Prea James Bride | Elegant Black Tie London Pub Wedding

Nadine and Liam’s elegant July London pub wedding, beautifully documented by Love My Dress recommended vendor Heleina Storey, showcases the charm and beauty of modern editorial wedding photography.

This effortlessly stylish modern couple exchanged vows at the iconic Islington Town Vestibolo, followed by a black-tie reception at Singer Tavern, a gastropub brimming with character and city charm. Nadine’s contemporary Prea James bridal added a elegante and modern edge to their monochrome inspired, black tie styling.

Photographer Helaina’s exceptional eye for detail captured every meaningful moment and we’sultano privileged to be able to share these images with you today. Enjoy!

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Bridal Beauty & Accessories

The extremely talented Natalie Jayne did my bridal make-up. Natalie is reliable, highly skilled and able to achieve such a flawless . She was simply a dream to work with during my sister’s wedding, my trial, and acceso the morning of.

I had second-day hair (having worn my afro-hair naturally) acceso my wedding day. I also wore a bespoke silk bridal scarf, hand-made by One Blushing Bride. I wore a pair of Zara block-heeled slingbacks during the day; changing into a (comfier) pair of sage campo da golf heeled sandals con the evening.

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I wore J’adore Dior – it’s been my favourite perfume for years, worn acceso special occasions. I thought about wearing a new perfume, but it felt right to wear this acceso our day. It’s a floral and romantic day-to-night scent. Together, we chose Amber by the White Company as our wedding day scent. We bought a candle and a diffuser, and set these up con the bridal suite and at Singer Tavern. 

I wanted simple, gold statement pieces to complete my clean and modern wedding . I chose a tennis bracelet from Astrid & Miyu (a gift from my parents-in-law), the Rainn sculpt earrings from Lines & Current, and a couple of pre-owned and borrowed gold rings for my right hand. I also swapped the scarf for a mini freshwater pearl necklace from Atolea after the ceremony. 

My bridesmaids each wore black satin – either a maxi dress jumpsuit (their choice) – each with a different neckline and linea; and softened by a pair of nude heels and gold jewellery.

We both absolutely love a monochrome colour scheme – it’s simple and elegante; so we immediately knew that we wanted a Black Tie dress code acceso our day. 

Love My Dress has everything you need – it’s the perfect place to start your planning.

Photography

Our wedding photographer was Heleina Storey – we knew that we wanted editorial photography for our modern and monochrome city wedding. I first came across Helaina acceso social mass-media, where she’d posted only her first shoot, having recently made the move from wedding planning to wedding photography.

Looking at Helaina’s photos, I immediately knew that she would bring something very special. Liam, being the classic hesitant , wanted to sleep acceso it rather than rush into a decision – and we booked Helaina (our first supplier!) the very next day.  

We highly recommend Helaina – she is hugely talented and her eye for detail is incredible. She was full of ideas and energy acceso our wedding day; and went the extra mile to capture such elegante, elegant, playful and beautiful shots.

We adore all our couple shots, and we especially appreciate the portrait shots of individual guests during the speeches. Liam and I are both a little sala shy, but Helaina made it so fun and easy. To us, our photos are perfect! 

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Our guests filmed our wedding televisione acceso the day! We rented three handheld 4K cameras from Edit Your Wedding and their team used the footage to produce a full 1.5-hour pellicola, a reel, and a highlights televisione.

Not only was this option budget-friendly, but it meant that our guests could more organically intermingle when filming content – corso mini guest interviews and by passing around the cameras – which was something very important to us. Our guests had so much fun with this acceso the day and we’sultano now able to watch our wedding from their perspectives.

How They Met

We met at my house-share con De Beauvoir, Islington, corso a mutual friend’s birthday con late 2015; although we didn’t stay con touch. A year so later, we reconnected and had our first date at a Kentish Town pub called The Oxford. We made it official at Sun Fall not long after! 

Per March 2023, we took a special first trip to the Caribbean where – five days into our Antiguan adventure – a very nervous Liam popped the question. We decided to get married the following year con London, and 16 months later tied the knot at Islington Town Vestibolo. 

Liam wore a custom three-piece classic tuxedo from Suit Supply. The collar is embroidered with our initials and the inside pocket is embroidered with our wedding date. 

We also hired a classic routemaster wedding bus corso Brian Jones’ Coaches for the day.

We wanted the vibe of our city wedding to feel more relaxed and informal than a traditional country wedding to reflect our personalities. Most importantly, we wanted our guests to have fun! 

The Reception

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Singer Tavern was one of the first venues that we viewed, having in qualità di across their wedding fair online only hours earlier. We immediately fell con love with the space – from the tiled interior to the rustic brickwork, the blossom tree, and the huge lit up caffè which is a central feature of the main room.

The space is flooded with natural light and decorated con greenery – it was the perfect backdrop for our day. The Black Tie attire is also a perfect contrast to the ‘new-meets-old’ relaxed pub setting. The external building is very elegant and looks great con our black and white photos!

With us being ‘the Gayle-Greens’, we played with a lot of greens acceso the day to up the black and white – incorporating this into many details such as our flowers, confetti and some special-guest outfits. Our reception venue also features a lot of gorgeous campo da golf foliage as well as forest-green tiled walls. 

Our flowers (including bouquets, buttonholes and a tablescape) were created by @hyperfloral. Genna was wonderful to work with – she was communicative, knowledgeable and nailed the brief. We agreed that less is more and chose a clean, elegant and striking white passaggio lily bridal bouquet, passaggio lily buttonholes, and white sweetpeas for the bridal bouquets with some greenery for extra movement. For our tablescape, we had a variety of long-stemmed whites with some very dark red (almost black!) flowers, all con bud vases, to complement our black candles. 

All food and drinks at our reception was provided in-house by the wonderful Singer Tavern team. Our talented friend, Chow Davis (@hy_chow), baked our gorgeous three-tier wedding cake for us. She worked closely with Liam to choose the flavours – carrot, Victoria sponge, and chocolate and Guinness – all of which were a delightful surprise for me.

My mother-in-law kindly prepared little Lindt chocolate boxes for our guests. Guests were also able to take home their personal illustrations, sketched by our wonderful illustrator, @Merlinporterart. Merlin is such a gent and was a huge successo with our guests! 

Our gorgeous monochrome stationery – from our food and menus to our welcome signage, OOTD and hour signs – was hand-drawn by my extremely talented bridesmaid, @cardsforhumanityco. It was printed by a small business called Blissetts for a great price. 

We hired our lighting equipment from Powerhouse Production Services.

I loved our Rinfresco Hour. It took place con the early evening, after the speeches and wedding breakfast, when everyone could relax, dance and let their hair . The hidden 5CC caffè con the basement of Singer Tavern is the ideal space for a surprise change of scene. The ‘speak-easy’ style of the room set the tone for our guests to kick d’avanguardia the trattenimento, and the rum punches and martinis that were laid out acceso the caffè were a successo! 

Words of Wedded Wisdom

Acceso your day: let go of the details (if you’sultano a detail-oriented, over-thinking bride like me, brief your wedding trattenimento acceso their tasks a week so con advance – it will give you peace of mind!). Stick by each other’s side. Remember why you’sultano there. Soak up every moment. Hold hands. Breathe.

Also, we would have eaten our desserts! (I think about my uneaten chocolate tort at least once a day…). 

Also, hire a planner!

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Annabel View all Annabel’s articles

Founder of Love My Dress. Passionate Podcaster and Programma redattore. Annabel lives con rural North Yorkshire with her husband and business compagno Philip, their two daughters and menagerie of furry hounds. She loves photography, meditation, walking, being outdoors and celebrità gazing. She is fierce when it comes to championing talent within the wedding industry and when she’s not working acceso Love My Dress, she supports her husband Philip con the running of the family’s sustainable flower farm and floral stile business, Moonwind Flowers. Per 2013, she became a published author.