On a cold night in February 2017, Colette Laxton, who was working as a freelance marketing consultant, pulled out her laptop and logged onto LinkedIn. She planned to simply update her profile, but it was there that she found a message from Mark Daniel Curry, whom she had met in the early 2010s when both were working at Boots, a British beauty and health company.
Though they barely knew each other — mostly from perfunctory hellos while grabbing coffee to bring back to their desks — Mr. Curry, who was by then trying to get a new skin care company off the ground, had messaged her that he was thinking “about who is genuinely awesome that I would want to work with” and suggested they meet in person.
A few days later, Ms. Laxton, who is now 38, and Mr. Curry, 43, met at Côte West Bridgford, a French restaurant that is part of a national chain, in the city of Nottingham, England, where both lived. Ms. Laxton was immediately impressed.
“He was so full of crazy energy,” she said. “I was like, ‘I have to work with this guy.’”
They quickly started collaborating, developing a few now-defunct personal care brands together. In 2018, they came up with one that has become a success in both the United States and Britain: the Inkey List, a line of skin care products, in black and white packaging, that aims to be hype-free but effective and fairly priced.
Ms. Laxton and Mr. Curry were together constantly — “We were in start-up hustle mode, working 100 hours a week,” she said — but things, at least initially, remained platonic.
Still, their closest friends sensed that the connection between them had the potential to go beyond business. “That spark was there from the get-go,” said Sarah Geary, who has known Ms. Laxton since they met as students on their first day at Loughborough University, where Ms. Laxton, who grew up in Leicester, England, earned a bachelor’s degree in media and communication. “From her talking about him, I knew straight from the beginning.”
With that palpable spark in mind, those friends began to wonder when the relationship might escalate.
“There was a lot of speculation for quite a long time: ‘Are they a couple? Are they not a couple?’” said Danielle Anstey, who similarly met Mr. Curry when they were university students at Imperial College London, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in microbiology and virology. Mr. Curry grew up in Bedford, England.
In May 2018, Ms. Laxton and Mr. Curry were in Paris on a business trip and decided to grab dinner after a long day of meetings. Instead of heading to a fancy brasserie, they went to Le Refuge des Fondus, a tiny, no-frills restaurant not far from Sacré-Coeur. They lingered over a meal of cheese fondue and red wine; as the evening stretched out, they became the last customers in the restaurant. In the quiet room, Mr. Curry pulled out his phone, put on the John Legend song “Slow Dance,” and played it loudly. He got up, embraced Ms. Laxton, and they started dancing in the middle of the empty restaurant.
“As he grabbed me and pulled me into his arms, everything just clicked,” she said. “It was just like, ‘This was where we’re meant to be.’”
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They began dating soon after. “We never stopped to question anything,” Ms. Laxton said. “It was a wild roller coaster, and it all just happened.”
“Honestly, it makes no sense at all,” she added. “It shouldn’t work, but it does.”
The couple moved in together in late 2019, eventually buying the 19th-century house they live in now, about 15 miles from the center of Nottingham. Occasionally, they would discuss marriage, and by mid-2022, he was surreptitiously looking for engagement rings.
He knew exactly how and where he wanted to propose.
“I knew how much we both loved Paris, and we spent the initial date there,” Mr. Curry said, adding that he “needed to make it there.”
In October 2023, Ms. Laxton and Mr. Curry went on another business trip to Paris. After spending a couple of work-focused days staying at another hotel, they checked into the luxurious Shangri-La Paris for the weekend, in part to belatedly celebrate Ms. Laxton’s 37th birthday. After a day of sightseeing, they returned to their suite and Ms. Laxton saw what Mr. Curry had furtively arranged: flickering candles lining the room’s large terrace, complete with a view of the Eiffel Tower, and a table set for a lavish private dinner for two.
“I was overwhelmed,” Ms. Laxton said. “It was so breathtaking.”
Once they’d settled in, Mr. Curry got down on one knee and proposed.
Mr. Curry said that he knew instinctively the undeniably romantic setup would win Ms. Laxton over.
As they started making wedding plans, Paris seemed the obvious location, but the logistics of getting married there proved too challenging for the couple and their calendars. As Mr. Curry explained, “Legally you have to be in France for 40 consecutive days, and we just can’t make that work.”
Instead, they opted for London. On May 28, they gathered 36 of their closest friends and relatives for a black-tie wedding in the late afternoon. The choice of date wasn’t arbitrary. It corresponded with British “half term” school holidays — a priority for Mr. Curry, who has joint custody of a 9-year-old daughter, Grace, from a previous marriage that ended in divorce. Ms. Laxton is also divorced.
The service was held in the Knightsbridge Room ofOld Marylebone Town Hall, a grand municipal venue that opened in 1920. It’s attracted quite a few high-profile weddings over the years — Ringo Starr got married there, as did Paul McCartney, twice.
The wedding was officiated by Tejal Pankhania, a sessional registrar of ceremonies for the venue. In addition to the official wedding vows and short statements by each spouse, the ceremony featured a speech by Grace. Her warm wishes included a sentiment that got the room laughing: “I hope you have a happy life together — it will be even better if you get me a horse, though.”
Ms. Laxton wore a silk ankle-length Luna dress by the British designer Emilia Wickstead, a style that is a long sleeveless sheath with an oversized bow in back; it was cream silk with a nubby cloqué finish. On her feet were Prada kitten heel slingbacks in a similar shade. Mr. Curry wore a cream Thom Sweeney shawl collar evening jacket with black trousers and black patent leather Christian Louboutin Oxford shoes.
Guests were asked to wear black and white, a combination that mirrors the Inkey List’s packaging. The colors were chosen, Ms. Laxton said, for their metaphoric significance in her and Mr. Curry’s relationship.
“Early on, we set out with the intention of being black and white together,” she said. “This means total honesty always and, in relationship terms, it means being clear about what makes you happy, and, more important, unhappy.”
After the ceremony, the couple and their guests boarded a bus that is emblematic of London: a decommissioned 1967 red double-decker AEC Routemaster. With champagne glasses in hand, the wedding party proceeded to Daphne’s, an upscale Italian restaurant about two and a half miles away, where the evening’s menu included griddled prawns, burrata, rigatoni with veal ragù, and roasted sea bass with violet artichoke, fennel and lemon. In lieu of a wedding cake, tiramisu was served for dessert. “We didn’t feel the need for a cake or first dance,” Ms. Laxton said. “We wanted it to feel like a gorgeous dinner with family.”
Although they’re now legally married, the decidedly English couple still feels that they’ll always have Paris. Next month, a bigger, ceremonial wedding with around 100 guests is planned in the French capital.
“I feel like the two kind of sum us up really well: that true British moment and then the party in Paris,” Ms. Laxton said.
On This Day
When May 28, 2025
Where The Knightsbridge Room at Old Marylebone Town Hall, London
True Colors The bride and groom got ready for the wedding in a large suite at NoMad London, a hotel in the Covent Garden neighborhood, with a view of the Royal Opera House across the street. The set up included a table covered with an array of makeup and skin care products, including a custom-blended shade of bright red La Bouche Rouge lipstick bought for the occasion at Le Bon Marché Rive Gauche in Paris. Although Ms. Laxton is keeping her last name, the lipstick’s burgundy leather tube was monogrammed with the letters “CC,” for Colette Curry.
Breakfast of Champions Although the late-afternoon ceremony was followed by dinner, the post-service meal is traditionally called a wedding breakfast in the United Kingdom, regardless of the hour when it is held.
Costume Change Not long after the wedding party arrived at Daphne’s, Ms. Laxton slipped into a restaurant bathroom to change into a less ornate outfit: a Camilla and Marc bustier and Max Mara trousers that she bought about a month ago at the Oxford Street flagship of Selfridges department store.
Spoil Your Appetite For the handful of children at the celebratory dinner, special treats were left on their table as an amuse-bouche of sorts: They received a bag of Haribo Tangfastics gummy candies labeled with their names.
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