A Stylish & Elegant Loft Studios Warehouse Wedding for Two Brides in Charlie Brear & Rembo Styling

Sara and Judith, both Doctors working for the NHS, tied the knot on 31st July last year at Loft Studios in London.

This gorgeous wedding has just become a firm favourite LGBTQ wedding share on Love My Dress – everything feels so effortlessly stylish and the photography is so light and joyous.

These two beautiful newlyweds met whilst at university when playing for the same football team. Wanting a non traditional wedding, they chose this cool, blank canvas and former warehouse space to exchange their vows in front of friends and family.

Looking so relaxed and in love in their Charlie Brear and Rembo Styling gowns, it was important to both Sara and Judith that they worked with suppliers sympathetic with the LGBTQIA+ community, which is what lead them to Love My Dress recommended supplier, Fiona Kelly.

Sara wore Charlie Brear

We both had flowy, A-line dresses, because we wanted to feel super comfy, and to eat lots and do loads of dancing!

My dress was by London designer Charlie Brear, and whilst the bridal boutique I visited is now closed, the manager, Caroline, has relocated to a new boutique called Evelie in West London.

Caroline is fantastic and I went to her because I was conscious about the environmental impact of a wedding; she is amazing at selecting ex-samples from designers and she has loads to choose from.

It was all in the lace for me. My lace was very floral and feminine and different from Judith’s – I think they showed our personalities but also complemented each other.

Charlie Brear designs also feel so simple an elegant. As there were two dresses and the venue also had a lot of character we wanted our dresses to say something about us, but not steal the whole show.

My shoes were by Chie Mihara and I wore Coco Mademoiselle by Chanel perfume. I also wore  a Vivi Embellish hair accessory. These were beautiful and handmade to order by Georgie who runs the business and makes all the accessories herself. She’s very lovely, she keeps you updated, and she packages everything beautifully.

Flowers

We researched a lot of florists – this was one of the most important elements of the wedding for us, as this was our main decor.

We had quite a specific vision of natural, wild-looking flowers and foliage, to bring the outside in and evoke a feeling of a summer meadow.

We encountered a couple florists who had minimum budgets that were out of our range or who had a specific repertoire and weren’t keen to do something new. Liz, who runs Blue Sky Flowers, is really approachable and lovely. She was so easy to work with and knew right away what we wanted.

She took us to the flower market to look at all the different flowers and foliage so we could see in advance the kind of things she was thinking of, and we could tell her our preferences.

Bridesmaids

We let our bridesmaids choose their own dresses so they would feel comfortable and just provided a colour scheme.

Photography by Fiona Kelly

Our photographer was Fiona Kelly. We narrowed our choice down to a few photographers and in the end we chose Fiona for the following reasons; her photographs are exactly what we wanted – candid and capturing lots of natural moments, and also very bright and joyful in the colour scheme

She had also photographed LGBTQ weddings in the past so we knew this was something she was familiar with (this was something that was important in most of the suppliers we chose)

Fiona is so so lovely and friendly. She gets excited with you about what you’re planning, she’s extremely communicative, and she provides loads of help and hints, both before and during the day itself.

She managed to capture everything and took so many beautiful photos, yet at times we barely noticed she was there, she was so unintrusive. We still talk about how on point her timing was and how she must have been running around so fast without us even noticing.

We absolutely love the photos and look at them all the time. We would recommend her to everybody.

The Inspiration

Being a non-traditional couple, we wanted a non-traditional wedding. Also, we are both from Europe and have lived in different places, but we have been in London for around 10 years and feel at home here, and wanted something very urban.

Sara has grown up in the countryside and Judith in cities, so it felt right to create something that was a sort of juxtaposition of urban and natural, by bringing loads of foliage and lots of flowers to contrast with the exposed brick and beams of the warehouse.

A Warehouse Wedding Venue

Our wedding reception venue was Loft Studios in London.

We wanted to have a venue that had several different spaces as well as an outdoor area as we were having our ceremony and reception at the same location.

The space needed to allow for a natural flow throughout the day, as we didn’t want it to feel monotonous and all in the same room. It was also important the venue had character in itself and would just require some flowers/lighting to complete the space. Loft Studios ticked all these boxes.

On our first visit to Loft Studios, we met Josephine, the events manager. She was lovely and very organised, which helped us make up our minds.

Reception

Our caterers were Lettice Events – we cannot recommend them highly enough. Holly, whose company it is, is hilarious and so much fun. The food is delicious and looks stunning. They are there for the entire event from 10am until the early hours of the morning.

Our cake was by Blossom & Crumb. We had a two-tier watercolour style cake with some gold leaf detail, to go with the overall styling of the day. We chose a tier each in terms of flavour – one chocolate, and one coconut and lime

Evening & Dancing

Our first dance was to LOVE by Frank Sinatra. It’s a song we’ve sung together many times in the kitchen and just makes us think of each other.

We hired the Adelaide Trio and DJ Markus, both through the Alive Network.