This New York City Wedding Began With Golden Unicorn Dim Sum and Ended With Katz’s Deli Knishes

One small hiccup with their dream venue? “There wasn’t one room big enough for our ceremony,” says Jenna. “In a deep panic, I did what any native New Yorker would do. I walked one block East, West, North, and South from The Ned Nomad searching for a last-minute, walkable solution until I stumbled upon the Virgin Hotel, whose giant 38th-floor ballroom was somehow free that evening. I asked if we could use it ‘for a quick hour,’ and the rest was history.” A final booking was made at the iconic Golden Unicorn Restaurant for a dim-sum-filled rehearsal dinner the evening before, and their plans were underway.

All hands were on deck to bring the celebration to life with guidance from planner Laura Remmert. “My mom, Susan Simmons, was my other wedding planner, pouring over every single color, napkin, and plate size until we got it just right,” says Jenna. “I am not afraid to admit that I’m a complete control freak and cared about literally every single part of this wedding—down to the size of the forks for the small passed plates of rigatoni. My mom has an eagle eye for detail and I felt very lucky to have her…always, but especially during this wedding.” The couple also worked on quite a few DIY moments for their wedding, from hand-tying 120 ribbons onto chopsticks to scouting blooms to add to their arrangements by Doan Ly of a.p. Bio just two days before the wedding. “Some of the actual flowers we selected made it to our day-of florals, down to a giant lichen-covered branch my mom spotted in one of the flower shops, which magically appeared interwoven into our bar arrangement at The Ned,” says Jenna. “It made me laugh when I saw it in action.”

With such a short timeline, Jenna didn’t have the typical experience of choosing her wedding wardrobe. “Most people looked at me with a face of complete horror when I said I needed a wedding dress in less than six months,” she recalls. “‘You’re getting married when?’ ‘You want what?’ Timeline aside, I really wanted the experience of trying on wedding gowns, especially with my mom.” Her first stop was at Oscar de la Renta, where she found a not-so-traditional long-sleeved nude gown with silver beading that she would end up wearing at the reception. “What is it that they say? If you’re still thinking about it after you leave the store, go back and get it? Because that is exactly what happened with this dress, and then some,” says the bride. “I was completely obsessed. The second I put it on my body, I knew. The 3D flowers. The movement of the fringe—everything about it was just it. And while it clearly wasn’t a ‘wedding dress,’ it also felt like the kind of dress you’d only wear on your wedding day, and I knew it needed to be part of mine.” She paired the look with Aquazzura pom pom shoes she found at a sample sale a few years prior. “I actually loved the idea of wearing something on my wedding day that had just been sitting in my closet waiting for its moment,” says the bride.

For her ceremony gown, Jenna wanted to find something classic with a more minimalist fabric. “After trying on basically every non-pouf, flower, or lace bridal dress available in my timeline, I eventually landed on a corseted Vivienne Westwood gown for the ceremony,” she says. “There truly is something about those Westwood corsets that just hugs the body like no other. I felt confident, classic, and like I was looking down at the bridal version of myself you think might happen to you one day—but you’re not totally sure if it will.” For her shoes, Jenna went on a search to find a pair of baby blue Prada rhinestone slingbacks she saw “out in the wild one night at a party.” After searching high and low, she found her perfect “something blue.” As a something borrowed, Jenna wore a diamond bracelet that her dad had given her mom. “As a kid, I had always seen her put it on for fancy occasions, so it felt very meaningful to wear it for my most important occasion yet,” she notes. The groom also kept his wedding look timeless with a Ralph Lauren Purple Label tuxedo, a Sid Mashburn bow tie, and an A Lange & Söhne watch. For a sentimental touch, Ben wore his late grandfather’s cufflinks and studs.

The rehearsal dinner at Golden Unicorn was meant to be a more relaxed celebration, so the bride decided to eschew traditional white for a feminine pink ensemble. “It felt celebratory yet still bridal, and would pop against the very red backdrop of Golden Unicorn,” she says. After an in-depth search for the perfect pink dress, she narrowed down her search to two options. “Even an hour before our rehearsal dinner, I hadn’t decided which dress to wear,” says Jenna. “We were running late, so my best friend Kalei who was with me at the time told me to just grab both. We thought, ‘If you can’t wear two pink dresses on your wedding weekend, when can you?’” So the bride began the evening in a pink Simone Rocha dress with a red bow that perfectly nodded to the décor and finished it in a caped Rodarte gown covered in floral prints. “Did I expect to spend my last unwed night in a pink cape? Maybe not entirely, but my friends and family supportively cheered as I came out of the bathroom,” says Jenna. “Our photographers Calen Rose captured this moment just perfectly, and then ordered me to twirl the cape in front of some dim sum carts.” Ben wore a Todd Snyder suit for the dinner, but needed a day-of attire swap. “Like husband, like wife, Ben also had had a change up at the last minute because the sleeves on his shirt were somehow still too long despite tailoring,” shares Jenna. “He ended up grabbing something already in his closet and it looked great.”

The wedding weekend unofficially kicked off on Thursday night, when the couple, their planner, and friends helped set up Golden Unicorn for the rehearsal dinner. “We munched on dim sum as we all got up on ladders and hung lanterns and double-wide red ribbon,” says Jenna. “Red bows evolved into the de facto theme of the night, down to the bow detail on my Simone Rocha dress.” Friday night was filled with steaming carts full of lacquered duck, orange chicken, and dessert pig buns, as well as plenty of laughter. “Ben gave a welcome toast then turned it over to our dear (and hysterical) friend Dave Silverstein to host as emcee for speeches from friends. The speeches were raucous and we were in stitches at our sweetheart stable on the Golden Unicorn dais,” shares the bride. “My best friend Shauna and our friend Eliot reenacted my first freakout text messages about my early dates with Ben, and Ben’s friends had everyone howling.”

The wedding day arrivedand the couple reunited after spending the morning separate as they got ready. “The photographers told me we were going to do a first look and I had in my mind, ‘Okay, this sounds a little fromage, but sure,’” says Ben. “I heard the elevator door open and they were like ‘Okay, get ready to turn around.’ I don’t even think I really had fully registered Jenna in her dress and I started crying instantly.” The groom shares that when the bride began walking down the aisle again as a gospel choir, The New York Soulful Singers, sang How Loud Your Heart Gets” by Lucius, waterworks ensued again. And Jenna notes that during the first minute of the ceremony, she felt like she could faint. “Ben held my hands, which held me up, reminding me in the moment of why I just love him so much,” she says. The ceremony included a reading by Ben’s sister Emily that left them in tears, a song by the cantor at the groom’s boyhood synagogue, and some jokes from the rabbi. “He opened with this whole schtick about the irony of getting married at the Virgin Hotel,” says Jenna. “It got a big laugh.” The ceremony also finished with a comedic moment. “When Ben went to break the glass at the end of the ceremony, the glass shot out unbroken into the crowd. Mission accomplished on the second stomp,” says Jenna. “Then as we recessed and the gospel choir broke into song, the Rabbi all of a sudden yelled out, ‘Wait, come back! I forgot to bless you!’ So, we turned the whole thing around and went back to the chuppah.”

To transition the wedding into the reception at The Ned NoMad, the couple and their guests would need to walk two blocks through the January cold. “Heels, long dresses, a ton of down coats—chaos,” says Jenna. “Ben had come up with the idea to turn the walk to The Ned into the Hora. When everyone was finally downstairs, we had a brass section there ready to play a second-line style rendition of the Hava Nagila and parade down Broadway to The Ned. We finally made our way to the Ned and kept dancing in the entrance, flinging our friends and parents around before going into the party.” She adds, “It was honestly one of our favorite parts of the entire weekend."

As guests entered The Ned, they were handed party maps to take on the night. “We took over The Ned Nomad’s Atrium, Dining Room, Elephant Bar, Snug, and Library—which created an interconnected maze of rooms for our guests to hang out in. Once you got past the phalanx of waiters with Ned champagne martinis and welcome negronis, it was really a ‘create your own adventure’ kind of wedding,” explains the bride. “One moment we were dancing and catching up with our family, the next we were in The Library with our pals chowing down on shrimp cocktail. If you wanted to be social, you could hit the dance floor, but if you wanted a little break to eat some pasta in peace, you could find your own nook.”

While there was no traditional sit-down dinner, there was no shortage of food. Guests were served Cecconi’s eggplant parmesan, fusilli pomodoro with burrata, rigatoni bolognese, and lamb chops to warm up from the winter chill. “We brought out margherita and truffle and squash-blossom pizzas straight from wood burning ovens that we passed around in classic pizza boxes,” they note. “It was all very ‘grab a piping hot slice right out of the box and then get back on the dance floor,’ which is just the kind of party we’d want to go to.” Later in the night, the couple cut into a heart-shaped cake “just-to-say-we-did,” while guests enjoyed Good Humor Ice cream bars and custom sprinkle cookies from Orwashers for dessert. “For a final snack, we passed trays of knishes, hot dogs, and pickles from New York institution Katz’s Deli. Late-night rounds of coffee came passed in signature Greek Diner Anthora coffee cups.”

The couple said the evening was filled with so many unforgettable parts like their parent’s toasts, their DJ Rick Express starting a dance party to the Sugarhill Gang, and “brain-breaking combinations of friends meeting each other.” The newlyweds say, “We closed out the evening with the diehards drinking bourbon and cocktails at Little Ned just around the corner, reminiscing about the day over what remained of the Katz’s until we were all out of juice and limped back home.”

The couple shares that they were initially excited to go back to the way life was before they began wedding planning, but now, they can’t reminiscing over the tiniest details of the weekend: “There was one point in early planning stages where we toyed with the idea of skipping it all, or doing something small, and looking back I am so glad we didn’t. It was all worth it.”