At Gia Kuan’s New York City Wedding Celebration, the Fashion-Forward Bride Wore 7 Looks

The save-the-dates had an intentionally old-world feel, culling inspiration from a genre of portraits popular in Asian countries from the ’50s and ’80s. But while steeped in tradition, Gia notes that there was a modern touch. “Huy is so good,” she says. “He has a way of making everyone look snatched.”

But a wedding wouldn’t be a wedding without some drama—or at least, in Gia’s case, sartorial drama. The day before the wedding itself, Gia and Anatoly went to City Hall, where Gia wore a white satin dress also by Bad Binch TongTong that she describes as an “easy slip.” For the piece, Zhou created a “giant bow that you put on like a backpack.” The issue? “I was barely getting through the revolving doors,” says Gia.

Gia and Anatoly decided to hold their wedding at a famed New York establishment: the second floor of dim sum restaurant Golden Unicorn, located in Chinatown on East Broadway. The runway treatment began right when guests stepped into the establishment, where they were met by a team to check them in and a powder pink step-and-repeat that read “Anatoly & Gia” in red cursive.

This memorable and very Instagrammable moment was brought to life not by a wedding planner but rather—in fashion-industry speak—a producer: Ariella Starkman of Starkman & Associates, who works in fashion-show and -shoot production. The couple contacted Starkman in January, only six months before their wedding. “It took us forever to get it together because our jobs were so busy. I felt like once I met with Ariella, it made me feel better,” says Gia. “It was a tight timeline.” The trio immediately hit it off. “I know what speaks to them and their world,” says Starkman. “It was really fun to play with touches and tropes of a wedding but turn them sideways.” Starkman creative directed the wedding while Eli Rosenbloom and Emwhi Nguyen provided the graphic design and art direction, and Gia’s best friend Eri Wakiyama did illustrations for the tables chronicling a love story, a nod to the couple’s mutual appreciation of manga. “A lot of the art direction was friends coming together,” says Gia.

Much of the bride and groom’s cultures were translated through food. Both are immigrants: Anatoly was born in Ukraine and came to America in the late ’80s, and Gia was born in Taiwan, later immigrating to New Zealand and then Australia and eventually moving to America in 2010. “Neither of us are that traditional, but there is the aspect of this mishmash of cultures,” says Gia. Family-style courses included Peking duck in sweet buns by Golden Unicorn, chicken liver mousse with sour cherry and stuffed cabbage by Ha’s Đặc Biệt, pickled squiggly cucumbers by Jen Monroe of Bad Taste, dollops of caviar on tiny blinchiki pancakes by Sidney Starkman, and challah bread baked by Funny Girl Bread―a nod to Anatoly’s Ukrainian and Jewish background. As guests tore from the challah that encircled the rose table settings by Fleurotica’s Robin Rose Hilleary, they sipped on Canetta (a natural canned wine by Clara Cornet and Luca Pronzato), Belvedere Vodka, Glenmorangie Whisky, Volcan Tequila, and Taiwan Beer, the national beer of Taiwan that Gia specially picked out.

The dessert was a look in and of itself and was designed by Sidney Starkman, a pastry maker who traveled from Toronto to construct the multilayer cake. A black-sesame-yuzu cream-cheese olive-oil cake with a strawberry-passionfruit mascarpone olive-oil cake, it came airbrushed with Anatoly and Gia’s names and was decorated with edible pearls and candied rhubarb bows. The cake’s topper, which showed the couple mid-dance―Gia in confectionary-pink Comme des Garçons and Anatoly in a blue suit by Adam Kimmel―was created by the Instagram figurine connoisseur @_unfollowing.

As for the wedding itself, which boasted a dress code of “more is more is more,” Anatoly appeared in a look that made a glitzy impact: a Stüssy x Dries Van Noten crystal-pinstripe suit that Gia initially bought for herself. “I didn’t tailor this yet, and it is his perfect size,” says Gia. The guests, which included plenty of fashion editors and stylists, were dressed to impress: An expansive Molly Goddard tulle skirt in nuclear lavender made an appearance, as did a custom harness and a flash of pearl underwear. “It’s always nice to have an excuse to dress up,” said Gia’s right hand, Fiona Luo, who wore a body-skimming Rick Owens number. “Especially the excuse to wear an esoteric coordinating outfit with your man—but the cherry on top was dressing up for a room of people who you know understood the assignment!” And let’s not forget Anatoly and Gia’s mothers, who by chance coordinated in slinky gold dresses.

Gia had three outfit changes, to pay homage to both the Western tradition of wearing white to a wedding and the Asian tradition of wearing red. Her makeup was done by makeup artist Grace Ahn, and her sculptural nails were created by Mei Kawajiri. For the first portion of the wedding, Gia donned a white Simone Rocha dress, an exclusive to Ssense, complete with a drop-waisted and lace-trim skirt along with a tiered lace veil. “I felt like a lacy marshmallow but so fab,” said Gia at the time, holding a custom Swarovski-bedazzled Luar Ana bag. “I couldn’t see through [it]. Anatoly had to hold my hand.” Her second look was custom-made by Carly Mark of Puppets and Puppets, a red minidress slathered in sequins that boasted boning at the skirt. (For this look Gia’s hair was decorated with red braided extensions by Chika Nishiyama that a friend helped her clip in.) For the final look, Gia wore a saucy baby pink brocade minidress by the designer Kim Shui that included crystal tassels on the capelet portion.

While Gia and Anatoly chose to skip many of the ceremonial aspects―“we just want people to feast and party and have fun,” says Gia―there were a few nods to Jewish tradition along the way. The couple enlisted Noah Rinsky of the Instagram account @oldjewishmen to emcee the wedding, and he injected the event with borscht-belt humor and rallied the crowd into a traditional hora where Anatoly and Gia were hoisted up into chairs. The party went on, with more guests shuffling in wearing their most head-turning step-and-repeat-ready looks, and continued into the wee hours of the morning, with karaoke and dancing to the sounds of DJs Crush Sahara and DeSe Escobar and a fleet of Shake Shack burgers and fries doing the rounds towards the end of the night.

Gia tried her best not to manage the event as she would any other PR occasion she planned—but at one point, she couldn’t help herself: “I had to go downstairs and brief the check-in staff and train them how to do the iPads!” Luckily her coworker took over, allowing Gia to be a bride.