When Emma and Tim started to plan their wedding they knew that they wanted to provide a great feast for their guests. Originally thinking about a traditional country wedding their heads were turned by South Place, a contemporary London venue with a great reputation for food. Emma bought a little taste of the country to this inner city soirée with her choice of natural and delicate flowers, a vision realised with help from Willow florist.

When South Place earned a Michelin Star in the run up to their big day, Emma and Tim knew everything had fallen nicely into place!

Emma The Bride: The dress I ended up getting was completely different to what I thought I wanted. I tried on lots of floaty boho dresses but they just didn't do anything for me. I made an appointment at a gorgeous local boutique and saw my dress as soon as I walked in. I picked about 4/5 out but left mine until last to try on - I was really nervous when I did in case I didn't like it as much on - luckily that wasn't the case! I wasn't sure about a veil but as soon as the lady in the shop put the full length one on, that was that! Likewise the tiara.

The dress has quite a high lace top so I didn't need too much jewelry; I just went for simple pearl earrings and a white gold bracelet.

Tim The Groom: I didn't really know what I wanted - I just knew that I definitely didn't want tails and I don't suit hats! I spent hours trawling the Internet for ideas and had just about given up when I came across the Antony Formal Wear website. I ended up going for really smart charcoal grey suits and waistcoats and we all wore braces - which I think really suited our venue and the whole theme for the day. It also kept the suits looking at least a little bit smart when the jackets and ties inevitably came off towards the end of the night! Once we'd all mastered the double Windsor they looked great!

Emma The Bride: We actually had our heart set on a more traditional venue and nearly cancelled our appointment at South Place because we didn't think we wanted anything as modern. I'm so glad we didn't because I think we knew it was the perfect place five minutes after getting there! Having a city wedding, we really wanted to carry the London theme through and loved that South Place champions all things local - the art all comes from local artists and they only serve locally brewed beer. We also really loved the roof terrace as we thought having a city centre wedding meant we'd have to compromise on having outside space. Luckily we had a good day and our guests were able to enjoy getting out there.

We went for blue bridesmaids dresses, mainly because I love the colour but I also thought it'd look great against the ivory of my dress. The rest of the colours from the day then came from that. The flowers were predominantly blue and white, but we wanted them to look really natural - almost wild on the tables - so we had lots of green thrown in.

I'm from Norfolk originally and, even though we decided to get married in London, I wanted to bring a bit of the countryside into the day. We wanted all of our flowers to look really natural and after our initial meeting at the Willow florist, we knew that they'd do a great job for us.

We had long tables, rather than round ones so we knew we needed low level displays. We went for small mismatched vases of varying heights, trailing all the way down the tables. We had an idea in our heads of what it would look like but I don't think we'll ever forget walking in for the first time - we had a sneaky look before any of the guests came up and it just looked amazing and so much better than we'd ever imagined. It was just perfect.

Our church was really modern so the flowers were a really effective way of softening the look a bit. I was a bit too preoccupied to notice them on the way up the aisle but couldn't stop pointing them out on the way back down! Every time we look through the photos I notice another part of the display that I missed.
The Wedding Party Fashion (bridesmaids, flower girls, page boys & groomsmen)

The bridesmaid's dresses were a great find. My sister pointed them out in Coast but I decided to take a look around before committing. By the time I'd realized there was nothing else around that matched my dress so well and was the perfect colour, they had disappeared from the website. I then had a frustrating time trawling shops looking for something that came close before I found them hidden on the sale rail at Debenhams. My bridesmaids were all different shapes and sizes but a visit to a dress maker soon had them all tweaked to fit. The groomsmen all had suits to match Tim's - just with a different coloured tie.

The ceremony was really lovely. I was a bit worried it might be a bit impersonal - we've recently moved away from London so didn't get the chance to really get to know the vicar well. We were so pleased though, in the few times we had been able to meet, he'd really paid attention and used loads of detail in the service that we forgot we'd even told him! He was really warm and managed to inject just the right amount of humour and fun into the service - which really set the tone for the day. We had two readings on the day, one from each of our sisters, which was a lovely way to include them a bit more in the day.

VNV Sounds provided music for the whole day after being recommended to us and they were great. They made a real effort to get to know our likes and dislikes before the wedding so that we were guaranteed to spend the night on the dance floor! As well as keeping everyone on their feet all night, they also helped make the venue look fantastic - they had a gorgeous white DJ booth and bought along some uplighters that made the place look brilliant. We also had a magician for the early part of the ceremony - my dad booked him because he wanted to surprise us! He was absolutely brilliant and a really good ice breaker as well, bringing different groups of guests together - even if they were just trying to figure out how he did his tricks!

We both agreed at the start of our planning that having great food was one of the most important things for us and the menu tasting was definitely our favourite part of the wedding prep! We were also really excited when South Place were awarded a Michelin Star a few months ahead of the wedding as we knew the food was guaranteed to be great! We went for a combination of crowd pleasers and food that we really love, so smoked salmon to start and then rump of lamb, followed by chocolate toffee pudding. I didn't think I'd be able to eat much as I was just on too much of a high but I didn't have any trouble clearing my plate when the food came out! We had so many compliments from our guests on the food.

Our wedding cake was also one of my favourite things on the day. Neither of us like fruitcake and as soon as we saw the tiered sponge cake covered in fruit we knew that was what we wanted. We had trouble finding a cake stand for it as the base was quite big; mum had the idea of using a chopped up log - which sounds stranger than it is - from their farm in Norfolk. It looked great and was another way of sneaking the countryside into our city wedding.

It was really important to us that we found a photographer who was used to photographing weddings in London. We knew we wouldn't have lots of green space to take advantage of and we wanted someone who could take some really different and unique shots in a built up area. Kirsten was recommended to me and when I took a look at her blog, her last post had photos of a bride getting married at South Place, so it felt like it was meant to be! It was definitely one of the best decisions we made - we haven't been able to stop looking at the photos since we got them back! Everyone who's see the photos has absolutely loved them and she managed to make us feel really comfortable when we were having our shots taken - which really shines through on the photos. It was such a happy day and so full of laughter, which she's also managed to capture brilliantly - I especially love the shots of the top table during the speeches - just wish I could remember what was so funny!

We had decided that we wouldn't have a videographer but then I saw Blue Ridge at a wedding fair and loved what they did. Instead of just one 'point and shoot' camera, they have four cameramen there on the day, capturing every little detail. The best bit about it was that, even though, there was four of them, we hardly noticed they were there! They also stayed after the first dance to capture video messages from all of our friends and families - we haven't had the video back yet but we can't wait to see all of our messages and watch the whole day back.

I really wanted make more of our own bits and pieces but we just ran out of time. My advice would be - don't underestimate the time it takes to pull things together - start early. The one thing that we did do that I was pleased with was our place settings. We'd left it quite late and I didn't just want boring print-outs. Five days before the wedding we decided to do them in scrabble letters, which led to some of the strangest bulk buying on EBay we've ever done! They were another great ice-breaker though and I've seen almost as may photos on Facebook of the weird and rude words that people made as I have of our actual wedding!

Photography by Kirsten Mavric
Gown Justin Alexander | Boutique Rina Roberts bridal wear | Earrings & bracelet Goldsmiths | Shoes Jimmy Choo | Veil Rina Roberts bridal wear | Tiara Pink Confetti | Venue South Place | Florist The Willow, Shoreditch | Cake Maker Le Papillon Patisserie, Woking | Bridesmaids Dresses Coast | Groomsmen Antony Formal Wear | Wedding Planner Sarah Lindsay from Emerald & Mae events and weddings | Stationery Hello! Lucky | Entertainment VNV Sounds (DJ) & Alex Ward (Magician) | Videographer Blue Ridge Weddings.