The Bride Wore Simone Rocha For Her Wedding in the Tuscan Countryside

Rachel Bakewell and Brian Daly met in The Hemingford Arms, Islington, thanks to a mutual friend, the photographer Jason Hetherington. It was a winter’s night and Rachel, a stylist and art director, had been shooting all day. A drink in one of London’s best Irish pubs beckoned, and Brian, also a photographer, happened to be decompressing over a Guinness with his Weimaraner, Snoopy. A group headed back to Brian’s for a house party, where the song “Crimson Clover” by Tommy James The Shondells was playing, and the atmosphere between the pair was electric. “We fell in love quickly and the rest is history,” says Rachel.

The proposal came later in Dublin, where Brian is from, on another cold and windy winter’s day. Rachel was seven months pregnant with the couple’s second daughter, Clemence, and was negotiating a hot chocolate disaster from their first child, Josephine. “Brian kept saying he wanted to go for a walk on the beach before flying home to London,” recalls Rachel. When he got down on one knee in the sands of Dollymount, his soon-to-be fiancé was blown away. “It was a total surprise, I had tears of happiness,” she recalls. “It was kind of the most imperfect perfect proposal.” The “beautiful and unique” Jade Jagger engagement ring set the tone for the wedding to come.

The bride had visions of getting married among lavender fields and rolling landscapes somewhere warm, where there was little chance of gray skies and rain. “I was half joking and half dreaming of the Jacquemus show,” she laughs—and she mentioned this fantasy to the right person at the right time. Sameera Azeem, the creative director at Ghost, had a friend, Jo Hales, who owned a private villa in Montisi, Tuscany, that more than fit the bill. When Rachel and Brian saw La Fornace, it was a dream come true. “Jo didn’t normally do weddings, but she made an exception for us which felt so incredibly special,” adds Rachel, whose favorite film as a teenager was Stealing Beauty, a ’90s drama about an American teenager who travels to a lush Tuscan villa near Siena.

“Our plan had been to get married in the lavender fields yet when we saw the space with the two tall cypress trees, we felt it symbolized us both,” says Rachel, who walked down the aisle to The Florence String Quartet’s rendition of The Stranglers’s “Golden Brown” and walked back to the villa as a wife to Aphex Twin’s “Avril 14th.” With her dad Robert, daughters Clemence and Josephine, her sister Marianna and friends Kate, Milena and Jose, the bride says she was “surrounded by the best.”

The ceremony itself was Celtic. The couple stepped inside a pink and white flower circle, lit a candle each and then a third together. Eight-year-old Josephine tied a white bow around her parents’ wrists with the help of auntie Marianna, and close friend Greta Bellamacina read a poem she had written for the bride and groom. “It was all very magical,” admits Rachel, who chose Simone Rocha for her fairytale moment in front of 80 guests.

“I am known for wearing dresses, so I felt I needed something more dramatic,” she shares. “I have always loved ballet and romance and felt this dress was a twist on the ballerina aesthetic. I knew it was the one when I sent a photo to my mum at my store fitting and she said, ‘It’s perfect, it’s exactly you’. It made me cry.” A Simone Rocha bag and headband, Jimmy Choo shoes and Sophie Bille Brahe earrings all kept to the pearl theme.

The evening played out over a six-course Italian feast, with Brian’s mum, Breda Daly, making quite the entrance by singing Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love.” “She became an icon,” says Rachel, who felt overwhelmed to have everyone they loved in one place. As they all danced the night away, the busy five-month build up to this spectacular wedding melted away in a sea of pearls, family, and friends.