Who What Wear Weddings: Grace and Justin Day
Welcome to Who What Wear Weddings, the destination for style-minded weddings. Expect insightful tips straight from the newlyweds, shoppable elements and plenty of must-save imagery as we share the nuptials of our favourite fashion people getting married. For upcoming features, share your submissions here.
We met on the (very sticky) dancefloor of an iconic Mancunian pub, The Star & Garter, dancing to You Spin Me Round by Dead or Alive and clicking immediately. After a few years of finding myself following a bad breakup earlier in my twenties, I’d only recently started dating again, but never really had much luck via online dating apps. The night before I met Justin, I had drinks with a friend and told her I’d sworn off dating and was very happy being single and enjoying my twenties—famous last words. We dated casually for about a year before making it "official". I was determined that I didn’t want to spend my twenties in a relationship, but soon I realised that with our weekly date nights and weekend cinema trips, we were definitely something more than casual!
Justin proposed two years later, on holiday in New York. He’d previously told me that marriage hadn’t ever been something he was interested in, so it was totally unexpected. We ate dinner at an incredible Italian restaurant in the West Village called Palma. It has an interior courtyard filled with candles and fresh roses growing up the walls—he later told me that he hadn’t planned the proposal to be there, but that as soon as he walked in, he knew it was the right setting. I adore Italian food, so it felt totally right to be proposed to over a bowl of pasta.
We chose the ring together when we were back home in Manchester. There’s an incredible vintage jewellery shop called Arthur Kay & Bro on Market Street, which I’ve never been able to walk past without peering in the window. It was important to me that we do it together, and Justin had wisely figured out in advance that choosing a ring for me would never be a solo mission or a surprise. I love rings, but had never really given much thought to what my engagement ring would look like, other than that I wanted something vintage. In the end, we settled on something totally surprising: a Victorian boat ring from the 1890s.
The night before the wedding, we dined separately with our families. My family ordered rounds of Cosmopolitans and Manhattans in the hotel bar (a nod to New York!) before we ate in the hotel restaurant overlooking the bay. I wore a black satin shift dress by Proenza Schouler, which I actually found before I found my wedding dress, paired with my Chanel classic flap bag and Manolo Blahnik heels with bows; a nod to the bow motif we used on our wedding stationery. I wear black 90% of the time, so it only felt right to do so the day before wearing an all-white outfit! Justin and his family dined at the nearby Castell Deudreath Hotel before heading to the pub, in classic Northener style.
I’m an early riser, so I was naturally awake at the crack of dawn. The first order of the day was to ice my face and use my Current Body LED Mask, after which I used a series of hydrating and sheet masks to prep my skin. Can you tell skincare is my thing?
The generous team at Laura Mercier very kindly provided a makeup artist for my wedding glam, the incredible Jessica Kohn. I had initially planned to do my makeup myself, but in the end, I’m so glad that I didn’t. I wasn’t nervous at all until the morning of the wedding, and would not have been capable of applying my own mascara! I had a trial day with Jess at Laura Mercier HQ in London a few months before the wedding, where we went through my mood board and finalised products and shades. The brief was classic and glowy, but with a bit of fun—I’m a beauty writer, after all. Jess applied crystal gems around my eyes and brows, which were super subtle but added a fun sparkle.
