Alex and Alyssa’s beautiful and thoughtfully considered August 2023 wedding was held at the Four Seasons Hampshire hotel in South East England.
Alex works in commercial property and Alyssa is a food stylist, food writer and recipe developer so cuisine and location was always going to be important for this stylish couple. To help them deliver their vision, they hired the services of wedding planner Ella Hartig, who pulled together a talented team of creative suppliers
This was a weekend wedding characterised by pure effortless elegance and a heartfelt desire by the couple to ensure every one of their guests had the most beautiful, fun and enjoyable time creating memories. The couple love hosting dinner parties and wanted their guests to feel like they were experiencing just that – a home away from home, filled with good people, food, fun, comfort, luxury and an escape to the beautiful landscape of the English countryside.
Photographer David Christopher has captured that sentiment beautifully in these images. Enjoy!
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I grew up American but also hold Canadian citizenship. Alex grew up in Canada which is where we met. Our wedding weekend kicked off on Friday with a barbecue style evening in the garden of a traditional countryside English pub, The Hoddington Arms in Hampshire, United Kingdom.
We hosted our wedding ceremony and reception the next day, at the Four Seasons Hampshire. I grew up in the Colorado, Alex grew up in Montreal, we met at The University of Western Ontario and moved to London together six years ago. Because of this, we have family and friends around the world and we felt the most natural place to conduct our nuptials was in the place we currently call home.
We knew that over 80 percent of our guests would be traveling by airplane to attend our wedding and it was important to us that our venue was within about one hour of London’s international airports. We also wanted our venue to be able to accommodate all of our guests so that everyone could have a home base and get to know each other throughout the weekend.
After considering over 40 venues, the Four Seasons Hampshire being the first, and we couldn’t stop dreaming about the gorgeous gardens, apple tree filled orchard, and elegant yet homely feel the property emanated. From archery, tennis and clay pigeon shooting to lounging by the outdoor pool, we loved the idea of all of our guests participating in these actives and creating memories together. It was also a bonus as we are both Canadian, to celebrate our wedding at a Canadian hotel brand, set within the beautifully quaint countryside of the place we now call home.
To continue a homely feel for the weekend, we hosted a relaxed brunch for our guests on Sunday morning at the Four Seasons with the intention that everyone could head downstairs in their slippers and reminisce with us officially as Mr. and Mrs!
I designed my outfit for our rehearsal and welcome event and worked with Young British Designers, Sophie Pittom and Nikki Huston to create it. The lace bodice was hand sewn using Sophie Hallette lace which came from the ends of the reams of fabric from the Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton’s wedding dress that had been gifted to Sophie and the Young British Designers organisation. We added a hand stitched blue flower into the lace, a technique Sophie has made a name for herself in, on the back of the bodice which mirrored the position of my heart.
Working with Sophie and Nikki was incredibly special. They are both creative and talented and I was grateful they were able to bring my vision of a design to life to flawlessly.
Bridal Beauty & Accessories
Hair and makeup was styled by artist Lauren Irwin. I had my nails painted in the ‘She said Yes!’ shade – a colour I’d first spotted in a nail salon when living in New York City and saved for my Big Day.
I chose Manolo Blahnik’s Nadira style for my shoes, because I loved the way the asymmetrical embellishment both mirrored and complimented the one shoulder design of my dress.
Scent was an incredibly big part of wedding and it was important to me to have sensory experiences throughout our wedding weekend. For our wedding day I wore Diptyque’s Orphéon Eau de perfum.
I have always loved the Dyptique brand and this scent spoke to me for my wedding day the moment I smelled it. I love its warm masculine notes of tonka bean and cedar that are balanced by a feminine light sweetness of juniper berry.
I handmade and painted my veil with the same scroll border design our wonderful stationer, Brigitte Vitali had made for our wedding invitations.
For jewellery I borrowed David Yurman pearl studs in a diamond setting from my sister and wore a vintage diamond tennis bracelet which was a wedding and 30th birthday gift from Alex, via McKenna & Co.
Bridesmaids
My inspiration for the bridesmaids dresses was a pastel watercolour painting that displayed both geometric and floral pattern. I wanted all of the girls to be in a mix of colours and dress cuts. Our wedding colours were periwinkle, pink and yellow and two girls wore each colour. The yellow dresses were from MacDuggal the periwinkle and pink were from JessaKae.
I was a debutante in Denver, Colorado where I grew up. During this special occasion, I carried a ‘Tussie Mussie’ for my flowers. To incorporate this experience from my youth, each bridesmaid each carried an antique Tussie Mussie as their floral bouquet, which I sourced from around the world.
A First Look
I was so excited to see Alex on our wedding day! We did a ‘First Look’, so we could take most of our photos before the ceremony which would allow for us to be able to enjoy our cocktail reception!
I also loved seeing all of the small details at this time; I had been dreaming of like the florals in the tussie mussie’s for all of my bridesmaids, our special candles flickering with their unique crackling wick and of course the coupe glasses.
We worked with McQueens Flowers. With my career as a Food Stylist, the beauty of food and ingredients is very important to me and I wanted to incorporate both flowers and other vegetation into our designs for the day.
For our ceremony we included cavolo nero kale, artichoke, cabbage and brassicas as well as the flowers British garden roses, alyssum, lavender, chrysanthemum, and taller stems of delphinium, gladioli and allium to frame us.
For bouquets, I chose flowering artichokes, blousy roses, sweet peas, butterfly ranunculus, delphinium, snapdragon, lavender and sweet alyssum.
I do not have a traditional family dynamic, so instead of walking down the aisle, where all of the guests must usually turn around to see the bride, I entered the ceremony from the opposite side of the garden and danced ‘up’ the aisle, facing towards all of the guests.
My sister danced with me as she held my dress train, Kate and Pippa style. We met Alex half way up the walk way and the he and I completed the walk up the aisle facing all of our guests together.
Photography
Our photographer was David Christopher. After interviewing three other photographers, we fell in love with David’s work and his editorial, non-traditional wedding photography style.
His images are like flipping through the pages of a glossy fashion magazine and we loved the way he effortlessly captured both people and ambiance.
David was high energy and a blast to work with from day one. He was gracious with our needs to rearrange our wedding date, due to the pandemic, and thoughtful with my detail oriented approach to capturing our day.
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How They Met
We met at Western University during the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority new member welcome party hosted by Alex’s fraternity, Pi Kappa Alpha. I was celebrating my new membership in the organisation and our paths crossed during the evening. We both remember introducing ourselves that night and spending a good portion of the evening chatting about everything from sailing to growing up in Montreal and Colorado, and what made us choose Western. Unbeknownst to Alex, it was during this conversation that I said to myself, ‘Alright, that’s it! He is THE ONE’ – without exactly knowing why!
Alex was in his fourth year and I was in my fiarst, and our friend groups had minimal overlap outside of these sorority and fraternity parties. It wasn’t until April the following spring when I would send a tweet that would alter the course of our relationship; I had just been offered an Au Pair position in Quebec and wanted Alex’s advice on living and staying there. Since I didn’t have Alex’s phone number and I didn’t have a Facebook account, I resorted to tweeting him.
Evening & Dancing
For our first dance we chose ‘Better Together’, by Jack Johnson. ‘It’s better together’ has been something we have said to each other since we started dating. When it came to choosing a song for this part of our day, it was the obvious tune!
We hired the Star Club Band and harpist Rachel Horton Kitchlew to entertain our guests.
During the dancing portion of the evening, instead of a bouquet toss, I performed an alternative ceremony where I welcomed each female guest, single or married, to hold a ribbon attached to a bouquet I held and danced in a circle with me.
With my eyes closed, I released ribbons one by one and the women holding the last remaining ribbon was passed on the bridal flowers.
Words of Wedded Wisdom
The day before we left to drive out Hampshire, I made the decision to have a backup dress that was short incase I felt my dress from the day was restricting my moves on the dance floor. I ordered from Miss Selfridge, to arrive the next morning before we left, a thin strap white silk dress with ostrich feather detail along the bottom that fell just above my knee.
It ended up making its debut for the last hour of the night and I was so glad to have it for that ‘just in case’ moment.
When I look back on our day, I am so happy we celebrated the evening before with all of our family and friends. This day that had all the excitement of the wedding in a relaxed atmosphere is something we will cherish forever and the memories of fun we had dancing on the top deck of the red double decker will stay with me for a lifetime.
On our wedding day we are so glad we wrote our own vows, stayed the whole night on the dance floor and stood up on a table and danced as hubby and wife. I love thinking back on getting up on the stage and singing my heart out with my sister, stopping at each moment and soaking in the joys of what was happening around us with our favourite people.
There will be things on the day that do not go as planned and not everything is in your control but it will still be perfect and no one will even notice. Just soak it all in and have the best time!
