She wore a cropped veil with a jumpsuit. I needed to understand how. The woman ordering coffee next to me at the Brooklyn Roasting Company in FiDi was wearing what I can only describe as a wedding outfit that had clearly finished its job for the day — and looked better for having done so….
My grandmother’s ragù recipe nearly derailed my wedding week I had this whole plan. It felt like the kind of thing that would make the wedding truly ours — instead of hiring some caterer who’d serve us the same truffle risotto every other couple gets in a Tuscan villa, we’d bring my Nonna’s recipes. The…
The Summer Suit Shake-Up Nobody Saw Coming It started with a groom named Marcus who emailed me last February, six months out from his July wedding in Charleston. He’d sent me the mood board — clean, coastal, a little bit undone. The bridal party in seersucker, he said. Groomsmen in classic navy suits. Silk ties….
I Tried to Negotiate a Sunset Photoshoot on a Working Organic Farm in the Catskills — Here’s What Actually Happened I’ll start by saying I’m not usually the person who tries to negotiate with farmers. I’m the person who pays the listed price for a CSA box and says “thank you” when they hand it…
The Pink Dress That Cost Less Than My Catering Deposit I found it on a Tuesday at 3:47 in the afternoon, which is probably the least romantic time to find your wedding dress. No golden hour. No dramatic reveal. Just me, jet-lagged in Shimo-Kitazawa, standing in a basement shop where the air conditioning had given…
The Wednesday Afternoon That Changed How I Think About Guest Lists It started with a text from my cousin. She’d been engaged for eight months and had sent out 180 save-the-dates. Then she sent a second text: “We canceled everything. Twenty people. A Thursday. I’m not even sorry.” I called her immediately, expecting to hear…
The Photographer Who Showed Up Late It was a Tuesday in late October, and I was sitting in a café near the Garment District in Los Angeles — the one with the cracked linoleum floor and the man who only makes espresso if you ask him twice. I’d been emailing with a photographer for three…
The Wedding Band That Wouldn’t Stop Playing The first year I started consulting for weddings, I went to a reception in a tent that had been pitched on a soggy September lawn. The band was a six-piece funk cover band from Chicago, and the lead singer was a woman in a gold sequined blazer who…
One Too Many Heels in a Doorframe I was three blocks from the Grand Palais in Paris, wearing shoes I had spent exactly fourteen minutes choosing online, and the left heel had started making a sound like a loose shutter in a storm. Not a click. A scrape-then-wobble. My then-fiancé (now husband) kept walking, narrating…
This Is Not the Dress Rehearsal (But It Should Feel Like One) I’ll be honest: when my best friend Sarah asked me to help plan her wedding rehearsal dinner, I thought, “Great, a slightly fancier dinner with her parents and a few close friends.” I was wrong. So, so wrong. By the time we were…