Colourful gowns, fascinators (no hats…), older bridesmaids – and dogs in tiaras
Colourful wedding dresses, no hats, older bridesmaids, dogs in tiaras… Rosa Silverman looks at the new rules for society nuptials (and how they fit in with Covid restrictions)
If you managed to get married this year, chances are your wedding was small, secret – or in January. All would agree that, along with its many other failings, 2020 has not been a stellar time for couples wishing to tie the knot. Most who had planned to do so have been forced to postpone as coronavirus swept away all best laid plans.
We can but hope that 2021 will be different. Although it seems that Covid-19 will be with us in some form for a while, brides and grooms-to-be are daring to again set their dates. And society bible is daring to tell us what a modern society wedding now looks like. Or, perhaps more accurately, what it was starting to look like pre-pandemic, and what it might continue to look like when next year’s wedding season rolls around.
Apparently change is afoot, and certain traditions are under threat: invitations embossed upon thick white card (how dull!); celebrations that only last a few hours (rather than, say, a few days); and formulaic ceremonies and parties. In their place we find highly personalised, sometimes idiosyncratic events, where it’s OK to break unwritten rules because now that Cara Delevingne has attended a royal wedding (Princess Eugenie’s) in top hat and tails, surely anything goes?
Next year’s society weddings, assuming they can go ahead, will probably still feature hand sanitiser (personalised, naturally, and made from botanicals picked on one’s estate), and seating may have to be socially distanced. But there’ll also be a great pent-up appetite to party like it’s not 2020.
“I think 2021 and 2022 are going to be the opportunity for couples to showcase exactly how they want their wedding to be, rather than how anyone else dictates it,” says Jane Riddell, a luxury wedding planner and founder of Planned for Perfection. “The fact we’re looking at no weddings this year means people will go bigger and better than ever.”
While some couples – and their guests – will remain understandably cautious, and stick to smaller, more intimate dos, many others will want to “go big or go home”.
“Once we’re given the green light for weddings, I think people are just going to want to party hard,” says Riddell.
So what does the society wedding look like, two decades into the 21st century? Well, according to Tatler: “You’re now just as likely to see a tiara-wearing dachshund potter down the aisle as you are to find moodenhancing ‘party treats’ in a ‘Good ‘e’ bag’ on your dinner chair.” Older bridesmaids are also perfectly acceptable. But that is not all…
The invitations
According to Tatler, the so-called “stiffy” – by which they mean that piece of white card too thick to fold in half and use as a bookmark – on which the bride’s titled parents request your attendance is not necessarily the ne plus ultra of the upper class wedding any more. Today, guests should not be surprised to receive something altogether more kooky that demonstrates the couple’s “fun” personalities: it might be 3D; it might even be inflatable. But you certainly won’t be able to use it as a bookmark, especially if it comes in the form of a virtual wedding website.
The guest list
“Tactical inviting still prevails, whether for social or business aims,” advises Tatler. But the bride’s parents no longer get to use their daughter’s big day as an excuse to forge alliances with local or not-so-local aristocrats and dignitaries.
“Weddings historically were planned by the bride’s mother and the bride and bridegroom were bit players,” says Johnny Roxburgh, who has organised several parties for the Queen, as well as Prince William’s 21st birthday bash. “It was a way of parents saying ‘we’ve had this child and managed to find someone who doesn’t frighten the horses to marry her and it’s our turn to show off.’ That’s not the case now. It’s much more focused on the bride and groom doing things themselves. It gives [the event] a younger slant.”
The numbers
Pre-pandemic, these were quite often still well into the hundreds. “Numbers last year were still astronomically big,” says Roxburgh. “Six to seven hundred people.” But this year has, necessarily, seen the rise of the secret and small society wedding. Prince Harry’s former flame Cressida Bonas, for instance, married property developer Harry Wentworthstanley last month in an intimate countryside ceremony in Cowdray Park, West Sussex. Princess Beatrice also pulled off a scaled-down wedding when she wed Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi in Windsor last month, with the Queen in attendance.
The bridal dress
Doesn’t have to be classic any more, or even white. When Lady Gabriella Windsor married Thomas Kingston last year, she did so in a pale-pink hued dress by Luisa Beccaria. Floral embroidery and colour are acceptable, nay, welcome – see society brides Poppy Delevingne and Princess Maria Von Thurn und Taxis. Outfit changes during the day (or days) are common, but so is a dress versatile and glitzy enough to take the bride from the ceremony to the disco.
The guests’ attire
The mother of the bride or groom need not wear a hat any more if she does not wish to (though fascinators are no longer frowned upon). This doesn’t mean a shift towards dressing down, more a shift towards embracing the esoteric. “People still like to dress in their finery,” says Riddell. “With society weddings there will always be a dress code of some description, but it doesn’t have to be tails, it could be a lovely Savile Row suit, a statement piece – a floral display on a guest’s wrist or a beautiful designer dress. Everything with the higher end weddings is unique and individual.”
The venue
Renting a country manor somewhere bucolic like the Cotswolds remains a popular choice; but destination weddings had also become a regular fixture in high society calendars pre-pandemic – and no doubt will be again, for couples who have been locked down with only the grounds and Daddy’s wine cellar for company.
Art consultant Ed Tang and Sotheby’s auctioneer John Auerbach chose
Tuscany in July 2019. While Phoebe Saatchi (the daughter of Charles) and designer Arthur Yates chose Lake Como for their nuptials the previous month.
Whatever the venue, quirky personal touches are again likely to abound. Princess Beatrice’s intimate outdoor reception included a pub-style marquee named “The Duke of York”, a bouncy castle and even a jukebox.
The timings
A modern society wedding now requires that its guests block out their whole weekend, or even an entire week, to make time for such extras as the usher’s lunch, the pool party, and so on. One increasingly popular event is the survivors’ lunch, for those deemed to have dance floor staying power and who are still standing come the following day.
“It seems if you’re getting all your family and friends together, why do it for [only] a day?” says Riddell. “One day seems [short] when you don’t see your friends and family all the time. [The thinking is] ‘let’s have a weekend or week of celebrations’.”
The gifts
Prince Harry is not the only society type to have discovered his inner woke spirit. Gifts at society weddings are likely to reflect recent environmental and ethical awakenings. “Perhaps,” suggests Tatler, “in the next round of weddings, a ‘no presents please – just a donation to Extinction Rebellion’ policy will be rife.”