After getting engaged on a road trip to Scotland, Sara El Dabi and Oskar Proctor journeyed to Florence to find a period engagement ring befitting the creative strategist bride’s style. The famous Ponte Vecchio delivered. Nestled near the bridge, the pair found antique jeweller Bernardo Antichità; inside the quaint store sat the late Georgian sapphire treasure they would take home following a trip brimming with Botticelli and Barolo.
There was never any doubt the couple would host the reception at Sweetings, London’s oldest fish and oyster restaurant that basically insists you follow up its dressed crab with a jam roll or steamed sponge. Photographer Oskar had shot the beloved, no-frills bar for previously and became close to the staff, who treated the newlyweds and their 100 guests to rounds of fish, chips and mushy peas. “It felt like a home away from home,” asserts Sara, who employed ice buckets as vases for her friend Zahra Suzanne’s garden roses and loved the fact the restaurant served black velvet cocktails in pewter tankards.
Upon collecting his future wife from The Ned, where the bride did her own hair but enlisted the help of Maha Alselami for her make-up, the couple took a black cab to Ironmongers’ Hall near the Barbican for a short and simple service. As they hid in the annex waiting for family to arrive, Oskar’s reaction to Sara’s wedding gown, inspired by a favourite dress that once belonged to her mother, was priceless. “My mum saw this fairyt.