After meeting through mutual friends, Jana Hofheimer, fashion business advisor and former buyer at Moda Operandi, and Charlie Daniel had their first date in New York City, their second date in London, and their third date at Glastonbury Festival in Somerset. The first nine months of their relationship was long-distance, but once the pandemic set in, Jana quickly made the move to London. “We went from spending barely half of our time with one another to then more than 100 days straight together during lockdown…and it ended up being a very beautiful thing,” she shares.
Over a bank holiday weekend, as a birthday gift to Charlie, Jana planned a trip for the two of them to go to Cornwall. On Saturday, she crafted an itinerary for the day on the fly, which included ending the day at a beach only accessible by hike. As the two were laying on the sand tougher and the sun was beginning to set in the secluded cove, Charlie asked Jana to marry him. “I think the first words I mustered were, ‘Is this actually happening right now?!’ then, ‘Did you ask my dad?’ At which point, I began to laugh and cry.”
The engaged pair chose to host their wedding in Holland Park. “It was the first place that we walked my dog, Irie, when she and I moved to London from NYC in 2020 and moved in with Charlie,” Jana shares.
For her wedding day, the former designer ready-to-wear buyer chose a skirt suit by one of her favorite designers, Alessandra Rich. “It’s look 39 from her SS19 collection, to be exact,” Jana quips. “The moment I laid eyes on it during the sales campaign back in September of 2018—only a week or two after I met my now husband, strangely enough—I knew I would one day have a civil ceremony, at which I would wear this very look.”
Her “something blue” was a navy headband and matching Manolo Blahniks that she borrowed from a friend. Diamond pansy earrings from Jana’s aunt and a bouquet from Kensington Flowers completed the ensemble. And on the day-of, Jana got ready with makeup artist Celia Burton and hair stylist Alice Lazar.
On November 17, 2021, Jana walked down the aisle with her father to meet Charlie. The groom’s uncle opened the ceremony with a reading of an excerpt from Jane Eyre. “As soon as he began, I immediately started to cry, as I just felt incredibly, overwhelmingly fortunate that I could so deeply relate to the words he was reading: ‘I have for the first time found what I can truly love–I have found you. You are my sympathy–my better self–my good angel…’”
Once the two had exchanged their vows—as composed by the Registrar of the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea—and were announced as husband and wife, they walked back down the aisle and to the garden for champagne. The wedding luncheon, catered by Bovingdons, followed, and later that night, everyone hit the town to celebrate the newlyweds with drinks and dancing.
The new mister and missus had planned to keep their civil ceremony with the news of their marriage under wraps until their larger wedding in Hawaii, but unsurprisingly to Jana and Charlie, everyone quickly became aware of their union. The two hosted what was originally their engagement party after their civil ceremony, but once the cat was out of the bag, the fête was made all the more celebratory.
