Roxane Gergaud, 29, and Richard Dana, 33, cofounders of the travel agency Doris & Dicky, will marry on September 3, 2016, at St Helens church in the Isle of Wight. Their engagement was announced in The Times on August 29, 2015
Fifty thousand people descend on the Isle of Wight each summer for Bestival, one of Britain’s most popular music festivals. Three years ago, before they met, Richard and Roxane shunned the orthodox ferry ride from the mainland to take part in Swim2Bestival — a charity event that brings together a small group of festivalgoers daring enough to swim across the Solent in aid of a good cause.
“That year was quite traumatic for my family,” Richard says. “My nephew had received a diagnosis of leukaemia and I managed to raise £15,000 for Children with Cancer UK by running the London Marathon. I was trying to channel all that energy.”
After conquering the 6km stretch of sea, Roxane reached Colwell Bay. She was greeted by her mother, Perdita, who was waiting to congratulate her — and to point her swiftly in Richard’s direction. “I had done the swim with my two brothers, but he was there on his own looking like a bit of a Billy no-mates,” she recalls. Talking over a celebratory beer on the beach, they realised how odd it was that their paths had not crossed before: their holiday homes are in the same village on the east coast of the Isle of Wight, separated by just a few fields.
Roxane’s parents live in Godalming, Surrey, and Richard’s parents are based in London, but for decades they have both been part-time residents on the island. It transpired that their families had overlapped at several junctures over the years. “Roxane’s aunt was my sister’s first boss in London; a cousin of Roxane’s sang in the same choir as my aunt in Somerset; and our two families had attended the same, small Isle of Wight village church throughout our lives.”
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As they continued socialising post-swim, Richard asked for her number on the pretext of giving her a lift to the festival the next day. He sent her a message in the morning, but received no reply. Accepting the rejection, he set out alone. Just as he pulled into the Bestival car park, though, Roxane stepped off the shuttle bus in front of him. An awkward reintroduction followed. She had never seen his text. “I’d taken down the wrong number.”
After a few drinks, Richard went to join his friends who had already started setting up their tent. What followed was a weekend riddled with false starts — “we kept missing chances to meet up” — and they made their separate ways back to London, where they both worked. Richard was still thinking about Roxane several days later and, spurred on by sisterly advice, plucked up the courage to text her again. They arranged to have drinks at a bar in Soho — Roxane remembers it being “7pm one minute and 10pm the next” — and headed to a Spanish restaurant, Barrafina, for tapas. Within four months of their first date, they had moved in together.
In August this year, while on holiday in France, Richard proposed on the beach after a late afternoon swim. Her reaction was not entirely as he expected. “I wailed for ten minutes, couldn’t speak for three hours, and wept for 24 hours. Poor guy.”
Richard, who at 6ft 6in towers over his fiancée, studied at Nottingham University and joined the corporate finance team of Thomas Cook. Roxane graduated from Bristol and worked for Phaidon, the publishing house, before moving into advertising. In the past year they have both given up their jobs to pursue their dream of setting up a travel agency. They trot the globe looking for the best budget boutique hotels, then return to company headquarters — their flat in Hackney — to distil their finds into a website and blog. The Doris & Dicky business ethos evolved from their first holiday as a couple, in January 2013, when they travelled to Sri Lanka. They stayed in a hotel surrounded by mountains in Ella that had been positively reviewed — alarmingly, it turned out, for they were in the company of cockroaches and bedbugs.
“Afterwards we found that each time we went on a trip it took hours to find a nice, charming place that wasn’t extortionate. We realised there was a gap in the market,” Roxane says. Neither hesitated over taking the plunge into a joint venture. “We felt so confident about it because, ultimately, we’re best friends.”
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Both envision “a homemade-type wedding” and want to avoid a dizzying number of formalities. The ceremony will take place next September at St Helens church — “We’ll be the 21st couple between our families to marry there,” Richard says. Most fitting of all? “It’s the weekend before Bestival.”