The creation of my wedding look was a slow burn: it took 20 years to realize. I met the designer at a summer camp on the Chesapeake Bay. A few years later, we excitedly reunited at our public high school. Before the existence of Vogue Runway, we went to Barnes and Noble to buy print magazines with pages and pages of collections arranged by fashion week city. I first heard the names Balenciaga, Tom Ford, and so many others huddling over these magazines like a campfire, listening to Nicholas dissecting silhouettes while Carrie Bradshaw strode away from Mr. Big’s engagement party on a DVD repeating in the background.
Nicholas knew he would become a designer. He was already a designer. He draped fabric on me after school until it gowned to his satisfaction, and with nowhere to go, we’d go anywhere—a field, a gas station, his basement, McDonald’s—and shoot Polaroid “editorials.” We’d hop on AOL Instant Messenger and give each other “fashion challenges” to style ourselves, and half an hour later he’d ring my doorbell, and we’d talk through our looks like we were presenting to Anna Wintour. Our rebellion was driving to faraway thrift stores without permission; we were caught when his car started smoking and we had to call his mom from the roadside hours away.
During prom season, Nicholas’s house became a solo atelier, with girls trying on dresses over Ugg boots. I demanded priority as a client on the grounds that I was most willing to take a fashion risk. Like the white one-shoulder bias-cut asymmetrical gown with hand-sewn green silk leaves cascading down the back that I wore to junior prom. I admit, when he sewed some leaves on a friend’s Abercrombie jean skirt to practice the technique and she wore it to school ahead of prom, I stomped with teenage proprietarian fury and confronted him in our high school parking lot. (Sorry, Nick!)
Tantrum excluded, my sessions as Nicholas’ fit model fashioned new context for our imagined future: his clothes gave shape to our inner longing for elsewhere. Together, we materialized belief in the power of style and self-creation.
Nicholas went to Central Saint Martin’s, and has designed for the major fashion houses he told me about on his floor. I am writing this story about us for Vogue.com, so… we did it. Now, two decades later, we are each other’s chosen family. When I got engaged in August 2022, I knew I’d never shop for a wedding dress. I called the boy from summer camp, now living in Paris with his husband, designing for Balenciaga Couture.