WHILE THE LAST YEAR HAS BEEN challenging (to put it mildly), the havoc wreaked by the pandemic on the wedding industry does have a silver lining: Weddings have become more intimate, personal, and inventive. In the face of adversity, couples — and their vendors — have gotten creative, reimagining what weddings look like and how we celebrate one of life’s most precious milestones.
We celebrate that spirit of reinvention and “turning lemons into lemonade” in the pages of this issue, particularly in the stories of two couples whose wedding days were nothing like what they originally envisioned. Early in the pandemic, Alejandra and Jacopo Cavallari Montenegro (page 32) made the difficult decision to cancel their Mexican destination wedding and instead exchanged vows in a small church ceremony while their friends and family watched on Zoom. Later, the couple worked with a dream team of vendors to stage a picture-perfect reenactment of the reception that might have been. Meanwhile, Corinne Rockoff and Alicia Basin (page 64) found a solution that gave them the best of both worlds — they rescheduled their big wedding for 2021 and hosted a small, intimate fête in the backyard of Basin’s childhood home. As Rockoff says, she and Basin feel lucky because “most people only get to do this once.”
Whether, like Rockoff and Basin, you are planning a second commemoration of your marriage, or your very first, this issue is filled with inspiration for designing your dream day. In “A Feast for the Eyes” (page 58), five local planners show how a beautifully set table can set the tone for your entire celebration. In our Details section (page 13) we introduce you to some need-to-know brands and vendors, from The Petite Wedding Collective, a group of wedding pros who came together to offer beautifully designed bespoke micro weddings, to Melissa Butler, whose cosmetics brand The Lip Bar is breaking barriers in the beauty world and beyond. Finally, our cover story, “Modern Love” (page 36), perfectly embodies the current moment (and can I just say how fantastic it felt to be back on set with our team doing what we love most?!). The clean lines, sleek silhouettes, and statement details of the luxe-minimalist gowns featured in this story have a purity and simplicity that reflect the current movement toward smaller, more intimate, deeply personal — and simply lovely — celebrations of everlasting love.
Cheers,
Rebecca Voigt
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