A year and a half before Dolly Meckler got engaged, her parents called her from the Pucci store at Woodbury Commons Premium Outlet and said, “We found your wedding dress.” Two years later, Meckler walked down the aisle at Temple Emanu-El in that very dress – albeit a slightly reimagined and newly tailored version.
“The whole wedding was planned backwards: It was a partnership. Every decision we make is together – even our engagement was planned together,” Meckler tells Vogue of her relationship with her now-husband Jordan Cohen. “I knew exactly when it was going to be, we decided the date together and we decided on the ring together.”
Once the couple settled on a wedding date in May 2024, Meckler and her mother began the journey of finding her wedding dress. After visiting every classic New York City bridal shop and emerging empty-handed, the mother-daughter duo was on the phone with Woodbury Commons. Twenty-four hours and one bus ride later, Meckler was trying on the very same Pucci dress her parents had spotted 18 months prior. “We put it on, and it didn’t even get over my arms – the skirt didn’t close at all – but we could all tell this was the one,” Meckler recalls. “It’s just a really joyous piece. So we said, ‘We’re taking it, and we’ll take the cape too!’”
The white ruffle dress comes from the spring/summer 2021 Tomo Koizumi X Pucci capsule collection, and consists of three pieces: a top that zips in the back, a full-length skirt and a cape. Once the outfit was secured, the next step was to turn it into a garment that was actually wearable for Meckler’s wedding day. After speaking with a few seamstresses who “didn’t want to touch it,” Meckler finally found Tatianna – a master seamstress to the stars who saw the Pucci wedding dress as a challenge. “It was like, should we reconstruct it? What if we made it into a jumpsuit? What if we made it like a bolero jacket because you know, it doesn't fit all the way,” Meckler explains. “And there were all these ideas, but then we kept looking at photos and we were just like we can't touch it. It needs to be the way it is. But let’s add a train to it… so it feels even more grand. And that’s where the cape came in!”
The seamstress inserted mesh side panels so Meckler could relax her arms down and sewed the cape onto the skirt to create a long fluffy train. The dress was lined in soft pink and yellow Emilio Pucci fabric that the seamstress detached (and later re-attached), so she could reconstruct the dress without ruining the delicate lining.
With such an extravagant dress and such an extravagant venue – Temple Emanu-El boasts a long red carpet, which was a big selling point for the couple – Meckler was a little lost on how to go about accessorising her unique wedding look. The bride turned to Koizumi’s runway shows for inspiration and landed on a simple low bun with minimal make-up and a red lip. (Red to match the carpet and the bouquet of flowers she held as she walked down the aisle.) “But then I also noticed that he has these cuffs that he uses for all his gowns, and they’re usually a contrasting colour to whatever the gown is,” Meckler adds. “We thought black would work really nicely.” And so, the outfit was complete – black ruffle cuffs and all.
On the day of the wedding, Meckler wore a Pucci shirt to get ready (a little Easter egg for her bridal party) while her father – a graphic designer who was in charge of all the wedding materials – included a note about her dress in the ceremony programme. “Nobody knew who Tomo Koizumi was, so they didn’t know what to expect in terms of the shape, but they saw Pucci so they knew it would be really colourful,” Meckler explains. “My mum wanted people to know that it was Pucci underneath, and in Jewish weddings, you do these circles at the end. My maid of honour, my cousin, helped me pick up the train and I flashed the bottom so they could all see. Everyone was like, ‘Oh my God.’”
The oohs and ahhs continued well after the ceremony as Meckler and her new husband crossed the street to Central Park to take photos. “We go to Central Park every day, but to go to Central Park in this ridiculous outrageous gown was so fun,” Meckler remembers. “Everybody had their phone out and was taking photos. There was this little boy who was crying and the second he saw the dress he stopped crying. That’s what you want – to put a smile on people’s faces!”