Brooklyn Beckham’s wedding signals a return to pre-pandemic luxury – but at what cost?

With a £3m budget and the bride in Valentino, this wedding could be the final marker of our new normal, writes Laura Hampson

Brooklyn and billionaire heiress Nicola Peltz (Getty)

When the Covid-19 pandemic reached British shores just over two years ago, the wedding industry was one of the first – and ultimately one of the hardest – industries to be hit.

Weddings were postponed, then cancelled, then rescheduled for two years in the future. A wedding I’m going to this weekend was originally scheduled for October 2020 and they’re just now saying their vows, 18 months on.

Brooklyn Beckham, the eldest child of a Spice Girl and a footballer, was one of those who was forced to delay their nuptials.

Beckham and his betrothed, billionaire heiress Nicola Peltz, are getting married this weekend, on Saturday 9 April. The wedding is set to be held at Peltz’s oceanfront family mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, which is reportedly worth £76m.

Peltz and Beckham announced their engagement in July 2020, in the middle of the first wave of the pandemic. At the time, Zoom weddings were the done thing, so the pair held off.

The wedding itself is said to cost a cool £3m. The bride won’t be donning her mother-in-law’s label, instead she will wear one (maybe two!) Valentino gowns for the big day.

The no-expenses-spared nuptials will see guests like fellow former Spice Girl Mel B, Gordon Ramsay, Gigi Hadid and Nicole Richie. It’s even rumoured that royalty may be in attendance, so don’t be surprised if you spot a ginger-haired prince in the paparazzi pictures. To top it off, Snoop Dogg is said to be the evening’s entertainment.

All things considered, it will be quite a bash. And, with summer just around the corner, it’s set to kick off one of the busiest wedding seasons the UK has seen in years.

Two years on since the start of the pandemic, the Beckham wedding signifies a return to normal. Well, a new normal at least, one where Covid is treated as if it were a simple cold.

That’s what we’re meant to think, right? With restrictions dropped and free lateral flow tests scrapped, it’s as if the pandemic never happened. And what better way to forget our troubles than with a lavish wedding?

Yours,

Laura Hampson

Deputy lifestyle editor