Christina's Fourth of July Wedding!

I'm not always invited to the weddings I design dresses for, in this case however, the Bride is a good friend of mine and Joe's (who took all these beautiful images!). For this wedding, not only were we invited, I was also invited to help her get ready. 

Their love story is really so touching. Christina and her now husband John, met in the 80's, back then, they were together for years and John actually proposed. However, she said no. They broke up, John moved away. Then 25 years later, they were back in touch, and he proposed AGAIN! and this time, she said YES!

Really it was such an honor to be present for a day that was so long in coming.

Anyway, since I was going to be there, we decided to put the final ironing off until the day of, so her cotton sateen dress would be as fresh as possible. Since the groom was still present when we arrived, I was ironing in her bathroom so he couldn't see the dress! (You know this is a nice New York apartment when there is room for an ironing board in the bathroom! Christina is an architect.)

And I was able to add the last finishing detail, a silk organza and haboti flower to the neckline/collar.

Here's her dress, a beautiful lilac cotton sateen with cotton voile sleeves, the collar and cuffs were silk organza.

The Bride! We choose cotton for this dress since they planned their fourth of July wedding in Central Park. It's always a challenge to be comfortable and look lovely when it's hot outside, but I think we found a great balance.

Jessica the hair and make-up stylist and I collaborated on fixing Christina's veil, sometimes the best thing for veils like this is to just work the tulle into the hair style and fix it with hair pins. For her veil, somehow I'd found vintage silk birdcage tulle the exact color of her dress. We decided to layer this lilac tulle on an ivory tulle and keep them together. It really created a great color. I love layering tulles, it reminds me of watercolors.

You can tell Christina trusted me, as I cut away the ends of the tulle while it was already fixed in her hair!

And here is the happy couple! before and after the wedding! It's true that when you're truly happy, it doesn't matter how hot it is outside! It also seems to be true, that when two people belong together, they will end up together... :) Don't they just look so lovely?! 

Then a few days later, they hosted a lovely reception. For this, we took some pieces she found and rebuilt them, they turned out so well. This outfit is almost like an old fashioned trousseau, now she has some great summer pieces to go out on the town with her new husband!

Here's to many years of much joy and love to come! Cheers Christina and John!