Charlotte and Dong Chen’s Wedding

Charlotte and Dong Chen’s wedding took place on  Wednesday 31st August 2017. It was a beautiful, joyous occasion, filled with family, friends, community, 2 people very much in love, laughter, bright colours, lots of children  and so many special touches in Morden Hall, in South West London.

The bright colourful flower arrangements, inspired by Icelandic rainbows, were gorgeous and bright throughout the elegant,  18th century country house, set in National Trust parkland.

All the flowers were arranged by one of  the bride’s relatives who is a florist who works for Courts of Rayleigh.

A beautiful arch with ribbon details in the ceremony venue created a lovely focal point.  Colourful ribbon details were also part of the floral decor, part of the theme of the wedding which was inspired by Icelandic rainbows. 

It was the first time I was photographing a wedding as the official photographer.  So, I asked a very experienced wedding photographer friend, Ian Thomas from Dawn Creations  to assist me as the second shooter.  He did an amazing job!

Photo credit: Ian Thomas

The whole wedding was testament to the beautiful team these 2 are their love for the Lord, family and community.

Charlotte’s hair was styled by Lara Hobson, a friend from her church

Make-up by Melonie Mazibuko, a friend from her church.

The 2 bridesmaids’ dresses were by Ted Baker and the cakes were baked by family and friends.

In place of a traditional wedding cake, the couple served gorgeous colourful macaroons  and cake with coffee, before the wedding ceremony.  The macaroons matched the rainbow colour scheme  and were made by a good friend of the bride, Sian White.

There were 11 children as part of the wedding party.  The girls wore bright multi-coloured tuille skirts over white cotton leotards and carried in multi-coloured helium balloons ahead of the bride.

The page boys greeted guests as they entered the ceremony venue, handing out programmes and tissues! They were dressed in navy suits, white shirts, brown shoes and colourful bowties.

This beautiful couple met as students and both attended church together  but it was not until 7 years later that they started falling in love.

Dong recounted in his wedding speech how Charlotte’s beauty had captured his attention in church and he’d been drawn to her love for the Lord as she sang in the front leading worship at church and they’d started dating.  When their church went  on mission to Malawi in September and October 2016, these two, Charlotte’s parents and a few others were part of the team. It was beside a lake in Malawi that Dong plucked up the courage to tell Charlotte he was in love with her and she confessed she  was in love with him too.  They talked about marriage, hopes and dreams but left it there.  Unbeknown to Charlotte, it was on this trip that Dong asked her dad for his blessing in asking his daughter to marry him.  Charlotte’s parents who were also on the mission trip were delighted and gladly gave him their blessing.  Once back in London, Dong proposed to Charlotte and she joyfully said yes!  They announced their engagement on Dong’s 30th birthday.

Charlotte’s ring was designed by Dong based on a verse from teh bible that’s special to them both and is made from rose gold.  His was designed to match hers.

Their love for the Lord is inspiring and infectious, their heart for building community was testament in the community of friends, family, colleagues and church family who surrounded them to witness their day of making a covenant to one another.  Charlotte comes from a big family of older brothers with lots of nieces and nephews and she loves children dearly.  My children have loved being taught by her in children’s church over the years and always have so much fun in her lessons taught with a huge smile!  It was a lovely  idea having chalk boards with 1 Corinthians 13:4–8a up the aisle and  such a lovely touch as the bride is a teacher.

Their wedding was so lovely and I loved the chalkboards – in true style of a teacher.

I loved going to weddings as a child and was so touched that my children were invited too.  (They were most disappointed that they couldn’t stay for the whole wedding but as I had our car and my husband’s journey home with them on public transport took 2 hours, that wouldn’t have worked out too well.) And did I mention that my daughter was at the wedding with a broken? Spending most of the weekend in hospital with practically no sleep wasn’t how I’d envisaged the final preparations before photographing my first wedding. But here we are, all still standing!

There was even an ice-cream stand provided by Galloping Gourmet! After the children had had theirs, they all headed upstairs where they and a few of the parents were entertained by  reptile handling hosted by  Zoolab

Always stay hydrated on your wedding day!