LGBTQ+ Wedding Celebrant at the Mildmay Club, Stoke Newington: Gemma and Carla's Disco Wedding

The Mildmay Club in Stoke Newington is one of those places that looks fairly unassuming from the street and then opens up into stained glass, wood panelling, patterned carpets and a stage built for exactly the kind of night Gemma and Carla had in mind. It's a proper working men's club with history, and more recently it's become a bit of a scene stealer, it's where Taylor Swift filmed the dance off scene for her Opalite video, and where Lily Allen and Netflix's Baby Reindeer have shot before too.

Retro, a little glamorous, completely unpretentious. For a queer, disco themed wedding, it was pretty much perfect.

luxury wedding London - Gemma and Carla

Gemma and Carla wanted a ceremony that actually sounded like them, as an LGBTQ+ couple building a day around who they genuinely are rather than any traditional template, and what was meant to be a quick thirty minute meet and greet turned into over an hour of banter and daydreaming about what their day could look like. That's usually a good sign. The two of them love nothing more than roasting each other, but they also wanted proper space in the ceremony for saying, plainly and sincerely, how they actually feel about one another. Those two things don't always sit easily side by side, but that tension is exactly what makes a ceremony feel real rather than generic, and getting both into the same room without one undercutting the other was the actual job.

We spent our first proper session together on Zoom, followed by meeting in person to get the full story of the two of them, and by the time I sent over the first draft of the script, every detail they'd shared had made it in. Wedding planning has a habit of being stressful in every other direction, and the ceremony being one thing neither of them had to worry about was very much the point.

On the day, the room did exactly what a good ceremony room should do, people laughed, a fair few of them cried, and by all accounts everyone was still talking about it long after the last song played.

Brides in London

Here's some of what Gemma and Carla said afterwards. Gemma: "Kathryn is, as the Irish say, some woman for one woman!" She described the whole process as full of humour, empathy and what she called proper Irish charm, and said it became the most memorable ceremony she's ever seen, made all the sweeter for being her own. Carla put it simply: every single person she's spoken to since has commented on how amazing and memorable the ceremony was, and that having Kathryn in charge of it meant it was the one part of the day she genuinely never had to worry about.

Disco themed wedding in london with celebrant Kathryn B Wilson

Retro club, disco lighting, big love, bigger laughs. If you're planning an LGBTQ+ wedding and want a ceremony that actually sounds like the two of you, wherever your venue turns out to be, drop me a message and let's start daydreaming about yours too.