The Other Kate's Big Day

So there was a wedding that happened in London back in April that garnered quite a bit of media attention but everyone in the fashion world was really waiting for a certain Ms Moss to become Mrs Hince.  Today I read a smashing article by Hamish Bowles describing, in glorious detail, what happened in the run up and actually on the day of the wedding with pictures by the official photographer, Mario Testino. I've pulled out a few extracts for you and, more importantly, here are some of the pictures.  It's like we were there!

At the ceremony, conducted by the Reverend Harry MacInnes, Jake Chapman reads a resonant love letter, the cherubic choristers of Gloucester Cathedral sing “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” and Mrs. Jamie Hince is finally an honest woman.

“She dared me to be John Galliano again,” the designer tells me. “I couldn’t pick up a pencil. It’s been my creative rehab.”

After dinner, Kate and Jamie cut Peggy Porschen’s cake—actually a pyramid of six cakes, each a different flavor, crusted with droplets of icing-sugar lily-of-the-valley blossoms.

Carine and Terry Richardson

“I never go in countryside,” explains Carine Roitfeld, perhaps unnecessarily, as she picks her way gingerly through the grass in a 20-year-old Galliano crepe frock and teetering strappy sandals. “It’s bea-u-tiful.”

Jefferson Hack &Hamish Bowles

"Colin Field and his team from the Bar Hemingway at the Ritz Paris are setting up the bar on the dance floor. They will be serving the Kate 76, a lethal cocktail of vodka, champagne, crushed ice, and sugar. “I used to keep the bar open a little later than I should,” Field confides, “and we’d work out cocktails with Kate. Because she drinks it, I expect everyone to drink it. It’ll be the drink!” "

Some more typically average wedding guests...

Bella Freud and Christian Louboutin

"The menu includes toro tartare with caviar, Longhorn veal with grilled peaches, and strawberry granita dusted with gold leaf, accompanied by Sesti and champagne"

"Meanwhile, in Kate’s gardens, a Palm Court jazz band is playing “It Had to Be You” in the marquee, while battalions of black-and-white-clad wait staff light the votive candles hanging from fruit trees in their jam jars and antique lanterns, and artfully arrange a pyramid of champagne flutes. Paper cones filled with rose petals for the bridal couple are arranged on little café tables, and antique wicker chairs pepper the lawn. The Second Looks Tent, for guests to change in after the ceremony, is appointed like a Hollywood boudoir with faceted mirror screens, thirties standard lamps, and dressing tables heaving with pink and beige roses."

The "quick change" into Second Looks after the ceremony!

After a romantic trip to Thailand two years into their liaison, Kate recalls, “we were just so loved up, and he asked me to marry him every day.” But it was curling up together in front of the compelling British television documentary series Big Fat Gypsy Weddings that appears to have sealed the deal. “I am so romantic about Gypsies,” Kate explains. “They’re not allowed to do anything until they get married. So they all get married really young, at sixteen. You can’t believe the dresses. They’re like blinging butterflies times ten; they can’t move down the aisle! It’s so genius. I was just watching Jamie, so cute, and I was like, these girls, they just spend their whole life waiting for that day—let’s do it!”

Jamie and Kate channel a modern-day Mick and Bianca Jagger, re-creating the couple’s 1971 backseat wedding portrait by royal photographer Lord Lichfield.

Bushels of white roses by Scarlet & Violet.