Bel Powley Wore an Embellished Miu Miu Dress at Her Wedding to Douglas Booth in London

The bride’s dream of all dreams was always to wear a Miu Miu wedding dress. “I have worked closely with Miu Miu for nearly 10 years and have become very close to the brand,” Bel says. “I always feel totally myself in their beautiful designs. When they agreed to make my wedding dress and party dress, I cried because it felt so special!”

Bel’s stylist and close friend Cher Coulter guided her through the whole process. “We always knew we wanted it to feel vintage but fresh and simple but unique,” Bel says. “We made a mood board whilst on the Eurostar to Paris for Fashion Week and, a couple of weeks later, got 15 stunning designs back from the team at Miu Miu.”

She chose a simple shape: thin straps and square neck, tight bodice, and bell-shaped skirt stopping at the ankles, completely embellished in crystals and organza flowers. “I’d just never seen a wedding dress like it, and it felt utterly me,” she says. “My mum, Cher, and I flew over to Milan for my fitting and had one of the most joyous trips of our lives that I will never forget.” For jewelry, Cher chose long pearl earrings by Sophie Bille Brahe, and she wore a garter that her mother had her wedding earrings and a blue ribbon sewn into.

Hair and makeup were done by Celia Burton and Marcus Francis, who are both close friends of the bride. “I always knew I’d want my hair scraped back and out of my face, and Marcus did a ‘party in the back’ with some really cool hair twists that had the same flowers from my dress in them,” Bel says. For makeup, Charlotte Tilbury provided all the products for Bel and her bridesmaids. “Celia and I went for a clean and modern look, with a slightly pink, iridescent wash on the eyes,” Bel adds.

Bel’s favorite color combination is pink and red, which ended up influencing some of the details of her big day. “My bridesmaids were all tasked with finding different pink dresses that they each felt comfortable in but complemented each other,” the bride explains. “It was a really fun and sweet process, and we ended up with some incredible looks, from Ulla Johnson to Rejina Pyo to Bode. One of my oldest friends, Billie Cronin, owns Good Squish—the incredible cult scrunchies—and the team designed special red hair clips for my bridesmaids that were so stunning!”

The couple also planned the entire wedding themselves in just six months. “I really recommend this because it forces you to make decisions quickly and doesn’t prolong the process,” Bel says. “We didn’t have one disagreement on anything, and we were a great team with the shared goal of throwing the best party full of love for all our friends and family who we adore so much. We knew we wanted it to feel relaxed, fun, and very London, which it definitely did when the heavens opened after lunch!”

The couple got married in one of the greenhouses at Petersham. “I’m Jewish, and although I’m not religious, I wanted to honor my heritage, so we were married under a chuppah,” Bel says. “Douglas’s sister, Abigail, is an artist—one half of the art collective Forest + Found—and she made the canopy, which was dyed with madder root she’d grown in her London garden allotment and embroidered with an Emily Dickinson quote.”

The chuppah was decorated with red and pink dahlias, as per the color scheme. “Our best friend Alice married us, so the ceremony felt informal and fun,” Bel notes. “She looked incredible in her pink Bode suit. Our guests whooped us down the aisle, and there was so much laughter and tears. Both our mums did beautiful readings—it was a complete highlight of the day.”

When it started raining after the ceremony, everyone ran to the old Routemaster London buses. “In the torrential rain, heels were in big puddles, dresses got soaked—it was epic,” Bel says. Guests took the buses into town and while en route were entertained by two drag queens. Eventually, they arrived at the Institute of Contemporary Arts for a big dance party. “We hung three huge rotating disco balls in the main room and had our first dance under their magical light to ‘I Just Want to Make Love to You’ by Etta James,” Bel says. For this, the bride changed into her after-party look that was inspired by a design from Miu Miu’s spring 2021 collection but remade in white with crystals and embellishments.

The couple and their guests toasted with cosmopolitans, Tom Collinses, and Champagne to kick things off, and then the lighting transitioned to a ’90s dance party with strobes and lasers as guests spilled out onto the balconies of the ICA overlooking St. James’s Park and the Mall.