Weddings used to be so simple. A church or registry office ceremony, followed by the obligatory staged photographs and then on to a hotel — or, if it was a particularly smart do, the bride’s parents’ country house — for a slap-up meal and dancing into the wee hours.
This would usually be quite enough of a headache for a bride to plan, but if you are the Duchess of Cambridge’s sister and party planning is in the family job description, then it is not enough to plan for one lavish wedding celebration. The thing to do is to have two in one day.
Never one to be behind a trend (her sister may have married into the most traditional family in Britain, but Pippa is a thoroughly modern girl), Pippa Middleton has chosen to style the wedding of the year in line with the growing trend for a “two-tier” celebration. Her marriage to James Matthews will be a day of two halves.
The first will be very much in keeping with the “relaxed country wedding” she is said to have always dreamt about, with the ceremony held at a tiny 12th-century church on the Englefield estate. This will be followed by a reception of champagne and exquisite canapes for the adults while the children will be offered healthy snacks. The Telegraph understands 20,000 canapes have been ordered, including scallops, haggis and smoked salmon, which will be enjoyed on the lawn in front of Englefield House (the palatial mansion that is home to the estate’s owner MP Richard Benyon).
It will be during this morning reception that the father of the bride, Michael Middleton, bridegroom James Matthews and his brother Spencer (believed to be his best man) will give the traditional wedding speeches. The couple will also perform the ceremonial cutting of the cake. The guests will then be invited to return to wherever they are staying to freshen up and change into an entirely new outfit before the second event of the day. Children will be whisked away, as The Daily Telegraph can exclusively reveal the later event is strictly a no-kids affair. In the morning, little Prince George and Princess Charlotte will follow their aunt down the aisle as her page boy and bridesmaid, but in the evening, the royal children are expected to either be kept amused inside the Middletons’ house while their parents dance the night away, or be taken back to Kensington Palace by their nanny.
For the second celebration — which is to be held at the Middletons’ £6 million (Dh28.6 million) manor house, just a couple of miles from the church in Bucklebury — guests will be welcomed into a world of high glamour and decadence. A glass palace has been erected in the garden, which is expected to be filled with candles and flowers. The provincial wedding of the morning will be cast aside for an extravagant black-tie event. Guests will sit down to a gourmet, five-course meal with food sourced from the very best British producers, before dancing into the early hours of the morning, when, we understand, they will be revitalised with gourmet snacks.
For the “party architects”, as they now like to be called, who are increasingly being asked to plan events in this way, Pippa’s choice to have a two-tier wedding is absolutely in line with the latest bridal trends. Planner Jonny Roxborough has noticed a significant rise in this way of structuring a wedding, with more expected to follow in Pippa’s wake. It is he says, de rigueur these days on the society scene to opt for a local church ceremony and initial low-key reception, followed by a gap of several hours and a change of outfits before heading to a grand venue for a separate reception later.
“It’s much easier that way,” he explains. “You can have a normal morning-coat wedding at 11.30am, with men in tails and women in hats. They all stand around till three, then they go home, walk the dog and have a bath. They’re asked to go somewhere else for a sit-down dinner around seven or eight, then party till three.”
This kind of double-event wedding makes perfect sense for Pippa. The morning ceremony offers the traditional English church wedding befitting the sister of the Duchess of Cambridge, while the black-tie event later on with its dinner catered by 40 top chefs, will allow her to indulge in her more extravagant side.
The thought of organising two events in two separate locations — with the different flowers, decorations, food and drinks they’ll inevitably require — will no doubt be a piece of cake for the former party planner. Nevertheless, it’s no surprise Pippa has turned to her former employer (caterers Table Talk) to help her create the event of her dreams. Every element will be coordinated, as the planners (and Blue Strawberry, the catering company Table Talk is merged with) tend to get involved not just in the food, but in all aspects of the high-end weddings they create.
It’s clear Pippa has kept in touch with owners JoJo Browner and Molly Ronan ever since she worked for them for three and a half years, first as a junior party planner at Table Talk, and later as a publicist for Table Talk and Blue Strawberry. She even name-checked the company in a recipe for venison and kidney pie she published in The Sunday Telegraph in 2013. Despite the complexities of organising a two-in-one day, renowned luxury wedding planner Sarah Haywood says such events come with significant benefits.
“It means there’s a very clear delineation between the two. It’s certainly very common overseas, and in certain religions, because there might be a civil or legal marriage followed by a religious one,” she explains. In Pippa’s case, it provides the added bonus of being able to wear a second wedding dress, just as her sister did at her own wedding six years ago.
“It’s not uncommon for brides to have two or three dresses,” explains Roxborough. “One of my clients had two identical £80,000 dresses, only one had a train and one didn’t, and another dress for the later event. It gives a woman a greater opportunity to wear something more glamorous.”
Many couples also use the two-tier wedding as a chance to invite more guests — either to the church, so they can later have a more intimate dinner, or indeed to allow for a larger evening reception. Yet Roxborough warns that having two guest lists raises the possibility of awkward encounters, something Pippa is said to be avoiding by having the same guest list for both events (minus the children in the evening).
This means everyone will feel they have been to two totally different parties by the end of the weekend. However, the idea of having a “double” wedding day isn’t for everyone. One who’s against them is Jamie Simon, head of events at Banana Split, a luxury events company that specialises in large weddings.
“It makes a lot of hassle. If it’s not local to you, what do you do for those few hours in the middle of the afternoon — especially at a remote country wedding? People have to leave, rush home and get changed into a second outfit. It’s all go go go. Nobody really relaxes.”
However, it is unlikely that you will find a single soul among the guest list today who is moaning about an invite to not one, but two of the biggest events in the summer’s social calendar.
