Editor-in-chief of Condé Nast BRIDES magazine, best-selling author of 2 novels and dear friend of WPC, Jade Beer has chosen her top wedding presents for 2019. Read on for some serious style inspo from the Queen of weddings and add directly to your wedding list.
When pulling together our top wedding presents for 2019 there was only one person to reach out to for style advice and inspiration; Jade Beer, Editor-in-chief of Condé Nast BRIDES magazine and author of the brand new novel 'What I Didn't Say' and best-selling 'The Almost Wife'. The Queen of wedding style and inspiration, Jade lives and breathes weddings, making her the perfect choice when it came to selecting our top wedding presents for 2019. So without further ado, we hand over to Jade.
Every time I set foot into The Wedding Present Company’s King’s Road showroom, I mentally spend £10,000. Every inch of the place is overflowing with something tempting, beautiful things it might not have even occurred to you to buy, practical things you can very easily convince yourself you CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT. Everything is arranged by room, so you can see the Le Creuset in the Kitchen and the OKA quilt over the bed and immediately get a sense of how it might work in your own home. If you’re anything like me, you won’t know what to make a grab for first. It’s fantastic that they have everything carefully curated online, but nothing beats the hit of inspiration you get wandering the fantasy version of your new dream home. They’ll let your friends in to shop with you too, for added fun. In the highly unlikely event that they don’t have your one must-have item in store or online, there is no need to miss out. Just give them the details and they will source if for you regardless, quickly adding it to your list. Their ability to find beautiful interiors products is also not restricted to what is readily available elsewhere. The team will locate that antique piece of silver that no one else can or commission a bespoke illustration of your wedding bouquet. The only limit to what they deliver, is your own imagination.
I’ve never felt I needed a personal shopper – I’m greedy and want everything I see – but for the less grabby among us, the WPC offer this option. And, unlike many others, the service is free of charge. All of this would be deeply impressive on its own. But then there’s the team who will work with you. I collaborate with lots of different brands over the course of the year and this company is one of the most supportive, resourceful and clever I know. Full of ideas, genuinely passionate about what they do and excited about filling your home with things you’ll love now and forevermore. Am I allowed to say Georgie is my favourite?
Then comes the really exciting bit. If you’re happy with everything you’ve listed and it’s all been bought, fantastic, take delivery and start ripping off the wrapping paper. If you’re not, take the total sum of money your guests have spent and start all over again. It gives you so much freedom to shop exactly as you’d like to without any awkward trips to the charity shop to off-load that thing you thought you liked but now don’t. Then when you’re done, sit back and wait for the toot of the delivery man armed not only with presents but a chilled bottle fizz for you to enjoy as you unpack them all – what could actually be more exciting?!
Starting with my favourite, I love that this palette allows you to add feminine pieces to your list without going all out pink and girly. It’s the more sophisticated way to go. The shade reminds me of those blousy peonies that start filling the florists around May time. It’s warm, inherently optimistic and if it was up to me alone, my house would be full of this shade.
A major trend across weddings in 2018/2019, brides have been using palm, leaf and fern motifs on everything from their stationery to their cakes and opting for table centres that are entirely flower free. I love the sense of abundance, lushness and earthiness this shade brings, lending a freshness that will make these products feel like very recent updates to your home, even if you’ve been loving them for years. I am a sucker for sage green and chose it for the colour of my kitchen walls.
All over the Spring/Summer 2019 catwalks were pieces designed to clash – but elegantly so. And the trend is heading for your home. What a joy not having to worry about anything matching, when none of it is supposed to. This is such a versatile trend because it allows you to add to your interiors pieces without being beholden to a rigid colour palette. I think it conveys a confidence to your sense of style - you’re the sort of person that if you like it, you’ll buy it. Basically, you can’t go wrong and people will be asking where you got that from for months to come.
The interiors equivalent of a big cashmere throw, for me this is the trend that screams I’ve got impeccable taste! If you love neutrals with soft washes of colour that look luxurious and spread a sense of calm throughout your home, this one if for you. It’s unfussy, incredibly easy to get right and lends itself brilliantly to low-key I made no effort at all entertaining.
Jade Beer is the author of two novels
Everyone is pretending to be someone they’re not. There’s Betsy, the happily engaged twenty-something whose eyes should be all over her wedding plans but are all over another man instead. Her mother Helen, playing the part of the ecstatic mother-of-the-bride, while keeping her own secret love affair under wraps. Nat, who lies for a living and is questioning how much longer she can keep it up. And Jenny - full of love, desperate to be loved back and about to tell one tiny fib that will spark a hundred more.
A royal photographer who refuses to shoot ugly people, a planning-obsessed father-of-the-bride, a family-phobic groom who wants sex not love and three brides-to-be all racing towards the perfect day. But only two will make it up the aisle - and only one will marry. In between the acres of tulle, towering cakes and David Austin roses, who will emerge happy ever after and whose choices will have devastating consequences no one could predict?