This real-life bride’s Vegas wedding dresses were inspired by her mother, vintage fashion and Freddie Mercury

As a bride-to-be myself, I know just how long the wait for the big day can feel. All that extra time leaves plenty of room to dwell, overthink and make changes that probably weren’t necessary in the first place. Kelly Robinson and her husband Hari, however, took a different approach: they scrapped their original plans, bit the bullet and headed to Las Vegas for the ultimate wedding party.

Kelly, founder of PR agency KMR, has worked closely with fashion and textile legend Zandra Rhodes for more than eight years. That relationship, paired with her love of all things vintage, led to two incredible wedding dresses – one of which was custom-designed by Zandra and inspired by the iconic outfit she created for Freddie Mercury, which all came together in just three months.

The newlywed sat down with H! Fashion to discuss her outfits, the poignant moment at her grandparents' 70th wedding anniversary which sparked the Vegas idea, and the top tip she received from the makeup counter where she got her bridal glam.

"Well we only had three months to plan – we decided in March 2026, and then we went in June. We found a chapel called Sure Thing that has a real old-school feel – drapes, a massive love heart at the altar, cherubs falling down the ceilings. etc. Vegas also has this other side of it where it's a vintage, romantic, kitschy vibe, and we loved that super romantic, cinematic feel that the city has… it's gorgeous."

"After the ceremony, we went to The Venetian. We had dinner on one of the balconies that overlooked the gondolas, and it looked like St. Mark's Square in Venice. It's super tacky in the best way ever. My husband is Italian, and it's like we were in Italy!"

Why Vegas? What was it about getting married there that appealed to you?

"We were at my nan and grandad's 70th wedding anniversary, and I just thought, 'I want this'. Like I want that long-term marriage, that steady love. Why are we waiting? Why are we holding off?

"My auntie got married in Vegas. So we were asking her questions, and I turned to Hari and said, 'Let's just go to Vegas this summer. Let's make it feel like a big holiday and a party all in one, and we can just come back married; it's less pressure, less stress'.

"We always toyed with the idea of Vegas as a running joke, and then we spoke to my auntie; she said, 'Just do it; it's the best thing you'll ever do. You'll have such a giggle. It will be something you remember forever'."

"I've always been obsessed with films like Sharon Stone in Casino, and Fear and Loathing… I love the homage you get to older times like the '70s and the '80s and even before that with the Rat Pack in the '60s and Elvis… I just love that kind of period of time that doesn't exist anymore."

Did you always know you wanted to wear a mini for your wedding?

"I always knew I wanted two dresses – one for the ceremony and then one for the party downtown. I felt like two minis added to the idea of the wedding being a party and it not being taken too seriously. I do love long dresses, and I actually tried a few on… If I had an English wedding, I think I probably would have gone full princess. But I loved the idea of them both being short for Vegas."

"For the chapel, I loved the idea of taking something quite classic like the lace bolero. It was a high-neck piece from an Australian brand called Mariana Hardwick, and that paid homage to my mum's wedding dress from 1986 when she got married".

"It's really funny because I always used to look at my mum's wedding photos and think, 'Oh, she looks gorgeous,' but I feel like her dress looked dated. It's ironic that I actually now referenced it because I loved it so much. She had these big shoulder pads, so it was definitely a bit more '80s, but she had a high-neck lace silhouette in her dress too."

"So I liked the idea of putting something modern with the classic kind of bolero style, which I went for a drop-waist mini dress. It was from a Ukrainian brand called Balkyana, and I actually got the dress off the peg in Koibird then got it tailored to perfection"

You also wore a Zandra Rhodes dress; did you always know you'd wear something designed by her?

"Zandra's been a client and such a figurehead in my life for over eight years now… I've known forever she definitely needed to be a big part of my big day."

"The question was never if she was going to do a dress or not. It was like if I wanted to go down the archive route and potentially borrow something from her already existing catalogue of 6,000-plus dresses, or if we wanted to make something new that drew inspiration from the past… and we obviously landed on making something new and working on it together."

What was the design process like between you and Zandra?

"There was this one specific dress I've always loved… designed in 2019, but it referenced Zandra's clever lamé pleating from a collection called Renaissance Gold from 1981 – back to the '80s which I love so much!"

"It's this tiered party dress, and the only way I can describe it is 'showgirl'. When she shot it for her collection in 2019, she styled it with this massive feather headdress and these really high gorgeous boots, so it was totally Vegas already."

"It was a purple dress originally… we had a couple of meetings and came back and forth with how it would evolve. We changed the colour, added this long satin bow and high neck, and then we shortened it."

"Francis and Emily from Zandra's atelier fitted it like a glove. Also, I made the first cut in the fabric. To be able to do it with Zandra is such a pinch-me moment."

Was there a particular Zandra Rhodes print, silhouette or era that inspired the dress?

Freddie Mercury was a big inspiration. He originally came to Zandra in 1974 and was inspired by the white pleated top of a wedding ensemble that happened to be on one of the rails in her studio.

Zandra said to him, 'Why don't you move around in it like how you'd move on stage?' and he floated around in it. It turned out to be the look he was known for – that beautiful flouncy, floaty draped top that moved with him on stage.

"We wanted my look to reference this iconic moment in something that felt classic and modern; we looked back to look forward…something Zandra continues to do so well in her 55+ year career. The pleating was made into circles before it was added to the lining of this dress, and I loved that they looked like little bunched-up flowers!

Also on my ceremony look, the lilies on my Cult Gaia shoes were a recurring theme in Zandra's work – one of her most famous prints is the Field of Lilies print, so that was a nice little homage to her."

How did you make the dress feel really personal to you, while still keeping that Zandra aesthetic?

"I went to Goldhawk Road and got the fabric myself. Fabric looks very different when it's flat to when it's pleated… I landed on something that was quite creamy and thick, really, really heavy, because I loved the thought of how the pleats would bounce up once they get heat-pleated. Then we added the neck tie and made it even shorter for that Vegas moment."

"Hari's mum used to be a hairdresser for Leonard of London, who used to do Zandra's hair back in the day, so there were all these lovely full-circle links."

How did you build the rest of your bridal look around the mini – the shoes, hair, makeup and accessories?

"For the chapel, I loved the idea of taking something classic like the high-neck lace bolero from an Australian brand called Mariana Hardwick… that paid homage to my mom's 1986 wedding dress."

"I put something modern with it, like the drop waist on the Balkyana mini dress, which I got off-the-peg at Koibird and got tailored to perfection."

"The veil was by an incredible milliner called Piers Atkinson… a bespoke three-tier mesh veil with lots of volume on the sides, referencing Dynasty."

"I bought my Cult Gaia Cassidy heels first before anything else… and a local Vegas florist called Over the Moon made me a matching calla lily bouquet."

"For hair, I'd had a bob cut a few months before… I just found a really good blow-dry bar who gave me a really bouncy blow-dry. Because my veil was so big, the hair didn't matter too much."

"For makeup, I went to MAC for a soft-glam, peachy-pink-toned, super natural look. When I asked for liquid highlighter, the makeup artist said, 'It's 110° out. If I put any liquid on your face, you're going to melt."

"I actually didn't wear SPF for those two hours because it creates a sheen and makes makeup slide off in photos."

"My bag for the second look was the Pearl Rock bag by Stone and Mason."

How did the dress fit into the Vegas setting?

"When she shot that tiered showgirl dress for her collection in 2019… it was styled with a massive feather headdress and high boots, so it was totally Vegas already."

"We adapted it with the white pleating, made it even shorter for that Vegas moment."

"Both dresses complemented that kind of Vegas romantic, kitschy vibe so well."

Looking back now, what’s your favourite thing about the outfits? Would you choose the exact same dresses all over again?

"My favourite thing about both of them is the references and the tiny details throughout – the homage to my mum's dress, and the personal connection with Zandra and Piers Atkinson. It meant so much more than just physically a look… it had DNA throughout. It was such a crowd-pleaser… everyone in our party was just loving it."

What was your favourite memory from the wedding?

"Literally giggling with my closest family and friends the whole five days we were in Vegas, non-stop laughing."

"And Elvis was a highlight – we had a female Elvis impersonator marry us!"