The Dress with Anita Amini

My partner (Laith Amini) and I (Anita Amini) got married in a picturesque villa, set on the hills of Taormina, Sicily. When we first got engaged, we both had no idea what we wanted our wedding to be like, which was great for us because we set off to Sicily with completely clear minds, excited for the wedding reccy ahead and to come up with something incredible together.

Our wedding ended up being a glamorous affair, with a white, gold and sage green colour scheme. We asked our guests to come dressed in “colourful, Sicilian chic”.

The wedding was held at Villa Mon Repos on Monday 29th May 2023. The headlines the week leading up to our wedding – “Italy hit by the worst floods in a century” along with “Mount Etna erupts, spewing ash on Catania and forcing suspension of all flights.” It’s safe to say the week leading up our wedding we sat at home with bated breath, praying that we would be able to get there, let alone get married.

Someone must have been looking down upon us as the flights resumed as normal and the sun shone for us from the minute we arrived throughout the whole trip.

The Journey

For me there was only one option when it came to my dress, and that was Pronovias. The different options that they had were out of this world and I wanted nothing more than to be able to wear one of their dresses on my big day.

Having tried on many wedding dresses before, in my job as a model, I thought I would find the whole process very easy. To tell you the truth, I saw online what I thought I wanted, and when I went for my fitting at Pronovias Bond Street boutique, I asked them to bring this specific dress out as I was certain that was what I’d be going home with. I picked out a few other dresses to show to my bridal party – they’d travelled from outside of London to come to my appointment with me, so it was important to show them other styles, even though I already knew which dress which dress would be my wedding dress. I could not have been more wrong!

The dress I liked looked absolutely beautiful online on the model, but as is the case with everything, it’s not always going to look the same on me. “My” dress ended up being the least favourite out of all of the ones I’d picked to choose. This made me quite anxious, I thought the dress was going to be perfect, I had it all planned out. I ended up having to get out of my own head and look at everything with fresh eyes, which was the best thing to have happened to me in that moment. I ended up going through the rail and finding a sparkly (not what I wanted), beaded (not what I wanted), mermaid cut (again, not what I wanted) floor length dress that I just fell in love with as soon as I put it on.

I genuinely believe that I didn’t find that dress, the dress found me. And again, I thought I knew best – Mar from Pronovias started to sift through her veils and I stopped her abruptly and said “no thank you, I won’t be wearing a veil”. Because of my Indian heritage, I had the vision of wearing a Matha Patti which is a typical Indian headpiece and not be the classic “white wedding” bride. Mar very politely and patiently replied “ok that’s fine, but why don’t you just try it to rule it out”. The moment the veil cascaded over my shoulders, much longer than the dress, I could have cried. It was utterly perfect. I might have worn many wedding dresses due to my job, but that was the first time I really felt like a beautiful bride.

The Vision

I couldn’t have been more wrong with my vision before I entered the Pronovias boutique that Saturday. About the only thing that I stuck with was the fact that I wanted a “white” floor length wedding dress.

The Decision

I truly had so much fun picking out my dress. The girls at Pronovias made the whole thing so easy, from the first dress try on to the final fitting, I didn’t once feel stressed or uncomfortable. I don’t plan to get married again but I so wish I could do the dress picking all over again.

The Style Support

I had a fantastic group of people around me, from my bridesmaids to my mum and mother in law who were just so helpful. The amount of WhatsApp conversations that were being had about jewellery and Spanx.

I’m very lucky to have the most fantastic jeweller in Hatton Garden, Patrick Wyatt. He ensured that I had only the best jewellery for my big
day. He is also the man behind my beautiful engagement ring and our wedding bands.

The Accessories

I’d actually decided on my wedding shoes before I found my dress, and I had to stop myself from prematurely buying them, just incase for some reason they didn’t go with the whole look. But the Jimmy Choo Sacaria heels were perfect. I absolutely loved that my dress kicked up when I walked so you could catch a glimpse of the glamorous pearls.

My jewellery was by my trusted jeweller Patrick Wyatt. I went to his office in Hatton Garden and we carefully picked the perfect accompaniments to my dress. I wore a dainty 8.5 carat diamond tennis bracelet around my wrist; an aquamarine and diamond pear shaped droplet necklace, the perfect nod to my “something blue”.

My hair was down so no one could really see the beautiful diamond droplets in my ears, but they finished the look off perfectly. My jeweller Patrick has a creative and keen eye for all jewels, and I was lucky enough to have him make our wedding bands and also my 2 carat engagement ring, set in diamonds that I received from my grandmother before she passed. There’s no one else I would trust with such a job!

Advice For Brides

Enjoy. Every. Minute. Because it will go by so quickly!

Don’t be swayed by other peoples opinions, you don’t want to look back on your dress and think you only did it for someone else. I would also say, think about what you usually do in day to day life. If you never wear your hair up in a low chignon, do you want to do that on your wedding day if you could potentially feel uncomfortable or feel like you don’t look like yourself? Or maybe that’s exactly what you want…ultimately it’s all your decision

The Evening Look

It was always my dream to have two dresses for my wedding day, but in practice I personally felt like i wouldn’t have had enough time to enjoy the ceremony dress before changing into the party dress. My dress was so intricate and beautiful that there’s no way I would have been ready to change after the dinner.

I had detachable sleeves on the dress, so it was lovely to be able to take them off to change the look. I also took off the veil after the dinner and put on a fun headpiece. Whilst my headpiece wasn’t a Matha Patti, it was my vision to wear one, and I’m so glad I was able to to dance the night away in a different look.

The Second Day Outfit

We had a 3 day party, starting with welcome drinks for our guests to all meet one another, the wedding day, and a pool party.
For the first night at the welcome drinks, I wore a floor length, emerald green Diane Von Furstenburg gown as I wanted to change it up and have a bit of fun with a pop of colour.

The day after the wedding was the pool party. For this I wore a white bikini from Bahimi, accompanied by a lace kimono that I purchased whilst holidaying in Ibiza. This was the perfect outfit for this day, I was dipping in an out of the pool, sipping on Aperol Spritz anddancing away until the sun came down.