Olive Uniacke Wore Hot-Pink Couture and Molly Goddard Taffeta for Her London Wedding
While planning their summer wedding in London, Olive Uniacke and her now-husband Dane Ensley had seven “musts” in mind. “Number one: walk down the aisle together,” the bride tells Vogue. “Number two: no sit-down dinner. Number three: no phones. Number four: keep everything a secret from everyone. Number five: constant excitement. Number six: provide the best DJs and music—better than anyone has ever heard in a club. And finally, number seven: supply guests with everything they could need so they never have to leave,” Olive adds. “We wanted to do everything as untraditionally as possible.”
“Connecting people is a part of both of our jobs—me as an agent, and Dane as a mental health specialist—and I like to believe we are pretty good at it,” says the former film producer, who lives with Dane in L.A. “We just couldn’t wait for our wedding weekend, we were so excited to see our different groups of friends come together. Half the wedding party travelled from America and we were just so touched. It was such an incredible night, filled with people who mean so much to us both.”
Olive is an agent for WME, with clients including Devonté Hynes (Blood Orange), Riz Ahmed, Tessa Thompson, Mustafa The Poet and Oscar Isaac, as well as creators, directors and producers from all over the world. She met Dane, the founder of Reconstruction Unlimited—a company that designs therapeutic ecosystems tailored for those affected by mental illness, substance abuse disorders and behavioral issues—in 2015, at a dinner hosted by her maid of honor, Gala Gordon.
Dane reportedly played it cool, tempting Olive to “trick him” into having dinner with her the following evening. He was under the impression they would be dining with a group of friends, when in fact it was just the two of them. (To this day, he maintains he had no idea what was afoot.) A long-distance relationship ensued, with the couple flitting between London and New York (their respective homes at the time), Dubai (where Dane was working with a client when they first met), or “wherever they could see each other” in the early days of their romance, before they eventually started their life together in Dane’s native Los Angeles.
The subject of marriage cropped up in conversation last year, over a takeout and a game of backgammon, prompting Dane to confess that he’d been planning to propose. When the game ended he popped the question and revealed he had managed to track down a 1930s French tank ring that Olive had swooned over in a vintage jewelry shop in Japan two years earlier. “He was paying closer attention than he let on,” Olive says now. “I had a picture of me wearing it on my phone.” They resolved to keep their happy news a secret until the ring arrived—and they were both in L.A. to open the package together—and it was several weeks before they told friends and family about their engagement.
Nawal Alkhedairy, who runs a private concierge service and used to work with Dua Lipa (a friend of Olive’s and a guest at the ceremony), was enlisted to help with wedding preparations. “She’s just so brilliant, she’s a goddess—a party goddess,” says Olive. “We were very lucky to have her.”
To kick off the celebrations, held over the first weekend in July, Olive and Dane hosted an intimate dinner at their favorite London restaurant, St John, where guests tucked into whole pig and bone marrow. A friend of the couple surprised them with a Mariachi band, and speeches were made into the early hours—including an impromptu address from the bride at 1 a.m.
Having chosen a hot-pink wedding gown, Olive wanted to wear ivory for the dinner. After her initial fruitless search for an outfit, the bride enlisted Molly Goddard to remake her mum’s much-loved black tulle skirt by the designer in cream taffeta. Goddard knew an “athletic and modern” look was what Olive was after, so she crafted a matching knitted bralette that worked perfectly with the bride’s Alex Jefford earrings and shoes from Rosie Huntington-Whiteley’s recent collaboration with Gia Borghini. “I was covered in friends and people that I knew—that’s pretty special,” says the bride.
On the day itself, Olive’s family home in Pimlico felt like “the most special venue we could ever choose,” says the bride. “We were never going to find that energy or space anywhere in the world,” she adds. The couple exchanged vows in a 30-minute ceremony—“a celebration of love”—across the road at St Gabriel’s church in Pimlico. Devonté Hynes played improv on the piano as the couple “sprinted” down the aisle together. Meanwhile the all-female collective Deep Throat Choir ensured there “wasn’t a moment of quiet,” and joined guests back at the house for the post-ceremony celebrations.
Olive’s one of a kind wedding gown was designed and made by a London-based couturier. Inspired by a Raf Simons for Dior dress once worn by Marion Cotillard, the bride wanted it realized in a punchy pink. “I just wanted it to feel true to me,” Olive says of her unexpected choice. “I loved this idea that everyone would show up in bright colors, including me.”
