With London’s unpredictable summer still serving us multiple seasons in a day, we decided to lean in a moodier (read, rainier) direction with the aesthetic, and held our wedding drinks downstairs in the Cadogan’s atmospheric Rose Room. Our florist Lex Hamilton arranged gothic black calla lilies and plummy hydrangeas to festoon the fireplace, and piled up stainless steel coupes loaded with shiny cherries beside flickering pillar candles. Between the three-tiered Lily Vanilli heart cake finished with more glacé cherries, and my darkest plum nails painted in Biosculpture’s Erica, we swerved any pastel summer wedding clichés.
The pub opened its doors early for us and our band—a fiddle and guitar duo playing Irish classics and Johnny Cash—had the party cresting before midday. It was quite a shock to step outside again a couple of hours later and realize that the sun had, in fact, come out for us. So, not quite as moody as predicted, but after a few flutes of English sparkling, the weather was irrelevant – and luckily I could strip down to my waistcoat.
If this all sounds too seamless to be true, that’s because it is. There are always bigger picture stories at play behind any family event, and not everything went exactly as planned. It was the first time my parents had seen one another since my first wedding 14 years ago (nail-biting initially, but everyone behaved). Neither my, nor my partner’s sibling were there, and only two of my five bridesmaids could make it (one of whom, Ashley Glasson, flew in from LA to take these wonderful pictures). My youngest son freaked out the moment the band started, and wailed inconsolably through my short thank you speech. I spent a good percentage of time during the party talking him off a ledge upstairs, bribing him with ice cream, and feeling my heartstrings pulled.
Even before the day, there were dramas. When my suit first arrived, the trousers were so tight I couldn’t sit down (I blame ice cream season), so I spent the week before the wedding criss-crossing London to see a tailor three times, only picking up the finished suit the day before the wedding. I then promptly left it at home when I left for the hotel that night. This is all just to say, weddings are dreamlike and magic, but typically with a bit of a shitshow on the side. And, understandably, no one posts photos of screaming children, divorced parents, or split trouser seams. That doesn’t mean it isn’t all going on.
We now have two and a half months until the main wedding in the desert, and last week we switched caterers. Gah. Before that there’s a honeymoon (my packing aesthetic is “Sicilian widow”… let’s hope things don’t get too White Lotus), and hen and stag dos in the US. Every part of this whole marital whirlwind has been back to front – to the point that we have become the very definition of putting the cart before the horse. But here we are, and I wouldn’t do it any other way. After this beautiful day (which rates in my top five of all time), I know I’ve got enough stamina to do it at least once more, before I hang up my white shoes for good.