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On a cool May morning, just as a cloak of fog began to lift off the western hills of Los Angeles, Miranda Kerr ran downstairs and put a chicken in the oven.
If it seems odd that Kerr should be making dinner on her wedding day, consider the surprisingly intimate scale of the nuptials themselves: a cozy affair at home with 45 or so friends and family for one of the world’s most recognizable models and her fiancé, Evan Spiegel, whose company, Snapchat, boasts close to 200 million daily users. But there was no need to pity this busy bride, whose apron would soon be traded for Dior Haute Couture. She was cooking only for her husband-to-be (Kerr’s slow-roasted chicken scented with turmeric and lemon is among Spiegel’s favorite dishes), while the caterer replicated her menu for the rest of the assembled guests.
Watch Miranda Kerr’s Fairy-Tale Wedding Dress Fitting:
It wasn’t long after the couple got engaged in July of last year that Kerr began to dream of dresses, her imagination never straying far from the iconic gown worn by Grace Kelly at her 1956 wedding to Prince Rainier of Monaco, designed by the Hollywood wardrobe maestra Helen Rose and spun out of antique Belgian lace, silk, taffeta, and tulle by some 35 seamstresses in the MGM studios. Another thing happened last July: Maria Grazia Chiuri became the artistic director of Dior (and the first woman to lead the house in its 69-year history). Though the Australian model had never met Chiuri, here was the chance to live out a fantasy. “I think it’s every girl’s dream to have Dior design her wedding dress,” Kerr says. “I thought, If she’s up for it, I’m up for it.”
Chiuri was indeed up for it. The bride-to-be met the design team in Paris in the fall, and sketches soon followed. Though she has often been photographed wearing very little, on this occasion Kerr sought long sleeves and a high neck. “A dress that fully covers you creates a sense of purity and mystery,” says the former Victoria’s Secret Angel, who in contrast to her runway swagger conveys a shy delicacy in person. “I’ve had a lot of fun with fashion, and I used to be more wild, free, bohemian. But in this period of my life, my style is more pulled back. My greatest sources of inspiration have always been Grace, Audrey Hepburn, and my grandmother, who at 80 has an effortless chic: a nice pant, a white blouse, a scarf, a little heel.”
A few weeks before the wedding, Chiuri was in Los Angeles and drove to Kerr and Spiegel’s beach house for the final fitting of her first bridal dress for Dior. A satin skirt the color of whipped butter was already appliquéd with lilies of the valley. When the last button closed upon Kerr’s narrow wrists, Chiuri, in the counterpoint of her black biker jacket, grinned wide. “I have to be honest—she’s not a difficult fit,” the designer said with a chuckle. “She wanted something like a fairy tale, and she gave me this idea, to make a dress that was emotional and simple at the same time.”
Both the mother and the grandmother of the bride wept when they saw her dress, but Kerr saved her own tears for the wedding day. To calm any matrimonial nerves, the couple did an hour of yoga together in the late morning (fittingly so, as their first date had been a kundalini class), but the bride still cried straight through her vows. She and Spiegel, in a Dior morning suit, had taken every precaution to preserve whatever intimacy is still available to a famous couple: A high white canopy was suspended over the garden to thwart helicopters and drones, and they established a ban on social media (even Snapchat). The bride entered to the strains of Arvo Pärt’s “Spiegel im Spiegel,” long a favorite song of hers but newly meaningful now that the word repeated in its title, German for mirror, has become her name.
There was no bridal party, but Flynn, Kerr’s six-year-old son, served as ring bearer and also joined his mother and stepfather for the first dance, wearing a navy-blue three-piece suit (Dior, naturally) and a lily-of-the-valley boutonniere. By the time she was karaoke-ing to Shania Twain hours later, Kerr had changed into something short and lacy that Chiuri had concocted for the wedding’s looser second half.
“Honestly, I couldn’t have imagined a more beautiful wedding dress,” Kerr said a few days after the couple returned from a honeymoon in Fiji. That Spiegel was visibly rapt surely brought satisfaction to some of the old guard that evening. “When I was young, my grandmother told me, ‘Miranda, men are very visual. It’s important to look good.’ I was like, ‘OK, Nan.’”
In this story: Sittings Editor: Gabriella Karefa-Johnson Makeup: Lisa Storey; Hair: Ericka Verrett; Manicure: Kim Truong
Watch Miranda Kerr Apply Her Glowing Wedding Day Makeup: