Alice + George at Battersea Park | July 2025
“...she gave us immaculate vibes, unbelievable advice and oodles of support.”
I was looking forward to this one (or hoping, first, to get the job!) since the minute I spoke to Alice and George and they explained their plan to marry on the bandstand in Battersea Park.
The bandstand in Battersea Park!
How iconic.
Fits right in with my need to make everything in life feel like a film.
Alice and George are such a cool, young London couple (he plays for a non-league south-of-the-river football team, she schmoozes with the best of the BBC in her radio job), and the vibe they wanted was a laid-back, authentically London wedding.
On the day London really was the other main character; a bit like in Sex and the City where there are continual references to New York City being the fifth friend in the posse.
Photos by my friend (and incredible pro) Joanna Nicole Photography
And the place the bride and groom (and their gang of friends) got ready was a newly iconic London location: the nearby art’otel Battersea, one of the coolest hotels I’ve ever stepped foot in, complete with rooftop (pool!) views over south west London.
When I arrived at Battersea Park I helped set out the chairs, and I was already sweatin’. It was a gloriously hot summer’s day, but when it’s an al fresco wedding heat is better than wind or rain!
Guests, arriving in gorgeous colours, chatted with a welcome drink in one hand and a fluttering paper or mechanical fan in the other.
I was delighted to be working - at last! - with the wedding photographer, Jo, someone I’d befriended years before, before I became a celebrant, at my friend’s wedding in France.
And Alice and George’s day was no less warm than that French August wedding. Battersea Park was ALIVE with the heat and the cawing birds, the dogs and the dawdlers, the tourists and the commuters, the joggers and the buggies, the Friday morning fitness classes…and a snaking line of giggling school children on an outing who couldn’t believe their eyes.
Oh and one big fat bin lorry.
Just before we were about to welcome the bridal party, I spotted the refuse truck inching towards us at the bandstand, down the long tree-lined avenue, stopping. at. every. bin. The timing was hilariously bad, and the guests and the groom were laughing along with me, nervously. But it rolled away just as the bridesmaids took their positions.
I don't often use a microphone for weddings, preferring to GCSE drama projecttt, but on this particular occasion I was competing with the entirety of SW11 and it felt necessary. The problem was the Park’s sound system kept cutting out, and I worked out the only way I could prevent it from going on-off-on-off was if I stood pretty much stock still in one spot. So I couldn’t do my usual get-out-of-the-way-for-the-first-kiss and that felt strange.
In the ceremony a friend of the couple read Donna Ashworth’s Joy Chose You, and Alice’s sister read a poem by their late Grandad Morris about the Scottish village of Durness, somewhere the bride and groom had holidayed and loved. It was a really special, moving moment - having words read that had been penned by the bride’s beloved grandad.
There were pops of zesty orange and red laced throughout the aesthetics, and not just Alice’s luscious hair. Her shoes were a glorious orange, the flowers (by Bramble & Willow) were a fruit salad mix of tones…and then a little ruby ladybird landed on the bride and groom during the ceremony. I mean, we were in a park but…still. How cool! In many cultures that’s a sign of good luck so we’ll culturally appropriate whichever cultures that is, thank you.
I, myself, am not cool enough to know this quote without having been directed to it, but we summed up the ceremony with a line from singer-songwriter Self Esteem:
“...getting married isn’t the biggest day of your life, all the days that you get to have are big”.
And THAT is Alice and George. The things they told me about each other, about their life together, were full of exclamation marks, full of evidence that they carpe every damn diem. All the days they get to have together, loving London, loving each other, loving life, will be big. And zesty. And no figurative bin lorries will ever halt their fun.
“Everybody was saying how incredible you were and they’d never been to a ceremony like it. It was so beautiful and special, we can’t thank you enough.”