two trumpeters appeared at the foot of the altar to herald the arrival of the groom. Colin entered the main sanctuary from a side alcove, accompanied by Nick, Lionel Khoo, and Mehmet Sabançi, all in dark gray morning suits and silvery blue ties. Rachel couldn’t help but swell up with pride—Nick looked so dashing standing by the altar.
The lights in the sanctuary dimmed, and through a side door appeared a crowd of blond boys dressed in faun-like costumes of wispy white linen. Each rosy-cheeked boy clutched a glass jar filled with fireflies, and as more and more towheaded boys emerged to form two lines along both sides of the church sanctuary, Rachel realized there had to be at least a hundred of them. Illuminated by the flickering lights from their jars, the boys began to sing the classic English song “My True Love Hath My Heart.”
“I don’t believe it—it’s the Vienna Boys’ Choir! They flew in the fucking Vienna Boys’ Choir!” Oliver exclaimed.
“Aiyah, what sweet little angels,” Nancy gasped, overcome with emotion by the haunting alto voices. “It reminds me of the time King Hassan of Morocco invited us to his fort in the High Atlas Mountains—”
“Oh, do shut up!” Victoria said sharply, wiping tears from her eyes.
When the song ended, the orchestra, hidden in the transept, launched into the majestic strains of Michael Nyman’s “Prospero’s Magic” as sixteen bridesmaids in pearl-gray duchesse satin gowns entered the church, each holding an enormous curved branch of cherry blossom. Rachel recognized Francesca Shaw, Wandi Meggaharto, and a teary-eyed Sophie Khoo among them. The bridesmaids marched in choreographed precision, breaking off in pairs at different intervals so that they were spaced equally apart along the length of the aisle.
After the processional anthem, a young man in white tie stepped up to the altar with a violin in his hand. More murmurs of excitement filled the church as people realized that it was none other than Charlie Siem, the virtuoso violinist with matinee-idol looks. Siem began to play the first familiar chords of “Theme from Out of Africa,” and sighs of delight could be heard from the audience. Oliver noted, “It’s all about that chin, isn’t it, clenched against the violin as if he’s making savage love to it. That marvelous chin is what’s making all the ladies cream their knickers.”
The bridesmaids lifted their branches of cherry blossom high into the air, forming eight floral arches leading up to the altar, and the front doors of the church flung open dramatically. The bride appeared at the threshold, and there was a collective gasp from the crowd. For months magazine editors, gossip columnists, and fashion bloggers had speculated wildly over who might be designing Araminta’s dress. Since she was both a celebrated model and one of Asia’s budding fashion icons, expectations were high that she would wear a dress made by some avant-garde designer. But Araminta surprised everyone.
She walked down the aisle on her father’s arm in a classically inspired wedding dress designed by Valentino, whom she lured out of retirement to make precisely the sort of gown that generations of European princesses had gotten married in, the sort of gown that would make her look every inch the proper young wife from a very traditional, old-money Asian family. Valentino’s creation for Araminta featured a fitted high-necked lace bodice with long sleeves, a full skirt of overlapping lace and silk panels that unfurled like the petals of a peony as she moved, and a fifteen-foot train. (Giancarlo Giametti would later inform the press that the train, embroidered with ten thousand seed pearls and silver thread, took a team of twelve seamstresses nine months to sew and featured a pattern replicating the train Consuelo Vanderbilt wore when she fatefully wed the Duke of Marlborough in 1895.) Yet even in its baroque detail, the wedding gown did not overpower Araminta. Rather, it was the perfect extravagant foil against the stark minimalist wonderland her mother had so painstakingly created. Clutching a simple bouquet of stephanotis, with only a pair of antique pearl-drop earrings, the slightest hint of makeup, and her hair in a loose chignon adorned with nothing but a circlet of white narcissus, Araminta looked like a Pre-Raphaelite maiden floating through a sun-dappled forest.
From her seat in the front row, Annabel Lee, exultant in an Alexander McQueen dress of chiffon and gold lace, surveyed the faultlessly executed wedding procession and reveled in her family’s social triumph.
Across the aisle, Astrid sat listening to the violin solo, relieved that