Luke Edward Hall and Duncan Campbell’s “Ad Hoc Happy” Wedding in the English Countryside
When talented artist-designers like Luke Edward Hall and Duncan Campbell unite, one would expect a story layered with beauty and adventure. Duncan proposed to Luke in Capri in 2018: “It was a mission. As we both love Villa Lysis, a house on the top of Capri, which you can only get to by walking, I felt it had to be there,” Duncan says.
“We had one of those hellish flights that’s so early in the morning that you can’t even get to the airport, so I made us stay in Gatwick, which as you can imagine is a real treat,” Duncan smiles. And they still missed their flight! Plans were offset but not foiled, after a dramatic schlep that involved a ferry and an uphill walk with suitcases dragging along. “We finally got to this amazing tile terrace with a balustrade that looks over to Vesuvius and the Bay of Naples; it’s impossibly high up, it looks like you’re in the sky. So I did it there, and he said yes, mercifully,” says Duncan. Matching emeralds were later picked out from The Gem Palace on another colorful adventure to Jaipur, and set as engagement rings.
The creative couple met some 14 years ago backstage at a show where Luke was interning, and Duncan was modeling. “It was the start and the end of a very short modeling career,” Duncan jokes, but the start of something special.
Working with event planner Kate Fox, they took an organic approach to planning their very English wedding, and waited out the pandemic restrictions. “We just thought we’d wait and see until it felt like the world was a little bit more settled. It made a bit more sense,” says Luke. “We weren’t so desperate to get married that we were like, ‘Okay, we re just going to do it come rain or shine.’ ”
They decided to get married in and around their farm house at the Gloucestershire-end of the Cotswolds. They’ve been escaping there, with their whippet Merlin, since 2019. “We had spent a while getting the garden nice and then felt like it was the right place,” Luke says. Duncan describes the house itself “like a kid’s drawing of a house, with a gable, four windows, and a door.” They also liked the remote romanticism of its location, as it cannot be accessed directly by car.
The service itself would be held in the ballroom of the main house on the estate where their cottage is found—a 25-minute amble for guests with pop-up bars on the rural route back, with maps illustrated by Luke—and the rest of the revels would be cottage-side in a starry-ceiling Raj Tent Club marquee in their garden. “We didn t want people to be sat in one place for too long,” says Duncan.
The setup took Luke and Duncan three days of fun and laughter. They wanted the whole thing to feel “kind of beautiful but very home-made, it wasn’t supposed to feel slick,” says Luke, so they took a chance on the flowers being the “choice of the day” from biodynamic farm Fern Verrow in Herefordshire. Fortuitously, the farm bestowed an incredible mix of Icelandic poppies, peonies, and lupins. The grooms plucked two matching peonies as their boutonnieres, and Luna, Luke’s niece, was dressed for her role as flower girl with a crown. Their farmhouse front was decorated with an eye-catching garland and wreath of peonies and Sweet William by Shane Connolly. “We adore him and what he did was beautiful,” says Luke.
On the wedding day, 140 guests gathered to watch the couple walk down the aisle together to the tune of an acoustic arrangement of “Never Tear Us Apart” by INXS played by their musician friend Dan White. Luke wore a suit tailored in his own fabric design for Venetian company Rubelli with a frilly yellow Molly Goddard shirt. Duncan’s wedding suit was made by Roman tailor Giulia Heritage using a fabric from the 1930s. Both Duncan and Luke changed for dinner, with Duncan, who grew up in Edinburgh, taking on a third outfit change for the dancing: a kilt with an incredible feathered sporran, much to the delight of his Scottish friends and family.
With their shared love of design bounty and Baroque, their choice of such a simple table setting may surprise. “I think you can go crazy so actually, we had the simplest of settings, rainbow candles from our friend Ben’s shop, and we did the table arrangements ourselves with the flowers that were left. It was so much fun,” says Duncan. The colorful menus were beautifully and simply drawn up by Luke. “I loved doing all of these things personally; especially when it’s the things we love doing anyway,” Luke says. Their friend, British chef Stevie Parle, alum of The River Cafe and Moro, cooked. “He didn t have a specific brief,” says Luke, “we wanted it a little bit Italian but nothing fancy and all about sharing.” Also given free rein was the cake baker, who happens to be Duncan’s sister Rosanna of 101 Bakery in Edinburgh, whose only directive was “camp” and “over the top.” Cue five tiers, fresh flowers, a cascade of edible pearls, and pastel lilac icing.
The wedding featured three musical moments in total: Italian jazz, followed by a cèilidh band, and then an ’80s and ’90s disco by DJ Henri, which had everyone dancing past 3 a.m. “Music was so important to us,” says Luke, and the variation in styles helped provide “quite distinct, beautiful moments” as the wedding day went on.
“The nicest thing, I think, is that the wedding felt just really like us. Events we do for work are wonderful, and everything needs to be sleek. So we just loved the ad hoc happy element, from flowers to menus,” says Luke. “And to take all of our friends to the country, and all happening and coming together naturally,” adds Duncan. “We actually felt quite free. And everyone was so relaxed.” Post-wedding, Design Week called them back to their beloved Italy for work, but the pair managed to escape on a train to Naples afterwards for a honeymoon.
Photo: Sophie Davidson1/35Flowers from Shane Connolly Company waiting to be made into a garland for the front of the cottage.
Photo: Sophie Davidson2/35Duncan making arrangements.
