Royal Ballet prima ballerina Leanne Benjamin gave the greatest - and most heartfelt - performance of her life when she walked down the aisle of St Paul’s Church in London’s Covent Garden to marry dashing theatre executive Tobias Round.
Hands clasped, the couple exchanged their marriage vows before the Reverend Mark Oakley, parish priest and Deputy Priest in Ordinary to the Queen. Gazing into each other’s eyes, the couple seemed to embody Father Oakley’s words, borrowed from St Paul, about the importance of love and its capacity to “teach souls to fly”.
Leanne’s much-cherished husband is the executive director of Katharine Dore Management, the business team behind leading contemporary dance company Adventures in Motion Pictures (AMP, of all-male Swan Lake fame) and other West End Shows.
The glamorous wedding was a truly international affair with guests jetting in from Australia, America and Europe - all at less than two months’ notice. Leanne’s parents Bernie and Jill, from Rockhampton, Queensland, and younger brother Tony led the Australian contingent, while Tobias’ parents, 1960s fashion photographer Roy Round and his wife Georgina Parkinson, ballet mistress at American Ballet Theatre since 1979 and a former Royal Ballet principal dancer, arrived from New York.
The world of dance was well represented, with three of Leanne’s fellow female principals attending. Darcey Bussell, now the proud mother of baby Phoebe, made it to the reception, while Sarah Wildor and Tamara Rojo joined a “cast” of 13 other dancers at the church.
For more on Tobias and Leanne’s whirlwind engagement and glamorous wedding, see this week’s HELLO! Magazine, on sale now.
Photo: © Alphapress.com
Photo: © Alphapress.com
