Julia Haghjoo wore Kaviar Gauche wedding dresses and a Chanel jacket for her dream wedding in Somerset, England

By Marie Périer

Julia Haghjoo's wedding was divided into three stages between August and September 2022. It brought together all of the elements that the inspiring content creator holds dear to her heart, including fashion, elegance, the English countryside and all of the fairytale wedding dresses that she designed especially for the occasion.

After a proposal in the Maldives, Julia Haghjoo, an art director and content creator with a following of over 216K on Instagram, and her husband Adam indulged in the charms of the English countryside for their wedding. The celebration of their love was divided into three stages from August to September 2022. They started off with a civil ceremony in London's Chelsea at the beginning of August, followed by a larger party in mid-August in Somerset and then a final, more intimate wedding ceremony at the Nash Conservatory in Kew Gardens on September 15, 2022.

"I had always dreamt of a seaside wedding somewhere sunny and Mediterranean! But staycations with my husband in between lockdowns had introduced me to the majestic British countryside," recalls Julia. The Newt in particular is very dear to our hearts, and we have stayed there often since it opened back in 2018." Over the course of three days in mid-August, some 90 or so guests gathered around the newlywed couple to enjoy the quiet joys of the English countryside of Somerset. On the Friday evening, the welcome dinner was held in Newt's restaurant, with a view of the countryside. For the occasion, Julia collaborated with German brand Kaviar Gauche to create her first bridal gown, a mid-length dress with long sleeves accented with a subtle set of mother-of-pearl buttons and a ribbon at the neck. In order for the guests to get to know each other better, Julia and Adam came up with an interesting idea to break the ice: "We split up couples to force people to integrate more, which worked really well – by the second night everyone seemed to know each other!"

"Luckily I had benefited from some pre-wedding croquet training as one of my Bachelorette surprises!" - Julia Haghjoo

On the Saturday evening, it was party time in the gardens of the Newt before moving on to an enchanting dinner in the barn house that was transformed into a luminous den adorned with white flowers and a bonfire. The night was filled with festive cocktails, a gourmet meal made with the finest local produce, and heartfelt speeches, all of which concluded with a special performance by the artist Kyan and followed by a live DJ set. Julia's husband wore an Alexander McQueen suit, and she once again collaborated with Kaviar Gauche to design the second wedding dress of her dreams which was inspired by a Gatsby-era aesthetic. "The three-day wedding celebration concluded with a brunch at the hotel’s Botanical Rooms restaurant, followed by croquet and Bloody Marys in the gardens," recalls the bride, who opted for a pink-and-white Chanel suit for this more casual moment. Relive this marathon of love and fashion through a series of beautiful photographs, and unforgettable memories as recounted by Julia Haghjoo.

This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.

Translated by Nafiseh Soolari

Julia Haghjoo. Adam and I met randomly on a beautifully sunny spring day on a hotel rooftop terrace in Berlin in 2019. My friends had struck up a conversation with him by chance, and we ended up putting both tables together, and later exchanging details. But we only really started to get to know each other some months later when I visited London and randomly got in touch!

I had been living in Paris and he in London when the pandemic struck, and we spontaneously chose to spend lockdown together in London (albeit grossly underestimating how long that would last!) As fate would have it, we make a wonderful team and strive to bring out the best in each other. Our marriage represents to us a commitment to cherish the love and respect we feel for one another, and to continue to blossom and grow together in the years to come.

My husband proposed on the Maldives by the beach just before sunset on the second day of our stay. He made a great effort to make this day as special, meaningful and memorable as possible. Of course, rain started to pour at that particular moment, just before he planned to have drinks with me at the beach bar. I have never seen him so nervous and stressed before. It confused me that he picked up the phone to call the hotel reception to check when it usually stops raining - at this stage I thought he had completely lost his mind. It didn’t occur to me that he planned the proposal while we stayed at the resort. Something that didn’t get lost on me was the wonderful rainbow over the horizon of the Indian Ocean as the sunset approached. On the beach, we enjoyed a drink and went for a walk. From afar, I saw a little area that Adam invited me to explore, but I strangely was not interested and kindly declined! He insisted, and it turned out to be a giant heart-shaped sand sculpture at the beach. And suddenly, it all went very quickly. He got down on one knee and asked me the big question. I was very emotional and needed a minute to compose myself!

My husband is a very attentive listener. It was on a beautiful autumn evening while he prepared dinner while I was on my laptop on the kitchen counter to choose pieces of jewellery for an upcoming shoot. I was very taken with a particular ring from one of my favourite jewellers that I had stumbled upon, and must have expressed my thoughts aloud! Adam kept this in mind and then months later surprised me with a similar, slightly customised engagement ring when he proposed to me in the Maldives. The design of the ring represents the strong bond between the two of us and holds a stunning and delicate diamond in the middle representing our eternal love.

In due course, prior to the wedding, I took the initiative to arrange an appointment with Chopard in Paris to pick out a wedding band for him as a gift from me. He opted for a minimal and timeless yellow gold band. I chose a white gold diamond wedding band, also from Chopard, to pair with my engagement ring.

We wanted to create events that represented us as a couple and decided against the traditional way of doing things all in one go. So we split the occasion into three separate parts, each with a different focus, to allow us to really savor each moment!

Our intimate civil wedding took place in early August in London, which we celebrated with close family at my in-laws house; our weekend celebration followed in Somerset at The Newt was the party we will remember all our lives; and our intimate wedding ceremony at The Nash Conservatory at Kew Gardens in London in mid-September had the most emotion and symbolism for us as a couple. Obviously having multiple events does not reduce the planning workload, but we found it well worth the effort.

By Marie Bladt

By Héloïse Salessy

By Lisa Stardust

We worked with a selection of seasonal vegetables, herbs from the hotel garden and fashionable candlesticks from Loewe for the welcome dinner and decided to go for chic and elegance for our Black Tie event on the Saturday evening. Pale flowers in all shades of white with tendrils of jasmine and foliage complimented the fairy light setting. Dahlias are one of my favorite flowers , a symbol of commitment and an everlasting union and had to be included in the flower concept.

The Newt’s widely acclaimed head chef, Ben Champkin, accompanied by Alan Stewart, assisted us with menu concepts to span the three-day weekend. My husband and I are real foodies, and the menus were a point of great consternation! Ben prepared a fantastic selection for our tasting for both, the welcome dinner on Friday and the celebration dinner on Saturday. He created a fantastic concept for our first evening at the Garden Cafe on our first evening, starting with a sharing feast following a farm-to-table concept using the estate’s seasonal produce. Among many other dishes, our guests enjoyed greenhouse tomato and dill salad with olive oil, wood fired corn on the cob with yeasted butter and chill as well as crispy potatoes, Dorset sea salt & cider vinegar.

For the second evening, Ben planned a three three-course menu with our guests specifying selections before the event. One example included a starter of cured trout gravlax, garden leaves & horseradish, a main of spiced monkfish, grilled aubergine and green olive dressing followed by a dessert such as elderflower sorbet & gooseberry.

The wedding cake was created and brought into the party at midnight by Lydia Uglow from the Newt, who is now a nationally renowned chef pâtissier, who made my dream come true! I had always dreamt of a vast Gâteau St-Honoré as my wedding cake. Lydia, together with Alan Holloway, head pastry chef, put her award-winning talents to work to create the most wonderful and exquisite Gâteau St-Honoré any of our guests had ever seen. The effort and love that went into this creation is something we as a couple will forever remember – it embodies the passion of the team we were working with to make dreams come true.

For fastidious people like us, planning such a weekend is no trivial undertaking. It was made a relative breeze by Antonella Bonetti and Beth Hiscock who led the team at the Newt – their patience, passion and discernment brought all our dreams to life. By the end of the weekend, they and the team felt like family!

We wanted to create an atmosphere that would welcome our guests into our world – or rather the most fantastic version of it! We wanted everyone to join us for a once-in-a-lifetime experience, escaping London for a spectacular rural setting, to feast on exquisite seasonal dishes made from locally-sourced ingredients with perfect drink pairings, with surprise performances from Kyan and his mind-blowingly talented band, followed by Larry London’s epic DJ set. Neither artist normally ever agrees to perform at weddings, and luring them and their entourages to Somerset on an August weekend was without precedent. Our guests were blown away!

By Jade Simon, translated by Helena Baron

By Sophie Bouchet

By Jennifer Neyt and Eugénie Trochu, translated by Hannah J Davies and Kate Matthams-Spencer

By The editorial team