“What were we thinking?” David Beckham said in his Netflix docuseries when presented with photos from his 1999 wedding to Victoria. (The 15th-century Luttrellstown castle, the his-and-hers thrones, the lone white dove released to the cue of “I do” and the inexplicable Robin Hood theme that saw the couple pose in coordinating cardinal purple for OK! magazine.) “I think I just took Victoria’s lead on it.”
The Beckhams this week decided to mark their 25th wedding anniversary with a recreation of those exact portraits on their Oxfordshire estate. A jump scare for anyone old enough to have lived through the spectacle the first time around, I assume David might have taken Victoria’s lead on this one, too. And so here they are, perched on those behemoth velvet thrones in matching Antonio Berardi ensembles: Victoria in a fishtail gown with silver Manolo Blahnik heels, David in a double-breasted and jumbo-collared suit.
“It was fun,” Victoria said of those outfits in that same docuseries. “We weren’t worried about what people were going to say. You just want to express yourself and that’s just who we were.” There are, of course, few things quite as romantic as an Instagram co-post and Victoria has spent the past week in a state of digital nostalgia. See: the photos she uploaded from a 1997 break to Portofino, arms wrapped around David, lovestruck on a chartered yacht. “It was a very, very romantic trip. I remember how excited I was to be there with David for the first time. The intensity of the two of us being together for 48 hours was amazing…”