Anna Cleveland and Jefferson Hack’s English-Country Wedding Was a Fashion Family Reunion
As a seasoned publisher, it only makes sense that Jefferson Hack met Anna Cleveland at a book launch: The couple first crossed paths at a star-studded Los Angeles party celebrating Jefferson’s coffee-table tome We Can’t Do This Alone in 2016. Yet given how enmeshed they both are with the world of fashion—as the cofounder of Dazed Media, Jefferson is a regular at runway shows around the world, while Anna’s modeling career has seen her walk those same runways just as regularly—it makes even more sense that their romance was truly sparked two years later, when Anna performed in Paris’s Folies Bergère as part of Jean Paul Gaultier’s Fashion Freak Show.
“She had such a wild and free spirit,” Jefferson says of falling in love with Anna when they met again at the show. “She was captivating.”
After four years of dating, Jefferson finally popped the question on the night of Halloween last year, while the couple was on holiday in the magical Egyptian oasis resort of Siwa. “The hotel was made from adobe, and there was no electricity, so everything was lit with torches and candles,” Jefferson recalls. “Siwa is a special, ancient place that has a strong spiritual energy, so it was a perfect setting for us. We had talked about it but had never set a date, so it still felt like a complete surprise when I went down on one knee and proposed.”
From there, the journey to the aisle was a whirlwind, helped by their “genius” wedding planner Liz Linkleter, as well as a handful of trusty members from Jefferson’s team at Dazed, including Sophie McElligott, Marc MacDonald, and Sam Wilson. But there was one nonnegotiable from the very beginning: that the ceremony would take place at Oakley Court, a dramatic Victorian Gothic country hotel whose creative director is one of the couple’s close friends Alex Eagle. “It’s an extremely bucolic part of the river Thames, with gorgeous grounds, and the main house has charming Gothic architecture, which gave the wedding a fairy-tale, whimsical atmosphere,” Jefferson adds.
On the surface, it may have appeared to be a fantastical English wedding—but the quieter, more subversive details across the day spoke to the couple’s eclectic backgrounds. Jefferson was born to British parents in Uruguay, while Anna’s father is the Dutch photographer Paul van Ravenstein and her mother is the pioneering Black supermodel Pat Cleveland. So it followed that they should add a few more personal (and playful) touches to their vision of classic countryside nuptials. “We originally wanted to take our guests downriver to the church so it could all take place along the water,” says Jefferson. “It turned out not to be so easy, so we ended up renting two old-fashioned London Routemasters instead. We started going to church in Dorney, to St. James the Less, and we fell in love with the vicar La Stacey. She has an amazing sense of humor and a lightness about her. It was literally a match made in heaven.”
Equally important as the vicar—and possibly even more important, for a couple so invested in the world of fashion—were the looks. Suffice to say neither had to flick very far through their respective Rolodexes to find options. The bride called up Lavinia Biagiotti, the second-generation Italian designer who once served as a babysitter while Anna’s mother, Pat, was walking the runways for Biagiotti’s mother, Laura. “I did my first show down the Spanish Steps for Laura Biagiotti when I was six years old,” Anna laughs. “Pat was dressed as Charlie Chaplin, and I was the little orphan from the movie The Kid. That’s when I fell in love with fashion.”
The mandate for the bridal gown was something timeless and elegant, arriving in the form of an ethereal boatneck lace dress with a dramatic train and matching veil. “I knew Lavinia would understand who I truly am,” Anna says of the final look, which she paired with Roger Vivier shoes. “That was what was important for me.” To accessorize—and to add a touch of theatrical glamour—Anna turned to Bulgari, choosing the Italian house’s Serpenti necklace as her star jewelry piece. That came with a deeper meaning too. “The snake is a symbol of endless metamorphosis, which in this case was perfect,” she adds, “to represent this new evolution in my life towards a future full of changes—and new beginnings!”
