Retracing our London Wedding Day: 6th Year Anniversary

A few weeks ago, it was our 6th year wedding anniversary. You probably already know that I love celebrating everything. My birthday, Mr E’s birthday, our wedding anniversary, Valentine’s day, Christmas, EVERYTHING! I just think that life is so fickle and every milestone should be celebrated somehow. Not extravagantly all the time, just some sort of marking of the day. This year, I decided we were going to spend the day retracing our London Wedding Day!

We had this big 2 week Euro trip planned for our 6th wedding anniversary. We were going to start in Italy, head to Croatia and then tour a bit of the Balkans. However, no thanks to the pandemic, we had to postpone all that. In figuring out how to celebrate, I came up with the genius idea. Don’t I always? haha! 

I have referred to it as our “London Wedding Day” because we had a Nigerian wedding as well. You see, Nigerians have anywhere from 2 to 5 different wedding activities. A wedding usually entails different celebrations. I had a Registry Wedding in London and a Nigerian Traditional wedding in my village in Anambra state, Nigeria. Then we had our London Church Wedding, which was the most important to us as Christians. That was the date we chose to celebrate as our wedding anniversary every year. Even though I lowkey celebrate the other 2 as well. Why not?

It rained on my wedding day (what else is new in London? Lol). And guess what? It rained on our 6th anniversary too. I had checked the weather and it said cloudy but certainly no rain so imagine my shock when Sunday afternoon, 1pm, it was chucking down.

Church of St Francis of Assisi, Nottinghill

We drove to Notting Hill and everything just looked exactly as it did 6 years ago. Getting into Pottery lane, there is a pastel pink Instagrammable building, which welcomes you. I remember the first time we went to see the church; I knew it was my vibe from the minute I saw that building LOL. Anyway it was still there. As pastel pink and as Instagrammable as ever!

Church of St Francis of Assisi is at the end of Pottery Lane and is in the MOST STUNNING courtyard. In fact, Pottery lane is a street out of a typical Nottinghill dream magazine. From cottage-stoned constructions to cute courtyards to of course, pastel coloured buildings. Being there made us so nostalgic, we kept awww-ing and lamenting “how cute” every second.

Retracing our London Wedding Day was up to a good start when the sun suddenly started shining as we got to the church. The Church itself was closed because of course, pandemic! But it still felt lovely to just be there. I wish we could have gone in to light a candle but oh well, we shall retrace our wedding day again at some point in the future!

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Hilton Kensington

We actually chose our wedding reception space before our church. Once we had locked down our reception venue, we started looking for churches in the area. On the morning of our wedding day, we both got dressed at the hotel before making our way to church. Hilton Kensington is just a few minutes drive from the church. It’s within walking distance if you are not dressed in wedding frock and heels!

I actually think the hotel might have been open but we did not go in because we had no masks. So we just mooched around the front door, took some pictures and tried to recreate our wedding day shots lol.

Picnic Time: Party For 2!

What else can one do when everywhere is closed? That’s right! Have a picnic. Mr E and I always try to go to a new park each summer. So for this anniversary, we decided to check out Primrose Hill Park on the other side of Regent’s Park. The main reason was to finally see the London skyline everyone who had been to Primrose Hill Park raved about! It certainly did not disappoint.

I had my trusty Fortnum and Mason hamper, Mr E brought some champagne and we had the most beautiful picnic! The weather actually stayed nice for the rest of the afternoon except for a few times the wind was bellowing.

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Sentimental References

For each anniversary, I try to wear something from my wedding week. I say wedding week because I had my bridal shower, rehearsal evening and of course, wedding day all within a week! This year, for sentiment, I wore the swarovski bracelet which I wore on my wedding day. It’s one of my favourite pieces of jewellery so it had a special outing on the day.

Since we decided not to exchange material gifts this year, the UK traditional gifting guide for year 6 is sweets. I interpreted that as anything sweet so I contacted the lady who made our wedding cake 6 years ago. She has actually become our family baker since then and makes most of our celebratory cakes. She made us a replica of one tier of our wedding cake in red velvet, which is our favourite flavour. It was also the tier we took home after sharing the chocolate and vanilla flavours with our guests on the day. She actually made it for free and delivered it personally. How sweet?!

Retracing our London Wedding Day for our 6th year wedding anniversary was not the initial plan. However, if there is anything 2020 has taught us, it’s that plans can be disrupted anytime. It’s funny how such a simple act can bring you the most beautiful feeling. I’m sure that Italy and Croatia would have been unforgettable. Considering that Mr E and I love our romantic travels, I’m sure it would have been such a peak holiday. However, I’m thankful for health and life. Thankful that we were able to go back and relive our wedding day and still have a little romantic picnic.

Most importantly, I’m super thankful for my beautiful husband and for our love. I always feel like we are in this bubble, it’s just both of us and everyone else is outside. So no matter what we are doing and no matter where we are, as long as it’s me and him, we’ll always have the best time.

Bisous, ‘Bugo x