Be still, my beating heart. Philippa Bloom’s Suzanne Neville dress is simply DIVINE. As are her metallic Jimmy Choo’s for that matter… But are you surprised when she’s one half of We Are Twinset one of the biggest fashion influencer accounts on Instagram?
Yes folks, we are in for a HUGE treat today with Philippa & Alex’s super chic Jewish wedding at the elegant New London Synagogue followed by their reception at one of my favourite luxury London venues — the one and only Claridges.
And their big day is every bit as glamorous and romantic as you’d expect. An emotionally-charged badeken having not seeing each other for one week prior (wait till you see the moment in the wedding film — it’s goosebumps all around), a gigantic floral chuppah surrounded by pillar candles, the coolest bridesmaids in gold sequinned gowns, exquisite stationery with calligraphy by one of my wedding supplier crushes, Lamplighter London, and crazy jewish wedding dancing thanks to entertainment from the legendary Gilev Show Band.
It’s a truly stylish, luxe wedding and not only do we have the dreamy images from Polly Alexandre, but we also have the film from Gorgeous Films who actually filmed my own London wedding back in 2013 as well!
A Jewish wedding at the New West End Synagogue and Claridges
Philippa, the bride: Our ceremony was at the New West End Synagogue — we loved how ornate and traditional this synagogue is compared to others in central London. It’s got a beautiful intimate feel and has a strong spiritual vibe which we loved too.
We had our reception and party at Claridges. From an early age, Claridges has always been my all-time favourite hotel in London. I was really conscious of not having a very large Jewish wedding and because of Claridge’s ballroom size it meant that we could control this. We also love its art deco super sophisticated style. Although in general it’s quite a large hotel, it feels really homely and the staff are incredible — there wasn’t anything they couldn’t do!
Classic style
It was actually a really big deal to me not to have a “theme” for our wedding. So many weddings go down a very “fancy dress” look and so I just wanted to keep everything classic and simple with a few special twists. My cousin is (very conveniently) a party planner and so he helped me with the production of the day but I was really adamant I didn’t want any fancy party tricks!
Our invitation design
I was sent an invitation at work for Quintessentially Weddings and absolutely fell in love with the design. I took it along to our stationary designers and we managed to create something very similar. We chose a very pale grey textured card with rose gold foil embossed font (I loved how the rose gold tied in with the art deco vibe at Claridges). I’m obsessed with modern calligraphy and commissioned Lamplighter London to write each of our guest’s names on the invitation. It was really nice to put our personal stamp on our invitations.
Hair+Make-up
I really just wanted to look like myself on my wedding day. I had thought of the idea of wearing my hair up but decided on the biggest day of my life why would I do something I’ve never done before?! I was so pleased with how Jo Hamilton did my hair and makeup. It looked amazing and and it didn’t budge the whole day!
A Suzanne Neville dress
As a stylist, you would think choosing a wedding dress would be an easy task. But this wasn’t the case! My day to day style is very simple and pared back but I felt really under pressure to be in a big OTT gown, which is just so not me.
I tried on SO many dresses to the point where I had to have a break from it as was getting really worried I would never find “the one”. There were plenty of dresses that I tried and liked, but at that point nothing that I loved. After not thinking about it for a few months I decided to pop to Suzanne Neville on Beauchamp Place as it’s down the road from my office. I spoke to the sales assistant for a while on the kind of style/idea I was looking for and decided to leave it to her to select dresses for me to try.
It turns out, I went in at the perfect time as her new collection had literally just been launched that week and no one had seen it yet. The first dress I tried on, I knew instantly it was “the one”. The lady had not even tied it up at the back but I knew I loved it. My dress was super simple but with a really beautiful cut — exactly what I wanted. I wanted to look like a bride, but not bridal!
Accessories
My best friend Sarah and blog partner (www.wearetwinset.com) lent me her veil which was so special and I love what it resembled. The veil had tiny Swarovski crystals all the way down the front which looked really subtle and complimented my simple dress perfectly. Although I’m so not a “blingy” kind of girl, I decided I wanted to add a little sparkle to my dress for the party. I added a very thin diamante belt to my dress after the ceremony and loved how it transformed my dress for the evening.
Jimmy Choo heels
For all the brides to be out there, if the budget can stretch, you have to invest in Jimmy Choo’s for your wedding day! I went for strappy gold/silver metallic heels and they were so comfortable! Again, because my dress was so simple I felt I could justify sparkly shoes!
The handsome groom
Alex wore a bespoke tux from Hackett London which was exactly the “look” he wanted. Again, he was really conscious not to look “fancy dress” with all the tux and tails and so kept it simple but special with his suit. At the same time, he asked his ushers to all wear black tie tux’s — nothing too fancy, just simple and smart.
Bridesmaids
My maid of honour and bridesmaid both wore dusty gold sequin gowns from Ariella. I loved how the metallic looked against my ivory dress.
Chuppah design
Because the New West End synagogue is so beautiful it really didn’t need too much “dressing”. I’m obsessed with candles so we had church candles in lanterns leading up the stairs to the front door. Because our ceremony and reception were in different venues I wanted to keep to the same tone/style and the best way to do this was through the flowers. I didn’t want our chuppah to look “manicured” and so asked our florist to use flowers that would give a fluid and natural look. Spring weddings are the best for flower choices too!
The Ceremony
To be totally honest, the whole day was so incredible and I wouldn’t change anything about it but to pick out a highlight it would have to be the Badeken room. I moved home with my Mum the week before our wedding (highly recommend this!) and so it was so emotional (for us all) in the intimate badeken room. Looking back at photos and our video we can both see how emotional we were when we saw each other for the first time. It was a really special moment for our parents and grandparents too.
Natural looking flowers
I often receive Scarlet & Violet flowers through work and so always knew I would love her flowers for my wedding day. Vic at Scarlet & Violet has such an effortless but stunning style and I pretty much left it to her when it came to choosing our designs. Although I wanted fairly “wild” natural looking flowers we had to make sure the bouquets and table centres still looked glamorous to reflect Claridges style.
Our fabulous photographer and videographer
Because of my job, choosing a photographer was a really important decision for me. I really didn’t want cheesy staged photos and so spent a long time researching to find the perfect photographer for our big day. I actually found Polly Alexandre through Pinterest — she had already shot a wedding at Claridges the summer before our wedding and I absolutely love her natural style.
The same idea went with choosing our videographer — it was really important to find a videographer that would work well with our photographer and have the same natural/non-cheesy style! I couldn’t recommend Gorgeous Film enough and they were an absolute pleasure to work with from beginning to end!
Not a cake
(Controversially) we didn’t have a cake! They are really expensive and we decided against the whole “knife in hand cutting cake” photo!
Entertainment
I think it’s really important to cater to all ages with music at weddings. Although we wanted to play music that we knew we and all our friends would want to dance to, it was important for us to play current but appropriate music, especially at the beginning. We chose Real Love by Jess Glynne and our band (The Gilev Show Band) sang it in an amazing acoustic version, it was so perfect!
Advice to brides and grooms currently planning their wedding
Having a two year engagement was the best decision for us. It meant that we could really take in what was happening and not rush an details. Undoubtable, planning a wedding is so stressful but on the day, no matter what, it is going to be the BEST day of your life. I drove myself mad about tiny details and on the actual day none of it mattered! Everyone told us to try take 5 minutes to ourselves on the night just to take it all in and I couldn’t recommend this enough — it flashes by in a second!
Philippa & Alex’s little white book
Videographer – Gorgeous Films
Photographer – Polly Alexandre
Wedding planner – Classico Productions
Venue – Claridges
Flowers – Scarlet & Violet, The Flower Lounge for the chuppah
Make-up — Jo Hamilton Make-Up
Bride’s dress – Suzanne Neville
Bride’s shoes – Jimmy Choo
Groom attire – Hackett
Bridesmaids dress – Ariella
Stationery – Invitation London
Calligraphy – Lamplighter London
Music Band – The Gilev Show Band
Absolutely loved reliving this day! Thank you for the beautiful feature Karen, and for featuring my photography, and a big congratulations to Philippa and Alex. Loved working with you both and it was such a beautiful and fun and magical day! All my love for a wonderful life together. You are an amazing couple!