It was an absolute joy to be chosen to design and make Dame Maureen Lipman’s wedding outfit .
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We had a good giggle at all the fittings . One of Britain’s National Treasures she is the loveliest and funniest person. Her wedding pictures are full of love and happiness and the article in the Telegraph below reveals some unexpected incidents that happened on the day.
Wishing Maureen and David a wonderful life together .
A day of happiness and chutzpah: Dame Maureen Lipman’s wedding to David Turner
On Sunday September 7, Dame Maureen Lipman married her partner, business consultant David Turner, in London. It was a day full of surprises – some planned, some rather more unexpected.
The 79-year-old British actress, known latterly for her long-running role in Coronation Street, wore a blush pink dress and co-ordinating hat for the intimate, informal ceremony at Turner’s son’s London home. The name behind the bride’s entire ensemble was Scottish bridal designer Joyce Young.
“I’d been driving past her wedding shop on Haverstock Hill for years,” Lipman tellsThe Telegraph. “I just sort of ventured in, and it was the nicest experience I’ve ever had. She made me exactly what I wanted and provided the hat and the shoes. I felt great.
The bride looked radiant even in spite of an unfortunate mishap involving a Labour peer (who she insists will remain nameless) who managed to throw a glass of champagne over her dress. “I felt like Gene Wilder in The Producers – ‘I’m wet and I’m hysterical,’” she jokes. “I was very calm, but I could have killed him. When I got home, I immediately said to [Joyce Young]: ‘How do you get champagne off blush pink silk?’”
Another unexpected surprise came at 3pm, when the Government rolled out its public testing of the Emergency Alerts system. Millions of mobile phones across the UK played a siren and vibrated – including those belonging to guests enjoying the sunny wedding service.
“The rabbi announced beforehand that he’d had words with Keir Starmer, who’d said that, even though he couldn’t come to the wedding, he would arrange for a great triumphal across the nation – a siren that would go out in honour of our wedding,” says Lipman. “It happened just as the glass smashed under David’s foot and the people all started singing and jumping, everybody just waved their phone. It was monumental.”
Other surprises on the day included the bride travelling to the ceremony in the Duchess of Windsor’s car, a Scrabble board-inspired cake, and musical performances; including one friend playing a Jewish song on the bagpipes, Clare Teal singing jazz and Giacomo Smith playing clarinet. There were also plenty of “funny speeches”, including one from her children Amy and Adam Rosenthal.
“They did it as if I was their child, which was very funny,” Lipman explains. “They said: ‘We’ve told her, on your head be it if you want to be a man hunter, but be aware there will come a time when you have to be responsible.’”
Lipman’s brother Geoffrey, meanwhile, gave a humorous take on the tradition of giving away the bride. “He used the opportunity to say that he’s been trying to give me away since I was bloody born,” she laughs.
Lipman’s first marriage was to playwright Jack Rosenthal in 1974; the pair were together for 30 years before his death in 2004. She found love – and tragedy – again through a later relationship with computer expert Guido Castra, who died in 2021.
But this new chapter is marked with joy. Lipman confirmed her engagement to Turner in 2024, explaining that she had proposed to him on a train on Tu B’Av, the Jewish festival of love that says a woman can ask a man to marry her.
The wedding provided a poignant moment of light relief. “The idea that you can do it at this age, with all that’s gone on in the past, with all that’s happening at the moment, was important,” she says. “I think everybody was so happy to have a day in which we didn’t talk about anti-Semitism and didn’t bleed internally. We just have to stop the rest of our lives now from being downhill from that.”
After the celebrations, the newly married couple tried to view the blood moon but found that it was too cloudy. Instead, they headed home and celebrated with that most classic of British dishes – beans on toast.
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