Dazzling art deco

Posted by Kelly Andrews on 18 July 2023

Rachael and Marc met more than a decade ago at a meet and greet with The Libertines’ drummer.

The two connected instantly, but they lived in different cities and sadly lost contact. However, four years later they ran into each other again by sheer chance and have never looked back.

Outside historic venue Rachael proposed outside The Royal Pavilion on 29th February, 2020 – leap year. "I was very nervous, and it was a windy, gloomy day, but the sun came out for the proposal," Rachael remembers.

The two of them both love the historical building that served as such an important backdrop for them, as well as its interiors. At the time though, they weren't aware they could get married there. As soon as they found out they wasted no time in booking their big day. When it came to finding a reception space, they were on the lookout for somewhere to accommodate a live band and chose The Grand Brighton. Another of the city's historical landmarks, it boasts a wealth of Art Deco features, which was the perfect fit for the couple's theme.

Here, the bride gives us the lowdown on their very special day...

I wore a Suzanne Neville dress. It was a bespoke gown combining two styles I love: the Carmella top and Eternity skirt. I wanted a simple, contemporary style and loved the hidden corset, which was so comfortable and made me feel really confident.

The groom wore a Jaeger suit with green velvet jacket that made him stand out from his groomsmen, who were all dressed in black tuxedos with black bow ties. I made their boutonnières using peacock feathers and gold Art Deco details

Bridesmaids The bridesmaids wore matching sage green dresses with gold accessories. We also had to match a bridesman suit to the dress, which was a challenge!

We hired a blue 1930s Rolls Royce convertible decorated with ivory ribbons and bows. It transported me and the bridesmaids to the Pavilion for the ceremony, then me and Marc to The Grand after we were married.

Our floral centrepieces were held by tall gold frames supplied by our florist.

For the place names, I purchased blank cards with gold trim and handwrote each name in an Art Deco-style script for a personal touch. As wedding favours, we gave our guests personalised seed ball boxes to help the bees.

Marc is a bass player and his band, Guilt Coins, performed at our wedding. After the first dance, he got up on stage and played with them.

Best men's speech The groomsmen are all members of the band and their best men's speech featured a top ten hits play-on-words of some of their favourite songs, including Marc Life! The guests were in stitches.

Our tables were going to be numbered, so we bought some stickers and applied them to green wine bottles. We then sprayed the necks gold and filled with fairylights.

The cake was perfect. We met with Bunston Bakes six months prior to the wedding to discuss the design and flavours. We ended up going for a four-tier vegan bake with three flavours including Biscoff, lemon and chocolate.

Couple cuddling Charlotte at The Grand helped us last minute with a vendor cancellation for the photo booth, sourcing another one for us only a few days before the wedding. The day wouldn't have been the same without it. Superstar!