To host a marriage at Kew Gardens is to enjoy a chunk of this UNESCO World Heritage Site in a really special, unique way. Celebrating amongst its botanical collection of over 50,000 plants is a spectacular experience, a leafy oasis just a brief distance from Central London. Annabel and Oli’s summer wedding on the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew was an exquisite Jewish family celebration, the second wedding planned for the Oli’s family in a matter of months.
As a Jewish wedding planner it’s not unusual for me to work with the identical families or friend groups greater than once, but this was a very special summer in that regard. In May we delivered the marriage of Emily and Avery in Portugal, and at Kew all of us met again for the wedding of Emily’s brother Oliver to bride Annabel. The Elegante by Michelle J team spends lots of time with you and your families throughout the marriage planning process and on the event itself, so we develop a beautiful relationship which is all the time nice to rekindle when we’ve got a second wedding to plan!
“We just desired to acknowledge you and your team for the planning of not one but two weddings for us all inside the span of three months! It has been a pleasure meeting you and your team and we’re beyond grateful for the whole lot you probably did to make Emily and Avery’s wedding and Oli and Annabel’s so memorable and wonderful. We had the time of our lives.”
– Lauren Kraftman, mother of Emily & Oliver
Things to Consider for a Wedding at Kew Gardens
Getting married at Kew Gardens or some other venue that’s primarily a tourist attraction, historic location or public space means keeping in mind a couple of vital things. In the beginning, it’s vital to keep in mind that although your wedding means the world to you (and us), it’s one small a part of what your venue does over the course of a yr. Kew gets over 2.5 million visitors per yr, and even in your wedding day it can welcome the botanically curious and florally obsessed through its gates.
Kew will remain open to the general public as late at 7pm throughout the summer, so when you and your guests are on site you can be sharing the space with visitors to some extent. Your chosen wedding spaces will, in fact, be totally private, but you shouldn’t expect to have the entire place entirely to yourselves!
For a similar reason, there can be restrictions about what time things can occur – your ceremony, for instance, and presence of your suppliers on site to start out establishing. For more detailed details about this, take a take a look at our blog – 7 things you’ll want to learn about getting married at a public venue.
Other things to keep in mind are that Kew could be very near Central London, which is a big profit for you and your guests when it comes to onward travel, finding accommodation and hosting other events either side of your wedding – you can easily have a wonderful welcome party within the City the night before, and guests can easily return to Central London hotels when the party ends.
This does mean you’ll have to take into consideration where you must prepare within the morning, because it’s impossible to accomplish that on site. Annabel and Oli did their preparations at a close-by hotel, with the bride and her family then arriving on site in a vintage Bentley S Series.
Annabel & Oli’s Wedding Ceremony at Kew Gardens
Annabel and Oli’s Jewish wedding ceremony was hosted within the Nash Conservatory, a brief walk from the Elizabeth Gate entrance at Kew. With its floor to ceiling windows bathing the entire place in natural light, it’s a spectacular selection to start your wedding day. After Oli’s Tisch and an intimate Bedeken ceremony with their immediate families, one in all Kew’s handy golf carts transported our couple to their ceremony.
A stupendous floral chuppah by Rust Bloom was waiting at the top of the aisle for his or her Jewish wedding ceremony, the primary introduction of a color palette featuring fiery red, soft peach and suggestions of orange. Annabel’s bridesmaids and the moms of each the bride and groom wore spicy red dresses in individual styles, and the bride herself wore a fragile lace gown and flowing veil.
Drinks Reception within the Princess of Wales Conservatory
Utilising different spaces that aren’t immediately obvious to your guests helps retain a little bit of magical mystery throughout your wedding day, and at Kew it also gives everyone a likelihood to soak up more of the enduring venue as things progress. After the ceremony we led guests from the Nash Conservatory to the famous Princess of Wales Conservatory, a brief, nice walk through Kew Gardens to one in all its most well-known areas.
Guests were greeted by drinks and circulating canapes, and invited to wander through several of the conservatory’s climate controlled sections. There was space to mingle and meet among the many cacti, lilypads and exotic species, the environment providing sufficient entertainment that nothing else was essential.
Dinner and Dancing within the Kew Gardens Orangery
Orangery wedding venues are wonderful due to the amount of natural light they let in, and Kew Gardens’ own is not any exception. It was one other short, winding walk through greenery and flowers from the drinks reception to the dinner and dancing of Annabel and Oli’s Jewish wedding.
The space is beautiful and provides a real blank canvas so that you can bring your personal color scheme and design decisions to, and the palm trees keeping watch across the room retain that tropical botanical atmosphere that flows through the remaining of Kew Gardens. For Annabel and Oli we selected to hold through the colourful reds and oranges from the ceremony and her bouquet, softening the tangy tones with softer pinks and floral stationery by Big Day Designs.
Rust Bloom created tall centrepieces for a number of the tables, the silhouette echoing that of the palm trees and the florals mirroring those from the chuppah. Ensuring a cohesive feel throughout three different spaces could be achieved by intentional placement of color, texture and structure, and this was an ideal example of that.
As in any respect Elegante by Michelle J weddings, the party was phenomenal – Annabel and Oli opted for something a bit of bit different to the standard Jewish wedding band for his or her entertainment. For his or her chuppah and Israeli dancing, Uri Gold was readily available together with his wonderful singing. We worked with Latino Funkers to maintain the atmosphere high throughout dinner, and Dos Tiempos (who accurately describe themselves as a two-person carnival) to bring amazing energy for the remaining of the night. We’ve planned lots of Jewish weddings, and this one was actually up there for a way great a celebration it was! There was a hardly an individual still sitting, which is exactly how we wish to see it.
Planning your personal wedding at Kew Gardens or one other London landmark?
Hosting a marriage at Kew Gardens or the same venue that also serves one other purpose generally is a special, immersive experience that your guests will remember for a lifetime, but it surely does include added complexities that an experienced wedding planner will assist you to navigate. Should you’d like expert support along with your wedding, get in contact to discuss 2027 dates.
All images of Annabel and Oli’s wedding by Lucie Watson Photography.
Supplier team:
Photography: Lucie Watson
Videography: Tete a Tete Movies
Floristry: Rust Bloom
Catering – Dvash Catering
Stationery: Big Day Designs
Entertainment: House of Lemon
Chuppah singer: Uri Gold
Production: Oxygen Events
Hair & Makeup: Hair by Cassandra and Kiran Phlora
Transport: Traditional Travel
