RMW regulars will recognise the sandy beach above…we used the dreamy Camber Sands as the backdrop to our end-of-summer editorial, I Believe In Mermaids.
Bride Georgie and her Groom James are lucky enough to have made Camber Sands their home. Which is why they decided to hold their wedding there – it was neutral territory, so to speak, somewhere neither of them had grown up.
James proposed to Georgie on the beach behind The Gallivant, so it was a no-brainer when it came to deciding where they would hold the reception.
Georgie’s advice to cram as much entertainment into the day as possible is great – basically just make your wedding a massive party!
Our Home Together
Our venue choice was easy. The Gallivant Hotel at Camber Sands was honestly the only place we looked at. It’s a very special place for us, the first weekend we got our keys for our new home by Camber, James proposed to me on the beach. As we walked off the sands we popped into the Gallivant for some celebratory bubbles and asked about their wedding options, and sitting there looking out to the dunes we knew it would be the perfect venue for our wedding.
The lovely thing about Camber for us (aside from the beautiful beach) is that fact that it’s our home together rather than where either of us grew up. Also, as soon as I found out they do canapés and cocktails on the beach (coincidentally, right at the spot where James proposed) I knew I wouldn’t find anything better.
A Talented Friend
I’m lucky in that my lovely friend Charlotte works for a cosmetics company, and over the years she has worked as a fabulous make-up artist for them. I have to admit I am pretty useless with make-up and cosmetics so I was happy to take direction from her. She did a fab job plus it was so nice to have a good friend with me on the day rather than a stranger.
I would also recommend getting individual false lashes done at a salon (mine were done at Beauty Forever in Ashford). I was initially quite reluctant because I’d read lots of horror stories about them pulling out your real lashes etc. I didn’t find this to be the case (thank God!) and just loved the result.
My hair was done by the Rye Retreat, a really lovely spa/ salon in Rye. I knew I wanted my hair up and after a couple of sessions with the lovely Katie, we decided on a style that would work with my dress and the veil.
Beautiful Lace
I initially really wanted to go for a boho, beachy type dress but unfortunately none of those sort of floaty styles suited me. The dress I wore was from Johanna Hehir bridal in Marylebone. The lace on it is beautiful and after a few bootcamp sessions and a bit of needlework it fit perfectly. I was also lucky enough to have a sample which really helped with our budget.
Amazing Accessories
James actually bought me the earrings (by Beaut at Grays Antiques Market) before we got engaged (amazingly he chose them himself!!) but I had never had the appropriate occasion to wear them. Luckily they were perfect with the dress, and because they are quite big and dangly it meant I didn’t need a necklace on the day.
The bracelet was borrowed from my mum. The veil was loaned to me by my lovely friend Rowena and the shoes, Vamp by Jimmy Choo, were a 30th birthday pressie from my Mum (I think they were my favourite part of my outfit!).
Bespoke Wedding Party
My lovely bridesmaids were Karen and Maddy (whom I went to primary school with), James sister Natalie and Cate who I met when I first moved to London. I think picking dresses for them was probably one of the hardest tasks. All of them are quite different shapes so finding one that looked good on all of them was near impossible. In the end I was recommended lightinthebox.com by a friend. This company based in China allows you to pick the fabric/ colour you want along with the style, you then supply the exact measurements and they are made within about 4-6weeks.
It was great because it allowed the girls to pick the style that suited them best and all I had to do was pick the fabric and colour. I was a bit sceptical about ordering online but they were really well made. I would recommend ordering the sample fabrics before deciding though. It’s about £30, which is a lot in the budget – but it’s worth it to see the fabric and colours in the flesh before ordering. I’ll admit we did have to do a few alterations (which weren’t expensive) however overall I was really pleased with the result.
James’ suit was custom made by Tiger of Sweden. The ushers all wore their own blue/navy suits or borrowed one from James (strangely he had three that he wears to work) so that worked out well and saved us some money.
Sea Shells And Bunting
I was lucky that the Gallivant decorate the venue beautifully so in all honesty I didn’t need to do that much. Having the beachy theme actually made making decisions about décor much easier (I think it must be easy to get overwhelmed with choice without having a strong theme). I used local scallop shells which I drilled and tied with raffia and tags for the girls place names and we used stones from the beach where James grew up for the boys place names.
I collected a lot of jars, filled them with shells and floating candles and tied them with raffia which looked nice on the tables outside and for the favours I bought a load of Guylian chocs (shaped like shells) and put them in bags tied with raffia (tied enough raffia to last me my life!). My friend Louise had painstakingly handmade 200m of beautiful blue and yellow bunting for her wedding which she kindly lent to me. I also bought a load of paper lanterns with pretty little lights which were hung in the party room – perfect for when it got dark.
Pinterest was my inspiration for most things! It’s like porn for brides.
Miss Piggy Roses
I owe the beauty of the flowers to the lovely ladies at Café des Fleurs in Rye. I just asked for a mixture of wild(ish) flowers including some blue and pink and they came up with a beautiful selection. My favourite were the beautiful orangey pink roses wonderfully called ‘Miss Piggy roses’. I bought a lot of small milk bottles and collected jam jars which they filled for the tables. We also had a couple of nice arrangements in the church and on the pew ends.
A Magical Moment
For the readings we had; I Carry Your Heart In My Heart by EE Cummins (I love this), The Lovely Dinosaur by Edward Monkton and Song Of Solomon 2 V 10-13. One of my favourite moments had to be walking into the church and seeing all my friends and family smiling back at me. With everything going on I’d almost forgotten how many of them were going to be there! Saying our vows to each other was also pretty magical.
Like Being In A Movie
The band were recommended to us by The Gallivant (Freddie And The Freeloaders)- they were absolutely brilliant. They played a great selection of tunes to get everybody up and dancing without being cheesy at all.
My lovely Dad secretly organised three singing waiters from Encore Entertainment for after dinner (I had previously said “no way”). I am so glad he didn’t listen to me because they were absolutely brilliant. Given how much planning I had done for the wedding, I never expected any kind of surprise and he pulled it off brilliantly. All of the guests also had no idea what was going on either and watching their faces as they realised what was happening was priceless. My favourite part of the whole day has to be watching all my wedding guests flinging their napkins around their head trying to sing along to “Funiculi, Funicula”. I almost had to pinch myself. It was like being in a movie.
Our first dance was “What A Difference A Day Makes” by Dinah Washington. We had a few lessons from a friend of a friend (Susan Conway based in central London) who I’d also recommend.
Starfish Adorned Cake
The Gallivant did a great job on the food. It was all sharing platters which was great because we got to try a bit of everything. The cake was a plain three tier mixed sponge from Marks and Spencer and a friend made the starfish for me after a bit of inspiration from Pinterest. I’m sure a custom cake would have been lovely but you have to cut costs somewhere and the Marks and Spencer one was really delicious plus the starfish looked great.
A Stationery Challenge
The invites were my nemesis. I really wanted to do them myself but I also wanted to them to be perfect so they took me way longer than I could have anticipated. I was really pleased with them in the end but James will tell you I wasn’t the most fun person to be around whilst doing them…also having to pick only 100 guests when you want 200 people to come is quite stressful.
However they worked out well in the end and was so nice to be able to have everything matching (orders of service, invites, table plan etc) without it breaking the bank. I found a great printers near where I work in London (Reprocopy on Ludgate hill in London) who were really sympathetic to what I wanted and so helpful advising me on what would work and how I could save money.
The card was called Barley Mo from Paperchase and I just designed them in word. I think having a single motif throughout worked really nicely (I found a great little scallop shell motif online).
Put On A Show
Figure out which things you want to spend time on in the days leading up to the wedding and those things which you can delegate. You can’t do everything yourself (I did try) and friends and family actually like to help so they feel included. I loved doing all the crafty stuff so all the heavy lifting (running around, raking sheep poo outside the church etc) went to friends and family- thanks guys!
Get in as much entertainment as you can throughout the day. One of the things I loved at our wedding was all the musical entertainment. I can’t take all the credit for that because the singing waiters were actually organised by my Dad (unbeknown to me) and our gorgeous friends Rupert and Ruth who are in a folk band surprised us by writing us a wedding shanty for the occasion.
Another friend Faraz was our resident DJ and there was a bit of a spontaneous open mic session at the ‘after party’ which I can only blame on all the alcohol. Actually…all we really organised was the band! Looking back all the entertainment worked brilliantly and I’d highly recommend trying to cram as much into your wedding as possible.
We were lucky that James’ close friend Stewart is extremely good at shouting so was delighted to be asked to be our MC. Having someone whose job it is to tell everyone what to do means that you don’t have to so I’d recommend that.
Fantastic Suppliers
I would seriously recommend all of the suppliers listed (they were all amazing) especially our lovely photographer Juliet McKee. The photos are beautiful and Juliet was a delight to work with. We also hired Gorgeous Film to video the wedding. We haven’t got it back yet but if it comes out like any of those we have seen on their website I’ll be delighted. I was a bit worried initially that having both a photographer and videographer might be a bit intrusive but I barely noticed either of them all day.
The Gallivant were also fantastic. Alice, Mark, Diana and all the staff on the day and leading up to it made it so easy for us. They put up all the decorations and even finished off the cake which freed up so much of my time and really eased the stress.
Bride’s Gown – Johanna Hehir
Shoes – Jimmy Choo
Earrings – Beaut at Grays Antiques Market
Hair – Katie at The Rye Retreat
Bridesmaid’s Gowns – lightinthebox.com
Groom – Tiger Of Sweden
Florist – Café des Fleurs
Band – Freddie And The Freeloaders
Singing Waiters – Encore
Stationery Printers – Reprocopy
Cake – Marks and Spencer
Venue – The Gallivant
Videography – Gorgeous Film
Photography – Juliet McKee
Click here & view all images from this wedding
It’s always nice to see Love Lust members involved in fabulous weddings and it sounds like Georgie and James were thrilled with The Gallivant.
If you would like to see the full range of beautiful gowns from Johanna Hehir, have a look at the Designer Collections pages right here on RMW.
I’m still swooning over Georgie’s jewellery and THAT amazing bouquet which looks so stunning against her elegant gown.
Lots of love,
Fern x