simon’s best man Tom all did such a great job. Simon managed to make me cry and my dad did a full-on slideshow of pictures and played a recording of mine and my Maid of Honour’s teenage band! The look on our faces when our song started playing was priceless!
Words of Wedded Wisdom
Don’t be too influenced by other people’s weddings or what you’ve seen on Instagram – a wedding is deeply personal and should be a reflection of you as a couple! Throughout the planning process, that was what Simon and I kept coming back to – ‘is this us?’, ‘does it reflect what we like and what’s important to us?’
For example, as well as having a London venue, we really wanted the food to be great as eating out is the thing we love to do most together. RSA really delivered on that front, the food was so good!
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Annabel View all Annabel’s articles
Annabel is the founder of Love My Dress. She has a passion for photography, walking, yoga, nature, and loves to support talented artists and creative businesses. In 2013, she became a published author. Annabel lives in rural North Yorkshire with her husband and business partner Philip, their two daughters Eska and Leanora and menagerie of furry hounds. Annabel supports Philip in the running of the family flower farm at at Moonwind Flowers. She is also co-founder of What About Weddings.
