INDIA HICKS
ON FINDING ‘STABILITY’ AS SHE WEDS HER PARTNER OF 26 YEARS
Celebrity friends are on hand for her intimate country wedding
After 26 years, five children and one wedding postponement, India Hicks and her long- term partner David Flint Wood finally tied the knot last week.
The interior designer, writer, boutique owner and former model – who is a granddaughter of Lord Mountbatten and a great-great-greatgranddaughter of Queen Victoria – was also a bridesmaid at the wedding of her godfather the Prince of Wales to Lady Diana Spencer in 1981.
India’s own nuptials, however, were more low key at St Bartholomew’s church in Brightwell Baldwin, Oxfordshire, with a reception across the road at the Lord Nelson pub.
The church is dear to India’s family, as she explained last year. “I don’t just want to get married, I want to get married here, in Oxfordshire, where I grew up and in the church where my father i s buried and where I was christened. I want my mother to be there,” she said of Lady Pamela Hicks, who was a bridesmaid at the Queen’s wedding to Prince Philip.
Joining the couple’s children – Felix, 24, Amory, 22, Conrad, 18, daughter Domino, 13, and Wesley, 24, their fostered Bahamian son – and Lady Pamela were a handful of celebrity guests including Hollywood star Brooke Shields – “India and I have been friends for many years and she is one of my style icons,” she has said – former model Sophie Dahl and her jazz star husband Jamie Cullum and TV presenter Kirsty Allsopp.
Prince Charles did not attend. “He’s my godfather, but we are just having the children’s godparents, and that’s it,” India explained.
The bride, who has lived in the Bahamas with her family for 26 years, wore an elegant long- sleeved, embroidered wedding dress with ivory tulle and lace and a full skirt, with white satin shoes, a lace veil and drop earrings. David, 60, a former advertising executive, opted for a grey suit and spotted blue tie, matching the outfits of his sons. Meanwhile, Domino was a bridesmaid, leading a small group of flower girls and pageboys.
India announced her engagement last November, having always turned down David’s marriage proposals in the past.
“Maybe I’ve mellowed?” she said when asked why she had changed her mind. “The pandemic has been a factor, yes. I’ve been through quite a difficult few years, in one way and another. I feel I want… stability.”
LONG OVERDUE
The couple had planned to marry last winter, but postponed due to Covid restrictions.
“Yesterday we were meant to get married,” wrote India on Instagram in December. “Way back in September we set the date for our tiny wedding. We sent out invitations, designed dresses, and debated vows.
“But as the weeks passed the romance did slightly slip away. I think the crunch came when our priest told us we couldn’t have hymns that might be hummable – hummable hymns are not Covid protocol. And so we will wait a little while longer, which is OK because we’ve already waited 25 years.”
But once the new date drew closer, she shared on Instagram two romantic photos of herself and David, with a picture of their wedding invitations, and wrote: “This time next week I will be married. MARRIED! Neither of us have ever been married before so we are both quite excited.”
‘ I don’t just want to get married, I want to get married here’