Welcome to Who What Wear Weddings, which is essentially fashion people getting married! We’ll be showcasing stylish weddings replete with must-save inspiration images and shoppable elements (this is Who What Wear, after all) and peppered with useful tips and learnings straight from the newlywed. We’re kicking off the series with our own editor in chief’s wedding in the South of France.
In February of 2007, my freshman year at UCLA, I got a Facebook message inviting me to an acquaintance’s party at a club. Fast forward to Saturday, and I put on my best dress (an Alice + Olivia LBD with batwing lace sleeves and a bodycon skirt) and dragged my roommate along to the notorious hotspot Les Deux. Zac happened to be there for the same party. We danced that night and went on to date for more than a decade after. That same quarter, Zac also happened to meet a lifelong friend, Vadim. They were sitting next to each other in a film class and happened to be wearing the same shoes from a niche French brand. Zac became like an extended member of Vadim’s family, and spent some time every summer with them at their house in the south of France. I was lucky enough to join several times, too. In the fall of 2019, Zac proposed in Big Sur. After being delayed a couple years thanks to the pandemic, we were finally able to wed this past August at Vadim’s family home in France. Here’s how the big day went down, from the homemade details to the dress I waited two and a half years to wear.
We opted for digital invites, given the unpredictability of a wedding in a post-pandemic world. I’d heard of more than one story of thousands of dollars in custom stationery lost to changing wedding dates. I took the photo of what would end up being our reception spot a handful years ago and watercolored the text and heart, which Zac photoshopped onto the image. Voilà!
After signing the ketubah, the men gather for the tisch, which means table in Yiddish. They sing, pray, drink, and share stories around a table.
Our scribe who did our ketubah also created a logo for us that we featured on our wedding programs, photo booth prints, and prayer brooks.The two faces create an infinity symbol made of meaningful quotes and our names in Hebrew. I created the programs from this Etsy template and printed them out at FedEx the day before I left for France (jamming their printers several times with my thick paper!). Once there, I finished the project by tying the pages together with custom-dyed ribbon I got on Etsy too.
Why are flower girls one of the best parts of any wedding? Our niece, in a Self Portrait dress, and Vadim’s daughter (basically our other niece), did a fabulous job.
Zac’s grandfather’s tallit, or prayer shawl, made the roof of our chuppah.
It’s tradition to put the wedding ring initially on the pointer finger of the right hand because it’s considered closest to your heart.
Our rabbi flew all the way from L.A. to officiate, and he did such a tremendous job. He also revealed during the ceremony that Zac’s great great great grandfather introduced our rabbi’s great great great grandparents. Kismet.
Crushed it on the first try! WWW Weddings Tip: I saw on TikTok to ask your officiant in advance to step out of the way for the big kiss moment so you have a clear background for the photos.
Moments into being married.
We had a long enough cocktail hour that we could socialize with guests and still get plenty of pictures in.
We offered a few signature cocktails, including one with a local lemon verbena tea. The swimwear brand Bruna Malucelli made me the cutest custom swimsuit for the wedding, and I loved the detail of the birds with our names on it, so I asked her if I could use the art in other places like this cocktail sign, too.
The queen of the party, Vadim’s mother. This is her second look for the evening. Iconic.
Getting a touch-up from the talented Margot Priolet.
In our daily life, Zac is always in head-to-toe black, and if I’m dressed monochromatically, it’s usually in all white. I love how our wedding looks felt like our usual outfit dynamic.
I have to mention Zac’s Comme des Garçons Mary Jane shoes. For many years, Zac had this photo of Jean-Michel Basquiat walking for the S/S 87 Comme des Garçons show on his inspiration board. The whole outfit is beyond, but Zac loved the shoes especially. A few months before the wedding, he decided to do a search for them, and the exact shoes from that show popped up on Grailed. I got them for him as an early wedding present.
I was so lucky to have Lou Flowers come out to make all my floral dreams come true. She just gets it. I love how some flowers were stuck out at odd angles, and for the smaller arrangements, they felt like still lifes with shells she had collected and unusual touches like green sunflowers.
We had so much food! I asked the caterer if we could cut back a few weeks before the wedding, because it seemed like too much, but I was met with the very French response, “Ce n’est pas possible!” It was abundant, to say the least! I went for a buffet over a served dinner because I like to have the freedom to eat more of my favorite dishes and figured guests might too.
I embroidered 85 lace-edged napkins I ordered from Amazon with just me, myself, and my embroidery machine before the wedding. It was a labor of love but so absolutely worth it and actually more affordable than renting plain napkins (if you don’t count my endless hours of crafting, of course). I licensed the image of the flower and shell from Isabelle Feliu. A huge plus of doing napkins like this is I didn’t have to worry about a seating chart display or name cards. Plus, people loved taking them home as a souvenir. WWW Weddings Tip: My friend Alyssa got married around the same time and also did napkins customized with names, but she was smart enough to have a plain napkin underneath the embroidered one. I heard after the fact that some people didn’t use the ones I made, because they didn’t want to get them dirty!
This plant right by where we signed the ketubah is called a cereus or “Queen of the Night,” and it only blooms once a year for a single night. It happened to make its appearance for our wedding night!
Being lifted on a chair was one of the moments of pure delight I remember perfectly. There’s nothing like it.
What’s a wedding without a few great speeches?
A month before I was due to depart for France, I saw some images of the Resort 2023 collection of one my favorite designers, Anna October. A patchwork dress with gloves caught my eye, and I asked if it was possible to borrow it for a second look. I couldn’t believe it when the team created a new one for me using deadstock fabrics in Kyiv. The story of how the collection came together despite Russia’s invasion makes me so proud to have worn this dress. The Anna October team describes the dress as a “metaphor of the female form, shades of lingerie and skin in one piece.” It’s a piece I know I’ll have in my closet forever.
I don’t care if espresso martinis are overplayed—they’re the best for keeping people lively into the wee hours of the night.
Zac and I went back and forth about where we’d sit and ultimately landed on a sweetheart table. It felt like it took the seating chart politics out of it, and honestly, I don’t think we sat for longer than 10 minutes all night! WWW Weddings Tip: Unbeknownst to us, our friend had a mini Polaroid camera and was snapping pictures throughout the day. She left an arrangement of them along with a sweet note on the table, and it was a gesture I’ll always remember. Especially because it usually takes a beat to get pictures back from the official photographer.
And that’s a wrap! Photographer: Rasa JSuper 8 Director: Russell TandyHair and Makeup: Margot PrioletFlowers: Lou FlowersFood: Dany’s TraituerMusic: G.Star EventsWedding Planner: Matthew Oliver
