The Bride Wore a Pearl-Embroidered Danielle Frankel Dress to Marry at the Foot of the Elk Mountains

The morning after the party, Eve and Matt invited their guests on a hiking excursion along the Slate River that ended with a picnic lunch. “We thought that at best maybe 20 or 30 of our guests would join because the night before had gone quite late and not all our guests were hikers,” Eve says. “But almost the entire wedding came. That was so special to us because above all what makes Crested Butte so incredible is the unparalleled landscape and access to the outdoors. The mental image of 80 of our closest family and friends walking in a single-file line through the mountains and fall foliage is something I’ll cherish forever.”

The ceremony was held at the foot of the Elk Mountains. The wedding dress itself—which was a custom design by Danielle Frankel—was a complete labor of love for the bride. “A close friend planted the idea in my head of a pearl-embroidered gown when she sent me a photo of the look Lila Moss wore in Kim Jones’s first couture show for Fendi,” Eve explains. “I showed it to Stef, who was the one who had had the idea to connect me with stylist Carrie Goldberg of CLG Creative and her partner in crime and principal stylist, Lex Alexandris.”

They, in turn, connected her with designer Danielle Hirsch of Danielle Frankel. Eve worked closely with Goldberg, Alexandris, and Frankel over the next seven months to bring the vision of a baroque-pearl-embroidered gown to life. As they didn’t work from an existing design, every aspect of the silhouette, construction, and embroidery was a decision that had to be worked through for the first time. “Danielle and her team are meticulous,” Eve says. “At one of the last fittings we had before the wedding, Danielle reviewed every pearl to make sure they looked right. A few got the axe because they were too big or small.”

After this experience, Eve will be the first to tell you that custom is not for the faint of heart. “Because the embroidery had to be done from scratch, the initial time I saw—let alone tried on—the outer pearl layer of the dress was two weeks before I left for the wedding!” Eve says. “It was all worth it, though, not only for the end result but also for the process itself. I love being a litigator, and I feel extremely privileged to do what I do for a living, but it doesn’t always leave much room in my day-to-day life for artistic creativity or sartorial expression.” Working on the dress was a creative outlet for Eve, she explains. “And I was able to share that experience with my loved ones, which made it even more special,” she says. “For example, my dear friend Colin Macgregor—who is, among other things, the design director at La Ligne—and I exchanged dozens of makeshift mock-ups each time we thought about changing any detail.”

In the lead-up to the wedding weekend, Matt added some new items to his wardrobe that felt special to him but also made use of items he already owned. “Generally, his style is relaxed and understated,” Eve explains. On the first night, he wore a Ralph Lauren Purple Label cashmere hoodie with other things he already owned. To the Till Death Do Us Party, he wore a dark maroon suit that a former teammate gifted him during his first Major League season in 2016. And finally he wore a black shawl-collar tuxedo by Tom Ford to the ceremony and reception.

After the bride walked down the aisle, the service was officiated by Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, who Eve clerked for, at the foot of Mount Crested Butte. “In the legal world, Judge Srinivasan is well known as a gifted speaker and thinker, but he’s also an unusually kind, warm, and naturally funny person, and we were lucky to have him as our officiant to set the mood,” Eve says. “Our siblings delivered their own modern, secularized interpretations of the seven blessings, and Matt’s father’s best friend, Kevin Gallagher, read the poem ‘Late Fragment’ by Raymond Carver.” The bride and groom wrote their own vows. “I’m not articulate enough to describe it without sounding trite, so I won’t try, except to say it was all perfect,” Eve says.

“We both feel very lucky to have been able to hold the ceremony in that setting,” Matt adds. “I’m not sure anywhere else could have reflected externally what we felt internally as well as it did.”

Cocktails were held in the great outdoors as the sun set on the mountain after the service, and then guests headed inside for dinner. For the reception, the bride wore an archival Alexander McQueen dress that Goldberg helped her source, paired with her mother’s earrings, and then changed into an Azzaro Couture minidress for the after-party. Stephen Russell made the stars on the necklace she wore to the Friday-night party removable and convertible into earrings, so she wore them as earrings to the after-party.

Cove and Madison Hartley of Hart Floral masterminded the ceiling installation, drawing inspiration from Eve’s wedding dress. They used resin beads hung in a web of branches to mirror morning dew on the nearby meadow and the net of pearls sewn across the gown. Once inside, there were toasts and roasts followed by a long night of dancing.

“We’re fortunate to have such insightful, funny friends and family in our lives who were so generous with their time and effort in preparing toasts for the wedding,” Eve says. “We’re also fortunate that they are all next-level competitive because making the best wedding speech is basically a blood sport at this point among our friends. They stepped up to the challenge. It was all a dream. It would have been a dream, albeit in a different way, if we’d taken a totally different path—a courthouse wedding or eloping or anything else—because it’s a dream to marry your person, your best friend. But the speeches, the mountain, the party, having our most beloved people gathered in our most beloved place—all those memories are irreplaceable.”