Robyn and Graham transformed their planned day with 130 guests into an intimate, relaxed and super stylish micro wedding. The wedding took place on 24th September at Islington Town Hall with 12 guests in attendance. Eclectic, urban and fun are just a few words to describe their day!

Robyn was kind enough to share her experience of planning a micro wedding due to the restrictions of the current pandemic and her experience of finding her dress at Mili Mili.

THE LOVE STORY

“Graham and I have a typically modern tale of romance - we met on Tinder! But in reality, Graham is an old school romantic, who opens doors, is always looking out for me, holding my hand to ensure I don't trip up or down the stairs and generally always on alert to ensure I am happy. His warmth and sweetness were evident from the very first day we met. Graham reminded me in his speech on our wedding day, within a few hours of us meeting, I had my head resting on his shoulders, an early sign of the bond, closeness and trust that has been there from the very beginning.

Graham however, was a little slower with a proposal, mostly whilst he tried to figure out the "perfect proposal". After 4 years and lots of hints from me, he finally got down on one knee (on my birthday) on Bondi beach in Australia, last year whilst we were visiting my family. With a small stroke of luck, just after he proposed, a plane flew overhead and wrote in the sky "marry me?", to which Graham very wisely admitted was not his doing, especially given it was followed by another girl's name! We had a good laugh about it and made sure to snap a few shots so we could use them to announce our engagement and have a little bit of fun with it!”

THE DRESS

“After some pretty un-inspiring dress shopping experiences in London, my girlfriend Heather convinced me to come out to Colchester to find my dress. I chose MiliMili as they seemed to have some lovely unique choices. It was so lovely to be treated so warmly by the staff at MiliMili, it was finally the exciting and happy experience that I had been hoping for. There was no rush and no pressure and the dresses are really very special.

I could have easily been swayed into buying a big princess style dress, as they tend to suit me, but I also like fitted dresses, so I was fairly open with regards to what I wanted. Ultimately, I just wanted to "feel beautiful" on my big day. I was instantly drawn to the beautiful vintage peacock feather like lace on the Enzoani, Neville. I remember saying to my girlfriends when I put it on, that it made me "feel like a grown up". It is elegant, yet it still had that slightly quirky edge to it, that is very much me. It was definitely love at first sight.

With the beautiful train on the dress, I instantly knew I wanted to create even more drama with a cathedral length custom veil - even though we were getting married in a registry office! Surely a girl still needs to make an entrance?!”

2020 A MEMORABLE YEAR

“We decided very early on that we wanted to have a big day that had all the grandeur of a wedding, with everyone suitably suited and booted, but with a relaxed, happy and fun vibe.

Then COVID happened...

They say planning a wedding is stressful, well, I had actually been quite chilled out about it all. Despite the event being 130+ people, travelling from across the globe, the logistics didn't feel that challenging for me, I am an Executive Assistant, so organising is what I do for a living!

We realised pretty early on in lockdown, with my family and bridesmaids being in Australia and America, we were going to have to change our plans. With little possibility on the horizon of borders being open in the foreseeable future, we made the difficult choice to go ahead with our wedding. Changing to just the government regulated 30 guests (this was the guideline at the time) and with all my family and friends joining via zoom.

In the end, almost every element of our wedding had to be re-arranged at least once, sometimes twice! Though this was not the most stressful part, it was the not knowing. The day before, the government announced changes to rules for weddings, lowering the number allowed to 15 . Fortunately they gave a few days grace for the changes and we were able to go ahead with our event with 12 guests at our ceremony and 30 at our reception. I felt elated, but also gutted for those whose weddings were coming the following week. Though, saying that, we still would have gone ahead if we had to cut our numbers to 15.”

THE DAY

Just waking up on our wedding day was a sense of pure relief and elation that we had made it to our big day without COVID cancelling it! Some might think I am crazy, but I started the day with a Pilates class at 07.00am over zoom, to calm my nerves and give my body a little endorphin hit!

I was so excited to finally put my dress on, it felt like such a big deal just to get to our big day, to be able to dress up and put on the most beautiful dress I am ever likely to wear.

One of my favourite moments of the day, was when my friend Heather (who was filming our ceremony on Zoom) handed over the iPad while she signed the registry. Graham and I were able to turn the camera around and wave to all our "virtual guests", which Jodi (our photographer) managed to capture for us. A moment of happiness that we were still able to share our day despite the distance!

As we couldn't have the big event we had planned, we spent quite a bit of time talking to our photographer about making sure we created as much fun and adventure as possible. I managed to arrange for a fabulous London Taxi driver, to chauffeur us around for the day. Following the ceremony, we jumped in a taxi from Islington Town Hall to The Renaissance St Pancras, where we were staying for the night. We had as much fun as we could taking photos on the fabulous grand staircase, our amazing hotel room and on the station forecourt, ensuring we stopped for some champagne a the Champagne bar of course! After that, we travelled down to Camden (where we live) and had a wander through the market and along the canal to our reception venue. It was definitely lots of fun and seemed to create much delight and lots of smiles from those who were just going about their business.

Advice I would give to brides planning a wedding with COVID regulations, is be upfront and honest with your suppliers, negotiate, negotiate, negotiate. We pretty much had to say to suppliers, how are we going to handle this if it all gets cancelled at the last minute? We stayed away from anyone who wasn't flexible, whilst at the same time, making sure we were fair and reassured suppliers that we wouldn't leave them out of pocket too. I think it helped greatly that our reception venue was a pub, rather than a traditional wedding venue. We were lucky, all our suppliers were amazing and really went above and beyond to make things happen for us.

Was it the day we planned? No? Would I change a thing? Absolutely not!

Jodi (our photographer) and I are already plotting the Australian sequel whenever the borders finally open! Graham, well, he just wants me to be happy, so I am sure he will be onboard when the time comes!

CREDITS & THANKS

Photographer: Jodi Hanagan

https://www.instagram.com/jodihanaganphotography/

www.jodihanaganphotography.com

Florist: https://fitzroysflowers.com/

Cake: https://www.instagram.com/xtinescakery/

Hair: https://www.theonesalon.co.uk/ Nadia Rasool and Megan Ryan

Make up: https://www.theonesalon.co.uk/ Katy Rooney