There has never been a specific moment for me, I have always just had a sense of certainty from the very beginning that he was the one for me.
Tell us a little about yourselves, what you do, what you love…Â
We are based in London, where we have lived together for the past 7 years. I work as a Women’s Health Physiotherapist and George a Commerical Director for an events start up. When we aren’t working we love to travel to new places, usually without much of a plan, we book a plane ticket and then figure it our once we are there – Sri Lanka and Zanzibar the standouts. We love skiing, scuba diving and hiking. When we are at home, we enjoy dinner parties, watching football, staying active and over the last two years, we have been renovating our first home together.
How/where/when did you meet – and what were your first impressions?Â
We met in the French Alps 8 years ago. Both of us had finished university and decided to do a ski season, and the bars we worked in happened to be next door to each other. I obviously thought he was extremely handsome. I’ll write this bit – I fancied Ailsa from the word go, she had so much energy and life, people naturally gravitated towards her, but it was a few months before we progressed from friendship. Our first day was actually paraskiing. When we left the alps we had a summer apart but both knew we were going to be in London come September and that’s where we have been together ever since.
When did you first realise that this was someone you’d like to spend the rest of your life with? Â
There has never been a specific moment for me, I have always just had a sense of certainty from the very beginning that he was the one for me. For me, I genuinely knew from the word go, just took a little longer to convince Ailsa the same.
Was there a proposal? Tell us a little about it…
We got engaged in the summer of 2021. George planned a camping trip to wales and that was all the information I had before we set off. We drove to a beautiful place called fforest by the welsh coast. On the day George planned on proposing whilst hiking, the family staying near us needed someone to baby sit their dog and I offered although George was slightly more hesistant. We hiked to a beautiful sunken cave with the dog, Monty, and set up a picnic with no one else around. George pulled out a photo of us from the first summer we spent together with a beautiful note written on the back and after I finished reading it he asked me to marry him. It was beautiful but before we had a chance to eat our picnic Monty already had. We celebrated with champagne and a freezing swim in the sea and then had to drive 30 minutes to find good enough signal to tell our family and friends which was also extremely special. We ended up returning to fforest to get married.
Tell us about the vision you had for the mood or style of your wedding.
Our Wedding was where we got engaged, fforest, so we really wanted to contrast the rustic nature of the venue by having a black tie wedding. We wanted our guests to feel comfortable and who doesn’t feel good in a black dress or Tux? It also provided a contrast so that we could stand out in photos, and I think it paid off! Â
We wanted it to feel stylish but not rigid, we used modern and minimalist decor elements and a monochromatic colour palette for the whole weekend. Black and white heart glasses, black and white handwritten menus and place settings, and we stuck to only using one flower, gypsophila. We were also lucky to have an amazing photographer, Hannah, who was able to capture this really well in a slightly editorial way.
What was one element you were happy to splurge on?Â
I don’t think we went overboard in any specific area but we made sure we had an amazing photographer and videographer so that they day was captured in the way we wanted and it paid off for sure! Being able to have beautiful still images but also a video that really captures the heart of our wedding was very special. We also both wore outfits that we really liked and made us feel comfortable but good and that feeling does cost a bit. We did also spend a lot of money on booze, I think that is the key to a good wedding.
Tell us about your main outfits, what was unique, is there a story?
I wore a Sarah Seven dress and loved it for its timelessness and the way the shape flattered my body. It was made from a unique mikado silk fabric, so it was simple but up close felt very modern. I wanted to look back on my dress 30 years from now and still feel like I would wear it.Â
One of my favourite bits of my outfit were my 10 inch platform heels. For someone who doesn’t wear heels my friends thought I was crazy but I wanted the drama, and honestly I managed to walk and dance in them all day and night! My bridesmaid dresses were one of my favourite parts of the wedding, they are traditional chinese dresses called Cheongsam. I was born and grew up in Hong Kong so to honour that part of me was really important and I loved how they looked! I (George) originally wanted to dress like my mate Harry Styles, trying on his white suit from his Gucci HA HA HA range, but something wasn’t quite right. I ended up going for a white tux which was from Cad and The Dandy – my grandfather had bought quite a few suits from Savile Row back in the day, so I wanted to have that experience – having generally never needed to wear suits for work so it was an amazing experience to go through each phase of the process, from picking the materials and styles to getting measured up. The whole experienced was supported by one of my best men and on our final fitting the shop had closed and the tailored ordered some drinks in and we stayed their for a while – we’d got to know him pretty well by the 6th visit to the store.
CEREMONY & RECEPTION fforest, Cardigan, Wales, @fforest FLORIST We did the flowers ourselves PHOTOGRAPHER Hannah Miles, @hannahmaymiles VIDEOGRAPHER Matt Allen, @wildloveuk OFFICIANT George’s Godmother, Angela Warrener MAKEUP & HAIR Ausra Rusene, @ausra.makeup.hair BRIDAL DRESS Sarah Seven, @sarahseven BRIDESMAID DRESSES Bespoke Handmaid Cheongsam’s SUIT Bespoke by Cad & The Dandy, @cadandthedandy ACCESSORIES/VEIL Megan Therese, @megantheresecouture RINGS Bespoke by Kitty Joyas, @kittyjoyas SHOES Aldo, @aldo_shoes CAKE Homemade by my Nan, Godmother and friends
