Best laid plans

Posted by Sarah Gallivan on 26 May 2023

Yasmin and William met on Twitter in 2014. “We spoke for a year before William finally decided to visit me in London,” says Yasmin.

“We spent the most amazing weekend together. Following that, we met five more times before William decided to move to London and the rest is history,” she says.

Couple on stairs A few years later William pulled out all the stops for his romantic proposal. "We'd planned an anniversary meal at The Shard and had gone up to the rooftop. There were other people around, so I had no idea what was coming," she says. "Then a gentleman started telling us about all the sights that you could see across London, and I thought he was just bored with his shift, so we spoke for a while," she adds. Little did she know, he was distracting her whilst they set up. "We got led to the lift as I was told it was closed. The lift doors opened and there were candles, roses, a photographer, and William got down on one knee. He was shaking so much he almost put the ring on the wrong finger," she says.

They were due to tie the knot in Scotland, where William's from, in November 2020, but Covid changed those plans. "Instead, we had a smaller civil ceremony in Watford where we live with six of our nearest and dearest followed by a low key family dinner and planned the larger celebration for July 2021," Yasmin explains. "I then found out that I was pregnant, so we postponed again. Our son was born in September 2021, and we finally got our day in July 2022! We've got so many anniversaries now we're not sure which one to celebrate!"

Here Yasmin tells us more about their day...

I got my dress in early 2020, before we had our baby. It was the tenth dress I put on and I knew it was the one because I burst into tears.

I wore diamond jewellery and added the finishing touch to my shoes to give them the extra wow.

William looked handsome in a tux with Louis Vuitton bow tie and cufflinks.

Our groomsmen all wore three-piece suits also with Louis Vuitton bow ties to complement William's look.

Bridesmaids Our bridesmaids wore Victoria Bridal self-tie dresses in sage green. Having bridesmaids of all different shapes and ages meant these were perfect as they all wore them differently and felt great in them.

The Gherkin is William’s favourite venue in London, and it overlooks
The Shard, which is my favourite and where William proposed so choosing that for our venue felt perfect.

My nieces and nephews were our page boys and flower girls. It was a lovely way to get them involved in the day and they all did so well.

For our favours, we gifted guests with mini packs of mints and my niece made some cute sage green heart cookies. She's an amazing baker and family is so important to me, so I loved that she was involved.

We wrote our own vows and William got choked up during his, which was really sweet. We created our own vows books and they looked great.

I bought each of my bridesmaids a personalised Katie Loxton bag as a thank you gift. They all loved them.

The transparant card box fitted in perfectly with the rest of the decor as it was unassuming and understated.

I loved our table plan design. The sage green and contemporary style really suited the look of our day.

We lined our aisle with gorgeous neutral flower arrangements, petals and lanterns. It looked beautiful.

Floral displays We had the most stunning floral displays dotted throughout the venue, it all came together to create a gorgeous backdrop.

For our centrepieces we had vases filled with a variety of green, white and cream flowers. They looked so classy against the white tablecloths, transparent chairs and touches of silver.

I loved my bouquet. It was exactly the style that I had imagined and with it being neutral in colour, it suited the look of my dress.

My niece made our cake and did such a wonderful job! It was a seminaked vanilla sponge with a topper representing us as a family.

We really wanted to be sat with our guests, rather than on a top table. We loved being in the middle of it all.

We had a harpist playing at the ceremony. It created a really calming romantic atmosphere.

The ice cream bar went down a storm with our guests and it looked great!

The speeches were hilarious. William's best man, Fraser, really put the effort in with his best man kit and embarrassing pictures and stories.

For something a bit different, we chose Dhol drummers to get the party started. They were a huge hit and it bought some of my Indian roots into the day. Later on a saxophonist played along with a DJ.

Family When picturing my wedding since being a little girl I never imagined being able to share it with our baby, it just felt so special. I love that he's in our pictures and part of our first dance.