An English Country Wedding, Complete with a Secret Disco Dome for Dancing
Millie Allsopp and Constantin Nagel’s courtship was a New York–based love story. “We met when we both moved there, through mutual friends,” Millie remembers. “Then we coincidentally happened to be living on the same block in downtown New York.”
After five years of dating, Constantin proposed to Millie in Ibiza. “It was totally unexpected!” she says. “He asked at sunset, sitting on a hillside facing the sea and looking onto Es Vedra, the magnetic rock on the south side of the island.”
Their wedding seemed to be everywhere on Instagram one summer weekend, with the organically formed hashtag #Schatzis4life (Schatzi is a term of endearment in German). The groom, an entrepreneur, and the bride, a former Moda Operandi and Browns fashion buyer who recently launched a womenswear and handbag company called Usisi—worked with Marble Productions to create a wedding weekend that combined both of their backgrounds (she’s English, he’s Bavarian).
It all started on Friday night with a Bavarian evening to honor the groom’s roots. The bride-to-be looked like a chic fräulein in a houndstooth blue and white dirndl from Lodenfrey, Constantin’s family’s department store based in Munich. The groom and guests wore tracht (i.e., lederhosen and dirndls). There were long wooden farm tables adorned with blue and white flowers, and a Bavarian band sang traditional songs throughout the meal. “Constantin even flew in Bavarian beer,” Millie adds. “And we had a German buffet consisting of schnitzel, sauerkraut, sausages—and, of course, lots of schnapps!”
Saturday was a classic English country wedding that started with a Church of England ceremony in the morning. “We had a meadow of flowers down the aisle, hanging flowers from metal chandeliers, and large stone urns filled with flowers at the front,” Millie says. “They were all done by Miranda Fairhurst, who is an absolute genius!”
The bride walked down the aisle in an Emilia Wickstead dress that adhered to the fashion school of thought that wedding dresses should always be most attractive from the back (as that’s the vantage point from which they’re seen during the service). “I wanted something really classic and simple, but with no lace—and it needed to be unique,” Millie says. “I was absolutely thrilled when the Emilia Wickstead team came up with the bow train concept. I was wearing a bow in my hair for our first appointment, and it developed from there. The train was detachable, which was key for dancing later.” She relied on Snowden Hill for her hair and Sarah Jane Wai for makeup.
After the ceremony, drinks were served under an open-air stretch tent decorated with large stone urns filled with flowers. “We were very lucky with the weather as the sun was shining, and people were able to sit outside on the rattan tables and coffee tables dotted around,” Millie says. Guests mingled, ate canapés, and sipped Champagne and Bellinis before moving to the dinner tent, which was done pavilion-style with a botanical lining. The tables were dressed in saffron yellow with masses of blue, white, and yellow flowers set among rattan place mats. Constantin had ashtrays—with the couple’s disco ball motif on them—made for each seat as a gift.
The dinner tent was connected to a dance dome via a secret tunnel. Inside, there were six LED palm trees, two semicircular bars, and a canopy of hanging flowers filled with disco balls above. Mood lighting and confetti bombs got the party started, while DJs O.bee and Isaac Ferry kept it going. First, the couple danced to Fatboy Slim’s “Praise You,” before guests joined them on the mirrored dance floor, where they reveled until the very end of the night.
Photo: Millie Pilkington1/49Blue and white flowers for our Friday-evening Bavarian party.
Photo: Millie Pilkington2/49Constantin and I walking up to the party.
