It might sound strange but watching Lily Allen, her hands clasped around her bouquet of orange roses, her face overcome with joy as she gazed into the eyes of her new husband David Harbour, just for a moment everything felt OK with the world. Lily shared the photographs of her Las Vegas wedding to the Stranger Things actor on her Instagram account on Wednesday evening, and it seemed that everyone was unanimous in their rapture at the singer’s own happiness: the image has almost 350,000 likes.
The pictures told the story of a pared back day - in celebrity wedding terms, that is. Lily, David and Lily’s two daughters Marnie and Ethel, attended the ceremony at the Graceland Wedding chapel in Vegas (they were married by an Elvis impersonator), which was followed by a low key meal at a nearby In n Out Burger.
Something about the happy, simple nature of the day has sparked an outpouring of love on social media; no mean feat in this day and age. Lily herself has been open about the nasty messages and comments she is often subjected to by trolls (she quit Twitter last year, saying it ‘spread disinformation and lies’).
Was it her simple, albeit Dior, white mini-dress (which has already set the wheels in motion for a MWD - mini-wedding-dress - trend), the fact the ceremony can’t have cost more than a couple of hundred dollars, or the fact that they ditched the idea of a swanky reception in favour of a family meal at a fast food chain? It’s all of that, but also the fact that Lily and David, who have been dating since last year, seem so genuinely happy with each other that the images have shone through all of the meaningless waffle we see every day on social media.
It hasn’t been an easy journey for Lily to get to this happy point, either. Despite huge success with her music career, she’s been through a lot since she first found fame in 2006. In her best-selling book My Thoughts Exactly she details having a stalker, the pain of giving birth to a stillborn baby at six months, her split from ex-husband Sam Cooper and her destructive relationship with drugs and alcohol. She’s been the celebrity wild child, walked countless red carpets, fought paparazzi and been carried out of awards ceremonies. Now sober for over a year, Lily is entering a new chapter of her life.
The authentic lightness we’ve seen in Lily’s wedding photos this week shows someone who, finally, perhaps doesn’t even care what anyone else thinks of the life she has built for herself anymore.
We’ve all been starved of joy in 2020, for many reasons. It’s hardly surprising, then, that Lily and David’s happy wedding photographs have sparked so much of it.
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