“The Age of Innocence on Acid” Was the Design Directive For This Wedding at the National Arts Club
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.1/49Our invitation suite was by the phenomenally talented artist Caitlin McGauley. We had fallen in love with her work after seeing her illustrations on the Ritz Carlton’s website and had sent a shot-in-the-dark email essentially begging her to consider doing our wedding. We were—are!—so honored and grateful she said yes. Caitlin, alongside our peerless wedding planner Rebecca Gardner, helped us conceptualize an invitation that was joyful and bold without veering into “cute” or “quirky”—two qualities we strained ferociously to avoid. For instance: The damask curtains and planter evoke Gramercy Park without being a literal drawing of Gramercy Park. We were really playful with scale, too: While our save-the-dates were tiny matchbooks, the invitations themselves were massive (8.5 x 11 inches) and were mailed in similarly sized envelopes. The gold silk ribbon—an inspired suggestion from Rebecca—literally tied the whole look together.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.2/49There was never any question that we’d get married in New York. Our shared love of Manhattan—its energy, its pace, its smallness, its bigness—was one of the first things we realized we had in common and remains a fundamental part of our relationship. As far as venues go, we did not want an event space, and none of the restaurants or hotels we looked at were quite right. The National Arts Club, with its eccentric, artfully disheveled interiors, was exactly what we were looking for. Martin Scorsese filmed scenes from The Age of Innocence at the National Arts Club, so it doesn’t just look the part of Gilded Age mansion, it played the part.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.3/49The ceiling of the National Arts Club ranks among the great ceilings of New York, right alongside Grand Central, the Public Library, and the monogrammed tin at C.O. Bigelow.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.4/49The Paco Rabanne dress I wore at the reception and the Rodarte dress I wore to the ceremony.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.5/49Mike’s rose gold ring from Van Cleef & Arpels is inscribed with our nicknames for each other. My wedding ring is a platinum band of diamonds. My engagement ring is an Art Deco piece from the 1920s with an Old European Cut diamond, onyx, and emerald (my birthstone). They are both from Fred Leighton.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.6/49The shoes my foot just could not stomach. Three weeks before the wedding, I had broken my toe by walking into a pipe. The broken bone—specifically the swelling thereof—meant a last-minute-ish switch from these festive Jimmy Choo pumps to Manolo Blahnik flats, which, in all honesty, I ended up liking better. Both pairs are a significant improvement over the surgical boot I had been wearing up until the day before.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.7/49My exquisite bouquet consisted of the loveliest and sweetest Lillies of the Valley (my birth flower) courtesy of McQueens.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.8/49My beautiful mother wearing vintage Carolina Herrera. We got ready across the street from the National Arts Club at the Gramercy Park Hotel. I kept the “getting ready group” to a bare minimum—just me, my mother, and my grandmother—which kept the afternoon feeling intimate and calm.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.9/49Here I am in the Manolo Blahnik flats! Look at that toe go! In a nod to the styling at the Rodarte Spring 2018 runway show, I wore baby’s breath in my hair. My earrings, by 14 / Quatorze, were baby’s breath pearl hoops.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.10/49Mike looked so handsome in his Tom Ford tuxedo! He hadn’t planned on wearing white—in fact, up until this exact moment, he kind of figured that was my job!—but when he tried it on, essentially on a lark, it was the instantaneous winner.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.11/49Mike looks as chic as I do freezing! We knew a March wedding would be a bit unpredictable weather-wise, and we were so thrilled and lucky it was a crisp (very crisp!) sunny day.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.12/49Mike and his college roommates. Fun fact: There are two former editors of the Yale Law Journal in this photo, and I am married to neither of them.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.13/49Mike and his parents walk down the aisle. During the ceremony, both our fathers gave toasts before Mike and I exchanged our vows. Of all the many things people told us they loved about our wedding, our ceremony and its inclusion of speeches (in lieu of any at the reception) was by far the one we heard most frequently.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.14/49With my amazing parents! I am so, so lucky to be their child and do not take for granted how wildly fortunate I am they were both able to walk me down the aisle.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.15/49Though Mike and I were both raised Jewish and incorporate many Jewish cultural traditions and smoked fishes into our lives, we’re not observant, and we opted not to have a religious ceremony. Instead, we were married by our best friends, Simon Vozick-Levinson and Steven Chaiken, the latter picture here probably mid-joke about our cat Pajama.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.16/49Two of our closest friends, Ted Mann and Elizabeth Shaffer, probably listening to a joke about our cat Pajama.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.17/49My father was so nervous about his speech, which was truly brilliant, tender, and hilarious. In fact, he ended up getting the biggest laugh-line of the night when he joked that as a surgeon, his audience is usually comatose. As I suspected, he is much better at writing comedy than I am at performing surgery.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.18/49We’re both writers, so naturally, we both wrote our own vows. And, being writers, we also do our best work on deadline, which is why we wrote them the day before! Mike’s vows were romantic and playful and hilarious, and completely free of cliché or self-seriousness—just like Mike.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.19/49Mike’s superstar former editors at The New York Times, Michael Paulson and Carolyn Ryan, alongside Steven’s stunning wife Ruthie Friedlander, who is the most loyal friend anyone could hope to have. Two weeks before, I had participated in their wedding ceremony by signing the ketubah, which was an incredible honor. It’s really special and meaningful that our two marriages are intertwined not just by friendship and love, but by the actual letter of the law. In so many ways, Steven and Ruthie helped us get married.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.20/49My husband! To use a most cherished expression: He is the cat’s pajamas.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.21/49For our recessional, a classical trio from Hire Juilliard Performers performed a beautiful cover of “Beginnings” by Chicago. “Beginnings” because the ceremony had ended, but the wedding itself was the beginning of our lives as a married couple.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.22/49After the ceremony, we headed upstairs with our families and officiants to sign the marriage license. I don’t often fill out municipal paperwork surrounded by loved ones in black tie. (Usually we’re in white tie.)
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.23/49McQueens Flowers creates the most beautiful arrangements I’ve ever seen. I think I’ve bookmarked every single one of them on Instagram. And yet, when it came time to choosing a florist, I didn’t even consider McQueens because they’re based in London, where they regularly turn Claridge’s and Annabel’s into enchanted gardens. Enter: our event planner Rebecca Gardner, who happened to know that McQueens was putting down roots (as it were) in New York, and correctly thought they’d knock it out of the park. There’s such a sense of liveliness to every arrangement; everything seems to be bursting or exploding, and our absolutely magnificent escort-card table was no exception. Note the cherry blossoms the color of my dress; sprays of Fritillaria, which look like contemplative tulips and smell like pot; and poppies in punkish colors to mimic the ones on our invitation.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.24/49Very early on during the planning, Rebecca Gardner had characterized the wedding look we were going for as “The Age of Innocence on acid.” For the second time in my life, I knew I had found “the one.” She is, hands down, one of the most creative and talented people I have ever met. I am in awe of her brain (both sides, because she is also an organizational Jedi). The room was filled with kumquat trees and transformed into a proper orangerie. While everyone had to weave between branches to get to their seats, only the adventurous guests picked kumquats for an impromptu amuse-bouche.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.25/49Rebecca Gardner’s tablescapes are, rightly, the stuff of legend. Behold.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.26/49More fruit buffet. The florals were out-of-control gorgeous: table-top jungles of poppies and ranunculi the colors of Marni prints; towering skyscrapers of cherry blossoms everywhere; every element a showpiece.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.27/49Everything was lit by candlelight, and—just as notably—nothing caught on fire.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.28/49Mottahedeh tobacco-leaf chargers, Moroccan tea glasses, and antique porcelain figurines (spot the blue duck!)—all on psychedelic velvet tablecloths in alternating trippy turquoise and Yellow Submarine–y yellows and oranges—really reinforced the “Age of Innocence on Acid” vibe. As did the red silk tassels strewn between flowers and fruits.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.29/49Mantle by McQueens. Guests were particularly excited to discover that the guavas and kumquats were edible. It was the perfect tropical foil to the National Arts Club’s stylishly disordered Neo-Victorian vibe.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.30/49The National Arts Club came stocked with its own collectsion of Bohemian pokals, vases, and urns.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.31/49Exotic fruits spilled out from every nook and cranny—even around our cake! All edible; no fruits were forbidden!
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.32/49Mike and I love listening to jazz at home when we eat dinner, and so we had a zippy jazz trio from Hire Juilliard Performers play our favorites by Charlie Parker, Ornette Coleman, Art Tatum, and Louis Armstrong during cocktail hour.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.33/49Chloe Malle and the men in her life, Graham Albert and Mark Guiducci. Chloe had organized my “bachelorette party” at La Grenouille (“La Grynouille,” per the genius napkins she had had embroidered for the occasion) and her husband Graham had helped plan Mike’s slightly more elaborate affair: a three-day stag party in London with a half-dozen on his closest friends. They saw the Dior exhibit at the V&A; a rowdy time was had by all.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.34/49I used to work at Vanity Fair, and the wedding turned out to be the best excuse to get the band back together. Here, our beloved friend Aimée Bell, the brilliant and omniscient former deputy editor now running her own imprint at Simon & Schuster, sits with the culture-changingly brilliant Graydon Carter and his endlessly chic, endlessly lovely wife Anna Carter. Graydon and Anna had cut short a trip to St. Moritz to celebrate with us, and Mike and I were both profoundly touched and genuinely honored they went out of their way to be there.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.35/49The scene at dinner.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.36/49I wanted our cake to be unfussy but still sophisticated—nothing too rustic or DIY—and Magnolia Bakery totally nailed it. Mike and I had tasted probably 20 combinations of frosting and filling before deciding on Funfetti with pistachio meringue and vanilla buttercream. I was so excited when I found out Magnolia is saving the top layer and sending it back to us on our first anniversary.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.37/49My mother, our officiant Steven Chaiken, and our beautiful friend Elizabeth Shaffer all cheering for us…to start passing out cake!
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.38/49After cake, we headed back to the ceremony room to kick off dancing with our first song, “After Hours” by the Velvet Underground.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.39/49Our DJ Riki Bryan came highly recommended to us by Rebecca, and he completely got the very specific sensibility we had requested: “weeknight at Lit in 2005 meets Last Days of Disco.” In practice, it meant lots of Strokes, Tom Petty, Brenton Wood, Pulp (our old favorites), and new favorites courtesy of Riki (Cosmic Rays, Bill Wyman, Marvin Gaye).
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.40/49Dancing with our friends Annie Karni and Emily Cheesman and our officiant Steven Chaiken. Mike looks so festive in white!
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.41/49By popular request of our relatives, there was a Hora. I almost fell off a chair, Mike actually fell off a chair, and both of us had fun anyway. In my experience, the Hora is significantly less dangerous than walking barefoot in the vicinity of steam pipes.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.42/49Scoop: New York Times political reporter Annie Karni is a fabulous dancer and A-1 human being.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.43/49Two of my best friends from college, Amanda Stoffel and Tobin Mitnick, were among the many pairs of blissed-out newlyweds present.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.44/49My dear friend Miriam Goldblum is wearing a bow because knowing her is a gift!
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.45/49Dancing with my brother Adam to Tom Petty’s “American Girl” was so much fun—as was realizing my toe hadn’t hurt once the whole night. Whether this was due to adrenaline or six Advil, who’s to say? (It was the Advil.)
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.46/49Steven Chaiken and my mother are two of the best and most energetic dancers I know.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.47/49Chloe Malle, Jeff Schwartz, and Steven Chaiken, who is showcasing his aforementioned energy reserves.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.48/49Many of my college friends! We’ve been dancing together (usually to LCD Soundsystem) for more than 10 years. The soundtrack is the same, the black-tie is a recent and regretfully temporary addition.
Photo: Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co.49/49We had the best time, and we are so grateful to our creative, generous, and patient photographer, the supremely talented Sasithon Photography of The Wedding Artists Co., for capturing every detail, every exchanged glance, and every spontaneous expression of joy. Her photos do the wedding justice, and I can’t think of higher praise for a wedding photographer than that! We loved seeing the fruits (literally!) of our labor and loved hearing from guests that they found everything as magical as we did. I would not change a thing. O.K., maybe one toe.
