Emma & Alex
When warehouse meets the prettiest of lighting, an abundance of stunning florals, and loved ones enjoying good food and music, you know you’re onto a winner. Emma and Alex, who met at work, married at Gather and Tailor in October 2019 and the love they felt throughout the day was immense. Behind the camera was the talented Steph from Long Way Home, capturing sweet moments (like the couple’s sister and brother-in-law singing them down the aisle) and stunning details (wait until you see the signage and all those candles). Below, Emma retells their day and how everything came together to make it oh-so magical and special for her and Alex.
We wanted our wedding to be relaxed but chic. We loved the warehouse vibe at our wedding – it looked beautiful filled with florals and candles, and when it was all lit up at night. Delicious food, great booze and good music was an absolute must for us – we wanted our guests to have fun.
My dress was the Eden from Mariana Hardwick, and was custom made to me. Going through Mariana was an amazing experience, the girls were so lovely and took such care in crafting my dress. It fitted me beautifully and was exactly what I had envisioned!
I had three of my closest girlfriends in my bridal party – Jess (as my maid of honour), Lozz and Meg, who have all been huge parts of my life for a long time. Alex had his twin brother, Nicky, as his best man, and his close mates Al and Scotty as his groomsmen.
Alex wore a textured blazer, a bow tie, bone coloured chinos and dark brown leather accessories. I didn’t want to look too overly formal, just to have a nice kit that matched the vibe of the day.
We only visited two venues before we picked Gather and Tailor. We loved it straight away. We wanted a beautiful and unique space, and we’d both actually always pictured getting married in a warehouse venue. Another big part of it was our event and venue manager Ilse. She was all over it, no ask was too big or too small, and she showed us so much genuine care throughout the whole process. We knew that having her at the helm, everything was going to go off perfectly.
Gillian Pollard and her team did a phenomenal job in filling the warehouse with florals, from the sublime installation we got married under, to the arrangements dotted around, to the florals and greenery hanging from the beams. When I met Gill I knew that she just got my vision for the space, and the effort that her and her team put in to make the space feel magical (along with all the candles) was incredible.
Our sister and brother-in-law sung us down the aisle to ‘Latch’ by Sam Smith, the acoustic version. We both love the lyrics of the song. I had always known I wanted to walk down the aisle to that song. Then, when we entered the reception, we danced our way in to the Disclosure remixed version of the same song.
We absolutely loved our ceremony. It was our favourite part of the day. We wanted it to be heartfelt, yet funny, and to highlight our love for each other. Lara Williams, our celebrant, captured our story so beautifully, and it was so special to be able to relive our journey in front of everyone that we love the most.
The brief I gave to our florist Gillian was creams and dreamy tones with pops of dark pinks, otherwise, I was happy to just let her and her team run with it. I’m so glad I did as what she created was better than I could have described to her in the first place!
Steph from Long Way Home was amazing. Her work is so thoughtful and carefully crafted, plus it just felt like you were hanging out with a friend. She’s so down to earth and made us feel so comfortable. We were blown away when we received our photos back.
Taking some time out with our photographer, just the two of us, for golden hour photos and letting the day sink in, was so special.
Other than having a clear vision for what we wanted, there was no DIY. We felt it was easier to trust in the amazing vendors that we selected to be part of the day.
We decided to set up a polaroid station. We didn’t want a photobooth with props, rather just those really candid snaps of our loved ones that we could look back on. They actually came out better than we imagined. Everyone wrote cute messages, there were some really lovely ones, and some funny ones too (e.g. our friend Ryan running around the dancefloor shaking the box of polaroids ‘shake it like a polaroid pictureeeee’ to Outkast’s ‘Hey Ya’). We picked out a whole bunch of our favourites and got them framed.
For our first dance, we chose ‘I Wanna Be Yours’ by the Arctic Monkeys. They’re one of my favourite bands, and when the album AM came out it was in the early days of our relationship, and Alex used to sing the lyrics of the song to me a lot (it has some quite unique/odd lines that have a really nice sentiment like ‘I wanna be your vacuum cleaner’ and ‘I wanna be your Ford Cortiner’). They were also the first gig we went to, so the song has a lot of nice memories associated with it.
We wanted our dance floor to have a great vibe. One of our favourite things that we included was a dance floor session after our first dance and before everyone sat down for sharing style mains to get the party started early. One of my favourite memories is being in the middle of a packed dance floor with Pipes and everyone swinging into the middle to have a boogie with us.
We made sure to pay tribute to our loved ones who couldn’t be with us through our ceremony and speeches.
My advice to soon to be newlyweds is to prioritise what’s important to you both because it’s your day! And as much as you can, try not to sweat the small stuff. You’re marrying the love of your life and it’s going to be one of the best days of your life whatever happens.
Join the conversation