We are head over heels for Georgia and Micah’s epic festival London Jewish wedding! Georgia always knew she wanted to have her wedding reception at her grandmother’s house in Hampstead, and she and Micah found the perfect ceremony venue in nearby Kenwood House’s Kitchen Garden.
Having a reception at home is so meaningful, but putting everything together isn’t easy. Luckily, Georgia and Micah found the perfect partner to transform the yard into a dreamy woodland festival ground in Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Arabian Tents.
In Georgia’s words,
Katherine from Arabian Tents was just amazing… I never once heard her say no to anything, nothing was too much trouble, everything was possible. The whole team were so helpful and so creative it was such a relief.
Arabian Tents also provided Georgia and Micah’s chuppah, handled their lighting (which included a bespoke disco ball chandelier!), and even took on on-the-day coordination services. One look at Carine Bea’s luminous photos and we’re pretty sure you’ll be as smitten as we are!
We also love that Georgia and Micah opted to do as much DIY as they could. Micah’s sister Lil handled stationery and wedding favors, while Georgia and her mum took on the dessert station, table decorations, and flowers (including waking up at 3am to go to New Covent Garden flower market!).
How We Met
Georgia, the bride: We met during Freshers week at Manchester University (at a really awful bar called Baa Bar). We dated briefly but then became really good friends for about 5 or 6 years before we became a couple. We stayed in touch and were very close after uni, I guess it was a case of never having been single at the same time before… when that finally happened it was one of those ‘why aren’t we together’?! sort of realisations.
Venue
We held our reception at my grandmothers house which was incredibly special as it’s the house I grew up in after my mum and dad split, so it really feels like home, and I’m very close to my grandmother. She has a very beautiful garden which I have always wanted to get married in. Immediately across the road is Kenwood House which backs on to Hampstead Heath.
I used to play there as a child and remember standing on the sundial trying to tell the time… A lot of our wedding guests also grew up in the area and have all spent a lot of time in these beautiful parks and gardens, it means a lot to us all. So we knew this would be the perfect spot to hold the ceremony. Sadly Kenwood House was being renovated this year so it was very uncertain whether we would be able to host our wedding ceremony there. This was really worrying and we looked at trying to have a ceremony at my Grandmas house and then moving things around for the reception, or using another other local venue.
Eventually after many talks with Kenwood House they suggested the Kenwood Kitchen Garden; which is a working kitchen garden to service the house. We were so pleased, until we heard the cost! We looked around again hoping to find somewhere close and within budget. But with travel arrangements for guests it was all getting complicated and we kept coming back to Kenwood House. So we decided to go for it and made some cuts in other places. And I’m so glad that we did.
The kitchen garden is even closer to my Grandma’s house, a 2 minute walk immediately across the road connected by a Zebra crossing. This turned out to be such a highlight of the wedding day, our brilliant band picked up their instruments and we became a marching band procession over the Zebra crossing, making for some perfect Beatles photoshoot moments.
Theme
Festival was definitely a strong theme running throughout. We love going to festivals and we wanted to have as much fun as possible on the day so a festival style wedding was always the plan. Micah is a tree surgeon so trees and tree imagery was a big part of our day, bringing the outside inside and our guests out into the garden wherever possible. The kitchen garden at Kenwood was perfect for this and of course my Grandmother’s beautiful garden which I’ve always imagined myself getting married in, and which is also full of silver birch trees. It was important then that the marquee was also full of natural elements and originally I had my heart set on a Tipi for a rustic look.
However when I met Arabian Tents I was so happy to have my mind opened on what a marquee could be and we actually chose the complete opposite; a clear span marquee which was very modern. But this allowed us to see out to the garden at all times and was better than anything else I could have imagined. One of the best weddings we’ve ever attended was a few years ago (shout out Ben and Krisztina). The entire wedding was a pulled together by friends and family in a beautiful community effort, all of the guests had contributed in some way to the day. Because of this everyone who was there felt a part of it. It was really special.
Micah and I took a lot of inspiration from that day and really wanted to do as much as possible ourselves. Micah’s sister Lil who was also a bridesmaid did all of our stationery, the place settings, the table names, seating plan; everything written was made by her, as well as the most incredible wedding favours – hand painted tapered dinner candles for guests to take home. All the table decorations and flowers were done by my mum and I, as well as the dessert station.
We woke up at 3am to go to New Covent Garden flower market (twice!) to buy all the flowers and greenery. We asked close friends to be our celebrant and MC so everything had a personal touch. Our disco ball chandelier was designed and made for our wedding by Arabian Tents. It was amazing. Everyone was taking photos and videos dancing under it. I love disco balls, the bridesmaids were in silver, and all the trees in the garden are silver birch trees and Arabian Tents really pulled out all the stops to create something bespoke that worked go well with the theme. The lighting also had a lot of thought put into it. We knew we wanted the party to go on until 1 or 2 in the morning so this was important.
Arabian Tents put together a whole lighting plan. We had fairy lights, festoon lighting, up-lighting, hurricane lanterns, a light up tree and a firepit! It was really impactful. We met with a lot of tipi companies as I had my heart set on a rustic wedding style, but none of them were able to overcome the challenges of the space (uneven ground, hard standing) and kept telling us we couldn’t do this and we couldn’t do that -the ground was too rough, or the garden was a difficult shape so we’d have to have a smaller tent and therefore cut our guestlist. So after going round in circles and feeling disappointed we found Arabian Tents.
Katherine was just amazing, I went to her explaining that ‘I didn’t want a marquee’ and she showed me so many different designs and materials and edgings and details, my whole preconception of a ‘twee English country wedding marquee’ disappeared. She gave me a new understanding of what a marquee wedding could be. I never once heard her say no to anything, nothing was too much trouble, everything was possible. The whole team were so helpful and so creative it was such a relief.
A little while later (Later than it should have been really, I should have asked for help sooner!) it was clear that I needed a bit more support as all the supplier co-ordination was becoming difficult to stay on top of. The list of technical requirements was getting longer and longer (heating, lighting, generators, sound techs, toilets etc. etc!) and that’s when Arabian Tents stepped up and Leonie stepped in as supplier and wedding co-ordinator.
I honestly could not have done it without her, we had a full brief and then I handed it all over to her 4 weeks before the day, and I never heard from another supplier again! It was incredible. It also meant that in the weeks leading up to the wedding (and on the day itself) I actually had time to do the things I wanted to do and have some time for myself as well, rather than having to deal with deliveries and checks and signatures and calls etc. It was pivotal. I wouldn’t have had time for family and friends travelling into London or to enjoy some beauty treatments in the preceding week if I hadn’t have decided to get wedding co-ordination support.
On the day itself everything ran so smoothly, it was like having an invisible force making everything perfect, I was up at 6am in hair and makeup and blissfully unaware of suppliers arriving or leaving or set up happening. I wasn’t even aware of Leonie’s presence, I know that anything that needed asking was asked to the bridesmaids or my mum, there was nothing for me to think about or do or worry about at all, she was always there, perfectly invisible, making sure everything was just right.
Dress
I bought the first wedding dress I tried on! I found a picture of the dress online and said ‘if this dress looks good on me, it’s my dress’. It was from a designer called Nicole Colet which I found at a boutique on Chiltern street called Bridal Rogue (who were wonderful). The dress originally had a huge skirt with a lot of petti coating and I had most of removed. The tailoring service from them was excellent and also enabled me to lower the back of the dress in the process.
I was really happy with the results and it felt more bespoke as a result. I tried a few different bridal shops after that just to make sure I’d done my due diligence and seen what was out there, but nothing else lived up to that first dress. I also decided to do all of the first fittings on my own to avoid external influence or opinions until a later stage. Personally, I found this took a lot of pressure out of the experience.
I’m not a very dressy person and my engagement ring is rather large so I knew I would already feel very dressed up.I was planning on wearing white doc martens and stomping around with my hands in my pockets, but everyone persuaded me out of it. Instead I found a really comfortable pair of Jimmy Choo mules on Farfetch which I could easily slip off… I didn’t wear a necklace but I spent the whole year before the wedding slowly getting more ear piercings as I wanted a really stacked ear look.
My mum gifted me a beautiful diamond stud which she had sadly lost the pair for years ago. I loved wearing it half-way up one ear and having an a-symmetrical look. I knew I wanted a disco after party in the evening and that would require an outfit change. I knew I wanted to be comfortable and wanted to dance so that meant a jumpsuit, and I found the most perfect sparkly jumpsuit at Nadine Merabi who do really gorgeous great quality jumpsuits and dresses. I actually loved it so much I would have liked to wear it for longer.. Looking back at the photos I definitely could have worn it all day! Oh and I also let my hair down in the evening, taking those clips out felt so good.
Bridesmaids
The bridesmaids were in silver. It started off as metallics but we quickly realised that wasn’t right, and when we chose silver I was really pleased to note how on trend we were when Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour started and silver was everywhere. I didn’t want my bridesmaids to look like little girls. We are all women and I wanted them to feel confident and like themselves so I asked them to choose anything silver which they felt good in, and they looked amazing.
One was in a suit from Coast, two were in dresses (one from Nookie, one from ASOS) and one in a co-ord set from Revolve. They all also had colourful shoes to match our ‘Wonderland’ dress code. I made sure the makeup artist worked with their natural beauty rather than covering up freckles or straightening curly hair. They looked stunning. An additional touch was that I had small clutch bags made for them from the excess petticoating and train that was removed from my wedding dress. I hope these will be lifelong keepsakes.
Ceremony
The kitchen garden is even closer to my Grandma’s house, a 2 minute walk immediately across the road connected by a Zebra crossing.This turned out to be such a highlight of the wedding day, our brilliant band picked up their instruments and we became a marching band procession over the Zebra crossing, making for some perfect Beatles photoshoot moments. Arabian Tents also made the chuppah for us.
Our ketubah was designed and hand-made by a very close family friend and artist, Ardyn Halter. He lives in Israel and we were able to select some unique features to include when we last visited his studio in Pardes Hanna in spring of 2023. It was a wedding gift and we feel very special to have it, as Ardyn’s Judaic artwork is featured in galleries and museums around the world.
Our music choice
Planning a festival style wedding with a disco twist we had a lot of fun with the entertainment. Our band were with us all day, first acoustically as a walkabout act and later on for a full amplified set with a saxophonist which kept the crowd dancing all night. We also had a caricature artist drawing funny pictures of guests in the day, a face and body paint artist to jazz up guests’ looks and a DJ later on in the evening.
Micah and I have quite opposite taste in music. He is punk, rock, alternative; Idles, The Murder Capital, Rage Against The Machine, Muse. I love pop, funk and disco, 70’s, 80’s. Spice Girls! I like the crowd pleasers. This could have been an issue at the wedding but it went beautifully. We had the most amazing band, The Super Tenants (one of my bridesmaids is their manager) and they played mostly my kind of music as it’s what most people will dance to, but I also asked them to do a surprise rock mashup set to create a mosh pit especially for Micah.
It went down a storm, everyone loved it, actually the whole marquee was rocking backwards and forwards at one point! Part of the decision for The Super Tenants was their crowd-interaction, and they really engaged with everyone – making people laugh and sing along. They contributed a great deal to the fun atmosphere and worked closely with us to get the set-list and style right. I also put a lot of time into curating playlists for the ‘in-between’ times throughout the day, organised by timings and helping to escalate energy gradually as the day progressed. I would really recommend doing this!
Flowers
Flowers were one of the items we cut back on due to our overspend on the venue. I didn’t have a bouquet (my dress had pockets and I was determined to use them!) Our inspiration for the table décor was a forest floor. My mum and I bought a lot of moss from Covent Garden flower market to cover tables and steps. We had pansies in tiny terracotta pots ‘growing out of’ the forest floor and flower heads scattered on the moss. We also had wreaths and wreaths of ivy and used this to decorate gates and table settings. Micah and I had a fun morning selecting pieces of wood from a timber yard which Micah cut into discs for serving blocks all along the tables.
Food
Food is very important to my family! I was worried about delivering excellent food within our budget, and also not wanting any of it to be at all fancy. Neither of us wanted a 3 course sit-down meal. During our reception we used Oyster Boy (of Columbia Road Flower Market success) who provided an oyster cart with bloody marys.
We found a relatively small catering company called Capital Banquets and everything they made was absolutely delicious. Also beautifully presented in family-style sharing buffets in the centre of each table. We asked for abundant, colourful plates of food to share – think Ottolenghi with an Asian twist. At 9pm, Taco Truck showed up and served up a selection of Mexican tacos together with a huge bowl of tequila punch to keep our guests fueled!
I wish I had tried them but I heard they were excellent – my cousin broke a record by eating 10! We didn’t have a cake but instead my mum made a gorgeous array of desserts and cakes for a dessert station which was wonderful. We also had pick and mix with little red and white striped paper bags and old fashioned scoops.
Extra Details
Dress code Wonderland; camp and exaggerated, elevated. Colourful and bright or sparkly. For some that was colourful braces or a colourful shoe, others really leaned into it and came in such brilliant outlandish outfits. It was so much fun. We also had face and body paint artists on hand on the day to jazz people up a little more whilst they were there.
Advice to couples currently planning their wedding
Get in as many moments together as a couple as you can on the day. Couple shots are a really good opportunity to have some time together away from the crowd and take it all in. So is an outfit change! It gives you a few moments to take stock and be yourselves before going back out revived, and in a new outfit which gives you a real second wind.
Don’t take it too seriously! The couple set the tone for the day, and if you’re stressed then your guests won’t be able to relax.
GEORGIA & MICAH’S LITTLE WHITE BOOK
Photography – Carine Bea
Marquee + Co-ordination – Arabian Tents
Venue – Kenwood House
Bride’s dress – Nicole Colet found at Bridal Rogue
Bridal jumpsuit – Nadine Merabi
Bride’s shoes – Jimmy Choo
Groom’s suit – Thom Sweeney
Bridesmaids – Coast, Nookie, ASOS, Revolve
Hair + Makeup – Maya Lewis Bridal
Ketubah – Ardyn Halter
Catering – Capital Banquets
Band – The Super Tenants
Face and body paint artist – Poppy and Perle
Caricature artist – London Caricatures
MC – Oly Britten
Taco Truck – Taco Truck
Oysters – Oyster Boy
Bar – Mix and Muddle
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