Lady Violet Manners and Viscount William Garnock met on December 30, 2023, at William’s family home of Kirkcaldy in Scotland. Violet didn’t know him, but she did know William’s sister Charlotte and brother-in-law Jamie. The married couple, known as the Duke and Duchess of Noto, extended her an invitation to a New Year’s party at Garnock’s Fife estate. Unbeknownst to Violet, they had a secret agenda: to set her up with William, an eligible yet perennial bachelor. (William, well, was in on it: “I have to admit I knew exactly who she was,” he tells Vogue.)

Their master plan worked. Violet and William sat next to each other at dinner, where they discovered a litany of things in common: They’d both lived in Los Angeles and India, for example, and had founded their own companies. (Violet is the founder of HeritageXplore, an online platform that allows users to book tours of some of Britain’s most historic homes, whereas William founded Feragaia, a nonalcoholic spirits company.) “It did—as cheesy as it sounds—feel like we’d met, spoken, and known each other for a long time,” Violet says. “Lots of teasing and jibbing, which I secretly always enjoy. William made me laugh pretty instantly.” Throughout the night, she tried to repress the same thought: I’m going to marry this man. Little did she know William was having the exact feeling. “I fell in love with her that first night,” he says.

What followed can only be described as a whirlwind romance. After six months of long-distance dating—William, at the time, lived in Texas—he asked Violet’s father for her hand in marriage. “I never, in my wildest dreams, thought I would meet the man I was going to marry and be engaged to him within six months,” Violet says of their fast-moving timeline. “I thought that was just for the movies—and to some degree, I still do. But from the moment I met William, I knew.” He proposed over the July 4 holiday amid the Rockies while the couple was off-roading near Jefferson, Colorado.

On June 21, 2025, the couple wed at Violet’s family home of Belvoir Castle in Bottesford, England. Event planner Peter Laird, along with the staff at Belvoir, orchestrated the grand event.