The Capston Second

Just wanted to thank you again for your help on our wedding day. The day couldn’t have gone better, the venue looked great, and everything went really smoothly. We had a great day, and enjoyed every moment of it. Thank you, Alexey & Sabrina

Knowing that Rachel was around to trouble-shoot and organise our wedding on the day helped us and our family relax and enjoy it. She did so much to make sure everything went smoothly, from liaising with deliveries and staff to helping set up the hall and so on. She was hands-on and met with us several times beforehand to allay any worries we had. We had a few problems on the day and we don’t know how we would have dealt with them without Rachel! She’s very friendly, reassuring, and works well in stressful situations. We’d definitely recommend her to anyone looking for help on their wedding day.

When my husband and I fell in love with a dry hire venue, we knew we’d need a helping hand to pull off our dream day. We’re a pretty alternative couple, so it was important for us to find someone to work with that got our vision and took it seriously; our colour scheme was ‘black lace’ and we jokingly referred to our mood-board aesthetic as ‘Edgar Allen Poe’s bicycle repair shop’. From the get go, we knew we’d met the perfect planner in Rachel, who never flinched, no matter how eccentric the request! From finding a florist to make chandeliers using our old bike wheels, to sourcing taxidermy crows and tracking down skull candle makers, Rachel took care of everything with a calm and reassuring manner. Magically, we stopped feeling stressed and actually started to enjoy the wedding planning! On the day, Rachel dressed the venue for us and it took our breath away - it was everything we had imagined and more, and was absolutely stunning. She coordinated our suppliers to ensure the day ran smoothly, liaising with the caterers, furniture suppliers and band so we and our guests could relax and enjoy the day. I honestly couldn’t recommend the Capston Second highly enough!

I’m a very organised person so when I got engaged I knew that I would be able to plan my wedding with very little help from anyone. We loved the warehouse feel, an empty shell to have whatever we wanted, and the view of the Millennium Dome at Trinity Buoy Wharf. However, the price to pay of having whatever we wanted was far more planning and organisation and it would be down to us (me) to source everything down to the cutlery! Soon after booking the venue I knew that we were going to need some ‘on the day’ help. As much as I knew I could plan everything on the lead up to our big day, I knew that I didn’t want any involvement during the day and wanted to enjoy my wedding day as a guest would. Therefore I started my search for an ‘On the day planner’ and came across a recommendation for the Capston Second, which led to an initial meeting with Rachel. I remember approaching the coffee shop in Angel with Mark and saying that all I require is someone that will understand the importance of little details and someone who is competent and confident in bringing all the suppliers together. As soon as I met Rachel I knew she was the right planner for us, she understood that the importance of the detail and got excited when hearing all our plans. Throughout the next year I worked hard with the planning of our wedding, but Rachel was always an email away to ask for any advice. I had a concerning moment when our furniture hire company and caterers refused to move our chairs from our ceremony room to reception room but Rachel was on hand to offer advice and to arrange additional labour to help with the chair move. As our wedding approached, I met Rachel again to hand over my ‘bible’ of plans, layouts, timings and logistics, which she loved, understood and was happy to listen to all of my little details. I can be quite anal with my organisation! On the day, Rachel was first to arrive at the venue and to meet Mark. Mark said that she was incredibly helpful and on the ball with the set up and what he thought was going to be a stressful few hours for him became very enjoyable as Rachel took control. As I arrived everything looked exactly as I planned and Rachel had listened to all of my requests. Rachel was the backbone holding our wedding together on the day, to ensure all of the suppliers were keeping to their agreed contract. As Mark and I enjoyed our wedding day, we weren’t disturbed by any issues or problems as Rachel had everything under control. As the party finished at 1am and the guests left, Rachel was there to tidy up any remaining decorations and to ensure furniture was picked up by the hire companies as we had to have the whole venue cleared by 5am. Rachel packed up our van with all remaining items and ensured our gifts were safe. We couldn't have had the day we planned without Rachel, I would recommend anyone for her services. She made our Wedding perfect for us.

Organising a wedding in a dry hire venue meant that there was no way that we could manage our own wedding on the actual wedding day. We needed someone who would be able to execute our vision and run our day just as we had envisaged. We found Rachel, who already knew our wedding venue, and was fantastic. It is probably not enough of a compliment to call her a safe pair of hands because she is so much more! We had a very specific, and at times complicated, vision of how we wanted the venue to look. Anyone else might have said it wouldn’t be possible, but not Rachel, who took it all in her stride and assured us that she would be able to make it happen. And make it happen did she! When we both saw the venue we were blown away. Rachel was wonderfully calming, conscientious, readily available and accommodating addition to making our wedding as brilliant as it was. We highly recommend her to anyone who wants their vision to be realised and to manage the set up and running of the wedding on the day. It all went without a hitch. Thank you Rachel.

Having already been engaged for some nine months without making any meaningful progress towards getting married, we employed The Capston Second to help us get things moving, and I can say without the slightest fear of exaggeration that without the tireless, patient and meticulous help of Rachel the eventual wedding would have been a dismal failure, if it happened at all. She took a brief which was nebulous at best and chivvied, encouraged and at times downright forced it into what turned into the most spectacularly personal and beautiful day we could have imagined. We were driven around the Hertfordshire countryside to look at suitable venues when we thought that’s what we wanted, and then around London venues without any complaint when we changed our minds; we were hand-held through a labyrinth of paperwork which would certainly have defeated us if left to our own devices; and we received expert advice and feedback on all of our ideas and queries, from the very basic to the minutely detailed. It was utterly invaluable to us to have the project in the hands of someone so friendly and competent, and never more so than on the day itself, when the many moving parts needed deft handling. Rachel orchestrated the movements of the guests and contractors calmly and discreetly, leaving us with exactly what we wanted: the freedom to devote ourselves to the enjoyment of a wedding which went without a hitch.