Marcus and I got married in 2017, and with everyone saying to me “I bet your wedding is going to be amazing as you’ve been to so many!” ( I had been shooting weddings for 5 years at the time) I knew I had to get married somewhere I hadn’t photographed a wedding before!

Part of the decision on where to get married was based on my wedding diary – I generally don’t have as many weddings in winter, so in order for us to be able to get married and also take some time off for a honeymoon, a winter wedding was our best option. We then decided we wanted to get married abroad, but at the same time we didn’t want everyone to have to pay for expensive flights. How about Italy? Spain? France? They’re just not as beautiful in February, but if we wanted sun we were looking at flights over 5hrs+ So our wedding was going to be cold. That’s decided. And if we’re going to be cold… lets go somewhere really cold. Iceland? Perfect.

We then started the venue hunt and we really struggled to find a venue that would accommodate all of the people we wanted to invite, if we invited our close family and friends we were looking at a guest list of 70 minimum, so we decided we needed to keep it to just immediate family, and that way we could feed everyone as well as paying for their accommodation for the week.

Iceland was amazing, we had been the February before and it was beautiful sunshine, snow every where and regular northern lights! The wedding week wasn’t quite so perfect, with almost continuous rain and not a snow drop in sight! But we still had an amazing time. We decided to re-wear our wedding gear a couple of days later when we visited the ice bergs for some epic photos – obviously it was still raining, but what annoys me most about the situation is I looked like a drowned rat and Marcus looked perfect as he had so much hair gel in!

The London Wedding! We hired the venue Studio Spaces in London, with an unlimited late license, no sound restrictions and no corkage it ticked most of our boxes! We hired in street food trucks, supplied copious amounts of alcohol (which we hired staff to serve), hired two bands (although one did cancel 2 weeks before the wedding we actually hired silent disco head sets last minute that went down a treat!), we also had to hire our own tables etc.

The Decor

Long trestle tables, greenery along the middle, candles and Krispy Creams for everyone.

We hung festoon lights across the ceiling and up-lighters around the room. I also made a big sign for the front of the ceremony.

My sister and I went to the flower market for our flowers, it took us forever to make the bouquets and actually cost a lot of money – I wouldn’t recommend!

The Food 

For starters the staff made up sharing platters of meats, olives, and artisan breads that we had delivered fresh on the morning.

For the mains we hired 2 street food trucks one serving Paella, and the other Burgers & Chips!

For dessert I actually had Asda deliver Ben & Jerries Ice cream on the day as there was no freezer on site. One tub between two served with home made brownies. I’ve never seen so much ice cream!

We then had an evening buffet with food mainly from M&S and at midnight we had platters of McDonald’s burgers – best idea I have ever had. And if you copy this idea remember I had it first, you’re welcome haha.

Oh and a cake table rather than a wedding cake.

Entertainment

We had The Indie Killers play at our wedding, I love these guys, they were actually one of the first bands I ever saw at a wedding and were one of the first things I booked when we got engaged.

We had planned to have 2 bands rotate for the evening but as the second band had cancelled so late on we decided to hire in silent disco headsets, they were so much fun and everyone loved them. We had 3 channels, one done by the Indie Killers and we made the other 2 playlists of old classics and R&B

Photography & Video 

Mister Phill was our photographer, he was actually one of my lecturers at university and I had said to him that when I eventually got married I wanted him to photograph it! And he didn’t disappoint.

We decided against video as we didn’t want anything to ruin the photos, but I have friends in the film industry that recorded some highlights throughout the day and I edited together (very badly) but we do love looking back at it and the kids really love watching it.