Asian Wedding at the Hilton London Paddington

How did your Wedding Go?

Last year I Shot my first Asian wedding at The Hilton Hotel in Paddington London. I absolutely loved it. It was a long day but the venue was amazing.

What is the worst thing that could happen on your wedding day? Apart from the bride or groom not showing up?

The Start of the day

The Wedding was being held in West London and travelling from Essex generally takes about 1 hour 20 minutes. I traveled up early as i do with all weddings to ensure allowance for traffic. 

I arrived at the Hotel approx. 1 hour before I needed to and I met the bride as she was leaving for her hair appointment. She walked off in one direction then 10 mins later she walked back past to go into the train station as there were not taxis.

Getting Ready

This made her 30 minutes late to start off with. Her makeup artist was supposed to be at the venue around 5pm. The bride got back to the hotel at 5.30pm, There was no sign of the makeup artist. The makeup artist finally turned up at 6.15pm, the bride did not seem to be to bothered about this.

I had also been warned at the Mendi party that Asian weddings never start on time.

The wedding was to start at 7pm. Now most of you know makeup can take between 40-60 minutes to do and yes as you may have guest this makeup took 60 minutes.

The Dress

Once the makeup was completed the bride stepped into this amazing bright red dress with amazing detail on it. As she was doing the zip up we heard a funny noise, the zip had popped apart, the dress was not too tight before you think that however the zip was faulty, so the brides best friend and myself tried to get the zip back onto its tracks, this was making the bride panic, so we got her out removed her away from the dress so we could try to sort it at. This was not working.

Looking for the Fix

I left the room to go to housekeeping to see if they had someone in the hotel to fix the dress, they told me no. Then I went to one shop to get safety pins they didn’t have any, So then I went into the station where there was a boots and bought a pack.

I finally went back to the room and the brides best friend and dress had gone, she had gone off to see if there was a dry cleaner shop nearby who may be able to fix it.

The Bride was still very calm which I was surprised about. The best friend called me, she was panicking like mad. I told her to bring the dress back and we wold fix it with safety pins.

She arrived back and then there was a knock on the door we answered it and it was a maintenance man standing there with a screw driver in his hand. When we had spoken to the front desk they thought we had said a dresser was broke and sent someone to fix a cabinet.

Anyway, the brides mum and aunt turned up to the room and helped at with fixing the dress. At the time all the guests were waiting and it was now around 7.30 so the wedding was 30 mins late.

The Big Reveal

Once the bride was dressed and all hair and makeup was complete they done the big reveal, She looked stunning. At this point was when she decided that she needed to paint her nails, this was mainly to do with she had worn a green dress for the Mendi party and her nails were matching, but now with the red dress this needed to change. She finished painting and then it was time to go out and see the guests.

Now it was around 8-8.30 pm, but none of the guests seemed to be upset or unsettled and the lady I had seen at the Mehdi party that told me weddings were always late just smiled and said “I told you”.

Always a helping hand

This isn’t the first time I have helped brides there have been many of other occasions. I have done bridesmaids hair, helped brides get into their dresses and tied them up as no one there knew how to do it. Also helping Grooms and the Groomsmen tie cravats as they were unaware how to tie them. I have never had to do bridges makeup yet….. but never say never there may be a first still to happen.

I would love to shoot another Asian Wedding at the Hilton London Paddington.

For information on my Stunning Wedding Photography package please click here