CAMILLA & AARON
One summer’s day in California, CAMILLA HARDY and AARON PIPER celebrated their love with an elegant, ethereal garden wedding.
Aaron and I met in Germany in February 2004. We were both cast in the Bochum, Germany production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s rock musical Starlight Express. Nine years later, he proposed to me in a field of sunflowers in Siena, Tuscany. After a five-year engagement, we married in the gardens of a family home in Newport Beach, California. I’m from the UK and Aaron is from New Zealand, so we really liked that the west coast of the USA is halfway between our homelands and great for both families, turning it into a destination wedding.
We chose to have a June wedding, in order to enjoy the Californian summer – outdoors and by the sea. My day began with a bridal party breakfast on the balcony as the bridesmaids and I had our hair and makeup done. Our beautiful view overlooked the Pacific Ocean.
The theme of our wedding was A Midsummer Night’s Dream – ethereal and romantic with touches of pale pink, vintage cream and lots of greenery. We married in front of our 70 guests under a beautiful arch of foliage, with peonies and pale pink roses, that was created by Vi from W&L Designs in Huntington Beach. My bridesmaids and I had loose boho- style bouquets with more peonies and roses.
My summer lace dress from Vinka Design was empire line with a low back. The softly gathered lace, fitted bodice and fine detail on the ivory straps were perfect for our romantic garden theme. My ivory sandals from Dune were simple and stylish, with a slim high heel. My cathedral-length veil tied in to the elegant feel of the gown, and I loved how the Swarovski crystals in my dangly Say Bella drop earrings picked up the light.
My best friend was my maid of honour and my sisters and sister
in-law made up the rest of the bridal party. Aaron’s niece was the flower girl and wore a crème tulle dress with a petal pink sash. My bridesmaids were stunning in pale pink tulle ballgowns from Two Birds, with block-heeled silver sandals.
The groom and groomsmen wore white shirts with sand- coloured linen vests and fitted trousers from Montagio. Our 22-month- old son, Finley, who was the best man, wore a white shirt, sand linen shorts and braces with a petal pink bow tie from Two Birds.
Post- ceremony hors d’oeuvres were followed by a threecourse sit- down meal from Jay’s Catering. The food was ‘Californian cuisine’, with pear and stilton salad, filet of beef au poivre and Atlantic salmon with asparagus and gourmet mashed potatoes. Dessert followed with raspberry chocolate decadence, French apple tarts, vanilla bean chocolate eclairs, French macarons and a tray of international cheeses. Our cake was two tiers – one lemon with lemon cream filling and one carrot with cream cheese filling. French buttercream icing, topped with flowers and greenery, tied it in to our romantic vision.
We gave our MC/ DJ a varied playlist of our must-have songs – all with special memories attached. Highlights were ‘A Thousand Years’ by Christina Perri and ‘ Wouldn’t It Be Nice’ by The Beach Boys at the wedding ceremony, then ‘Perfect’ by Ed Sheeran for the first dance.
Some of the best parts of our day was when it was just Aaron and myself. After both the ceremony and the reception we had this romantic moment where we realised we had just, in fact, got married! We’re looking forward to following our beautiful day with a honeymoon in 2020, after baby number two, due in May 2019.