A Spring Green and Stylish Jewish Wedding at the Savoy Hotel…

Afternoon everyone 🙂 I hope you've had chance to pop by my other two blog posts today already, if not, here they are.

I have been waiting to feature this stylish wedding for sometime now, but all good things come to those who wait 😉 Leah and Peter got married on 27th March 2011 at The Savoy Hotel in London and celebrated their love via a beautiful Jewish wedding ceremony.  And I am always excited when I get to feature the work of Photographers, Segerius-Bruce.

Leah wore the most stunning 50's style 'Kelly' wedding dress, by S'tephanie Allin (no guessing which icon inspired this design then!). The Kelly wedding dress has a belt.  It also has pockets.  Pockets people!!! Now that is my kind of dress. Pretty, yet practical…. 😉

"I actually got it down to two dresses and agonised about them (the other was a Jenny Packham which I loved too, all swooshy silk and bit of sparkle). In the end this one felt more unusual and special than the other one. 

I love clothes and have a strong sense of style but actually didn’t enjoy the dress shopping as much as I expected to…too many of the shop assistants were desperate for me to find ‘the one’ and I felt like there were loads of options, it was just a case of finding one I was happy with. I wasn’t choosing my husband!! The staff at Stephanie Allin were so relaxed at my first appointment that it made me feel really comfortable which helped a lot.

Love My Dress Wedding Blog – Photography Copyright (c) 2010, Segerius-Bruce

Stephanie Allin Kelly wedding dress

Jimmy Choo wedding shoes

"I’ve thought for a while that I have a sort of old fashioned look and therefore like wearing slightly retro style clothing. I don’t like going for a whole look, preferring a modern style with a nod to the 50s- which is exactly what this dress gave me. Stephanie told me she modelled it on a dress Grace Kelly wore in a film and I could really see that film inspiration which I loved.

Being short I didn’t want to dwarf myself and I definitely wasn’t looking for a ‘meringue’ dress but this had just the right amount of drama to make me feel really special without making me feel I’d abandoned my personal style! I also really liked the materials and made-to-measure service at Stephanie Allin…"

Wedding dress with pockets - 'Kelly' by Stephanie Allin

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The Kelly Wedding Dress by Stephanie Allin


"We planned the wedding with my parents so the venue had to be up to their standards! We are both in the arts (Peter is a musician and I am a theatre director) so we were looking for something with personality. On top of that we are Jewish which often means reasonably big parties. We knew we were not going to have under 200 guests (it was about 220 in the end) so we needed a big venue. We both grew up in and love London and most of our guests live here so we wanted it to be here.

In London the choice is limited as to venues that big.

All of those issues pointed to the Savoy. It has such a great history and strong style and we knew the wedding wouldn’t be any more complicated that it had to be as the service there was great. Once we were shown around we got very excited by all of it but especially having our wedding party in a proper old fashioned ballroom."

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"The Bridesmaids dresses were made for us by a dressmaker who lives opposite my parents. Her name is Diana Darrer but she doesn’t have a website. I chose a green material- to reflect the spring and also as it’s a bit unusual and fun…"

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"Malcolm Betts designed and made the rings for us.  I did not want a classic engagement ring. I love handmade jewellery and yellow gold. We went to another shop we like to look first and they stocked a few Malcolm Betts rings which led us to his showroom where I found tons of rings I loved. Lydia made the design process and choosing really easy. I loved the mixed metals used (the ring is battered yellow gold while the setting is platinum) and the fact it makes the ring sparkle so much. I also loved the chunky/delicate balance. I saw a similar ring in the show and swapped the metals round and changed the dimensions to make it exactly what I wanted.

After all that work we knew we definitely wanted to get our wedding bands from the same place. Peter went for a yellow gold band too which I was really pleased about as it’s unusual these days for a man and looks great on him.

My tiny gold wedding band compliments the engagement ring perfectly and the whole experience was lovely."

Malcolm Betts wedding rings

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"The Savoy is so decorative that we wanted to keep everything else minimal and fresh. Peter’s cousin designed our invites and all of the print work so we had very cute signs on the tables in the style of the invites with our table names. The names were all of our favourite foods…"

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"I wanted it to be special if we did it at all. So my bridesmaids made the favours. It was such a great opportunity for us to hang out together in that very busy period. We bought jars which they painted with green and gold- on one side it said ‘L & P’ and on the other the date. We wanted an edible inside and my Mum found the personalised M & Ms which really made it fun.

They said ‘Leah Peter’ on one side with the date on the other and were in green and white. We also covered the top in material and put green and white bows on to make it look cute. My bridesmaids were so lovely, they are all quite arty so we planned it together and they really came through…"

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"We used the florist at the Savoy. We wanted to continue with our fresh spring theme with the flowers (which is why there was a lot of green in the rest of the wedding)…"

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"Kate Poulter of Pat-a-Cake made our cake.   She made my sister’s cake two years before which was really delicious. When we went to see her she understood what I was looking for and sketched it up. She made us a cake with different flavours on different layers which was really fun.
The Green cake with white bows worked really well with the colour scheme and looked a bit quirky (and it was square). Yum."

Green wedding cake

Wedding dress with pockets - 'Kelly' by Stephanie Allin

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Leah and Peter followed the Jewish tradition of being lifted on chairs at their wedding, by fellow wedding guests – very excited wedding guests! I think Leah possibly looks a tiny bit petrified there… hehehe 😉

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"Peter is a musician so we knew most of those who played and of course we were really specific about the music, ending up with 3 different bands. Before and during the ceremony we had our good friends Felipe Karam and Carla Ruaro playing. During the reception Shirley Smart led a gypsy jazz trio. For the main party we had Soul Fiesta who were completely brilliant. They did a set of klezmer at the start followed by a jazz set and then a funk/soul/latin set. They created a great atmosphere and got everyone up…"

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Wedding dress with pockets - 'Kelly' by Stephanie Allin

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"I definitely didn’t have a ‘theme’ in mind but we all (Me, Peter and my parents) have a strong sense of style. I love spring and we particularly chose to have a spring wedding. That led to green bridesmaid dresses which led to green and gold invites etc… Then we wanted to keep the flowers fresh and simple as the Savoy is so decorative. 

There were some really fun surprises to the evening. Peter’s best men sang a hilarious song to him, after surprising him by making him come on stage and accompany them on guitar. Straight after that he sang a song to me. Being with a musician for 7 years you’d think I’d be used to that but actually it was the first song he’s written to me so I loved it.

The speeches surprised me- often people see them as the boring part of the day but our friends were crying during a lot of them as they felt so involved. With a wedding that big I was really pleased at that. And Peter and I are very open with each other but his speech blew me away. I hadn’t heard him speak that way before."
  

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Huge thanks to the immensely talented Chanelle Segerius-Bruce for sharing these photographs…

"I was really pleased with the photos. We have so many we love. Everytime something happened during the day they managed to be there- be it a smile, a tear, a funny face.

The shots are beautiful and full of character."

Read more about and view more photography from Segerius Bruce here on Love My Dress.

Are any of my readers due to marry at the Savoy? Or are you planning a Jewish wedding celebration?

Love Annabel xXx

 

Credits

Photographer – Segerius-Bruce
Venue – The Savoy Hotel, London
Brides dress + Veil – Stephanie Allin
Brides shoes – Jimmy Choo
Brides accessories – Bracelet + earrings(borrowed)
Groom – Gresham Blake bespoke
Bridesmaids – Independent dressmaker (no website)
Cake – Pat-a-Cake
Flowers – The Savoy Hotel
Hair – Shafak Salih of Solo hairdressers
Makeup – Rachel Singer-Clark
Rings – Malcolm Betts

 

Annabel

Annabel View all Annabel's articles

Founder of Love My Dress. Passionate Podcaster and Editor. Annabel lives in rural North Yorkshire with her husband and business partner Philip, their two daughters and menagerie of furry hounds. She loves photography, meditation, walking, being outdoors and star gazing. She is fierce when it comes to championing talent within the wedding industry and when she's not working on Love My Dress, she supports her husband Philip in the running of the family's sustainable flower farm and floral design business, Moonwind Flowers. In 2013, she became a published author.

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