Inside the Dreamiest English Countryside Wedding
For many brides, it’s their mothers who offer the most input—sartorial and otherwise—during wedding planning. For Tatiana Hambro it was Dad. Tatiana, the deputy editor of Moda Operandi, had tried on wedding dresses at various salons and was about to settle on one she liked when her father Charles suggested she go with a lesser-known designer and wear something truly unique instead.
That’s how it came to be that Tatiana wore a bespoke Barbara Tfank gown—the designer’s first foray into bridal—for her wedding to art dealer Walter Arader last August at Charles’s estate in the English countryside.
“It was a real education and an exciting journey to learn from Barbara, who understands the history of fashion and incorporates cool period detail into her pieces,” Tatiana says. Bride and designer took inspiration from Audrey Hepburn, Cristóbal Balenciaga, and the ’60s in general to create the final product: an empire waist column gown in French brocade with iridescent lily of the valley embroidery.
For a dramatic Watteau train, long double panels were added to the back (visible underneath a cathedral-length Monvieve veil), which Tatiana later knotted for the reception. For her grand entrance—the ceremony took place in an 11th-century church on the property—she added a pair of opera gloves. “It felt unexpected while also being traditional,” she says.
The most important element of the final look, though, was the tiara. The Victorian piece comes through Tatiana’s paternal line, the Lygon family, who inspired the aristocratic Flytes in Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited. The tiara entered the family via Tatiana’s great-grandmother Lady Lettice Cotterell, née Lygon. The Lygons had a grand estate, Madresfield Court, where Waugh was a frequent guest. Years later, when writing his most important work, he based the Flytes on his hosts.
In another unexpected twist, having the wedding at Tatiana’s home was actually the groom’s idea. “The green rolling hills of Virginia, where I grew up, are strikingly similar to the Cotswolds,” Walter says. “So when I first visited, I immediately felt at home.”
That sense of intimacy was what the couple had aimed to create for their 130 guests. “I wanted it to feel really warm and inviting, and have delicious food,” Tatiana says. The reception took place under a tent on a bluff overlooking a pond, with nothing but hills all around.
“It’s a beautiful little spot seemingly in the middle of nowhere,” she says. An abundance of crudités, an Ibérico ham station, roast lamb, and margaritas kept everyone going until dawn. For the after-hours portion, the bride changed into a Markarian minidress and combat boots.
This story appears in the March 2020 issue of Town & Country. SUBSCRIBE NOW
You Might Also Like
