Tell us a little about yourselves!
We’re Thomas and Nida. We first met when we were 14 years old through friends while snowboarding - Thomas was wearing his mom’s baby blue mittens, which Nida was immediately drawn to. We dated for a few years in high school and were pretty inseparable. Eventually, we went our separate ways, only to run into each other at a mutual friend’s party while both living in New York City. While talking and catching up at the party, we instantly knew that our bond was something special. We share the same desires, interests and values.
After a decade together in New York, we decided to make a leap and moved to Los Angeles a few years ago. We’ve loved exploring a new city together.
For work, Nida is a creative producer and Thomas works in footwear and fashion, currently focused on special projects and collaborations for HOKA.
Why did you decide to get married where you did?
At the end of 2018, we got engaged and soon after we began working on planning a large wedding at Proyecto Público Prim in Mexico City for April 4th of 2020. It’s a city that’s very special to us and to our family. We assembled a team of fantastic vendors through word of mouth from family and friends (Nida’s sister in law is from Mexico City and our families are very close) including our wedding photographer, Alisha Tova. We spent countless hours and trips to Mexico to plan. However, like many others, the pandemic had other plans for us and we had to cancel two weeks before our April 4th date. It was a really emotional and difficult situation that thankfully turned out as well as it possibly could have. We were incredibly lucky and had purchased event insurance at the beginning of 2020. This allowed us to pay all of our original vendors that we had developed close relationships with, as we tried our best to move on and leave wedding planning alone for a while. At the beginning of 2021, we were finally ready to let the dream of our Mexico City wedding go and decided to try to plan a celebration, but we didn’t know what it could look like since we were still in the throes of the pandemic. We decided that the only option that made logical sense would be to have a smaller gathering than our original wedding and to have it in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where we’re both from and where we originally met. We could have a wedding there with just our immediate family if we needed to shift our plans due to Covid. We were really concerned about having to cancel our celebration again and didn’t want to put ourselves, our guests or our vendors through that process again if we could avoid it. We wanted to show our closest friends and family how beautiful Minnesota is in the summer and to give our out of town friends a deeper understanding of where we come from. The pieces of the puzzle quickly came together once we secured our fantastic planner, Laine Palm, who held our hand throughout the whole process. We had our ceremony and cocktail hour at Nida’s family home, on Lake Minnetonka, in her mother’s garden. We’ve had so many memories at this house and it is a truly special place for us and for our family. For our reception, we wanted a raw space that we could build out to feel like a fantastic dinner party at a restaurant. We ended up deciding on Aria in Minneapolis - it felt a bit like our original venue, Prim, so it felt like kismet.
How many guests did you have?
We had 135 guests.
Tell us about your outfits.
Nida hadn’t given much thought to wedding dresses before getting engaged. Living in New York City at the time, she was able to book last minute bridal appointments and would go solo to try on as many styles of dresses as possible to learn more about what she felt good in.
Eventually, she ended up choosing Monique Lhuillier’s Bloom dress - she loved the color and it felt right the second she put it on. She knew Thomas would love it too. The dress originally had a cathedral length train, which is beautiful and the drama would have been fun at the Mexico City venue, but didn’t make sense at her family’s home. She had the train shortened and made the sleeves removable for dancing. Later on in the evening, Nida changed into an ivory silk slip dress from Markarian.
Thomas wore a Purple Label tuxedo from the made-to-measure team at the Ralph Lauren Mansion at 867 Madison Avenue. Opting for a classic cut, white shirting, and white mother-of-pearl buttons, he accessorised with a small gold “N” pin on his lapel that paired with his 18K white gold ring. Made in Italy black leather Venetian loafers from Jil Sander completed his look. For Dinner at Aria, he changed into a cream colored shawl collar dinner jacket from Ralph Lauren Purple Label.
What was the most important aspect for you, in terms of planning your wedding?
We referenced Priya Parker’s book, The Art of Gathering, during our planning process. It helped us to articulate our motivation to have a wedding, which served as our North star while planning.
For us, having a wedding was about gathering our community and showing gratitude towards them while making this momentous promise to one another. Since we have been together for many years, we have built deep relationships with each other's friends and families. We honored the special nature of our lifetime of memories with our loved ones throughout our ceremony and reception. Coming back to that goal while planning was very grounding while facing an overwhelming amount of choices.
Originally, our ceremony was supposed to have a traditional layout in front of Nida’s mother’s garden. However, it was raining and there was a thunder storm the morning of our wedding (Mother Nature wanted to keep us on our toes!). Thanks to the advice and quick thinking of our photographer and also of our planner, Alisha Tova and Laine Palm, we were able to secure a tent and changed the entire layout of our ceremony. Laine tapped our florist, Genevieve of Apricot Floral, to change plans the morning of our wedding and we ended up with a ceremony in the round, below an absolutely breathtaking arrangement of flowers. The rain let up just in time for our ceremony and it was so much more intimate and special with all of our loved ones surrounding us. It couldn’t have fit more perfectly with our goal that we defined while wedding planning. It felt like kismet once again.
Were there any elements that were important for you to incorporate?
Nida’s family owns a beloved ice cream shop in Minneapolis named Sebastian Joe’s. Once we shifted our plans to Minnesota, we knew we had to include ice cream at our reception!
Nida’s dad and two uncles (all original founders of the company) were kind enough to craft a custom olive oil ice cream flavor for us. Scoops were topped with marcona almonds, black pepper and accompanied by Nida’s late-grandmother’s famous biscotti.
It meant the world to share her family’s ice cream and biscotti with everyone on our wedding day.
Any tips for couples getting married?
Trust your instincts while planning! Try not to overthink things.
Are there any vendors that you would like to tell us a little more about?
All of our vendors were fabulous, we feel so lucky to have worked with so many talented individuals.
We couldn’t recommend Laine Palm and her team enough. She patiently worked with us on many different iterations of our wedding day. Laine enthusiastically explored every crazy idea we brought to the table. We are so thankful to her and her team for listening to how we wanted our day to feel for us and for our guests and working tirelessly to make it happen.
Our photographer, Alisha Tova, is also a long time friend and she is fantastic. We felt incredibly calm and comfortable with her, as did our friends and family. Alisha collaborated with us to ensure she understood how we wanted our photos to look and feel before our wedding. On the day of, she kept everything running smoothly and made us feel like the most photogenic version of ourselves!
We worked closely with Alexander at Harvest Wedding Films to create a film that we’ll cherish. He went above and beyond to make sure we were happy with the final film and we are so appreciative.
Truly all of our vendors were fantastic and we can’t thank them enough!
Photographer : Alisha Tova @alishatova | Videographer : Harvest Wedding Films @harvestweddingfilms | Ceremony Location : Nida’s family home on Lake Minnetonka | Reception Location : Aria | Celebrant : Will Leer, a close family friend | Entertainment : Rock With U @rockwithu | Planner : Laine Palm @lainepalmplanning | Hire : Apres @apreseventandtent , Collected & Co @collectedrentals + Linen Effects @lineneffects | Flora : Apricot Floral @apricot.floral | Makeup : Cristina Ziemer @cristinaziemerbeauty | Hair : Lady Vamp Artistry @ladyvampartistry | Catering + Beverages : Chowgirls @chowgirlscatering | Ice Cream + Biscotti : Sebastian Joe’s @sebastianjoes | Stationery : Emily J. Snyder @gemtones | Lighting : Phos Events + Avex @phosevents @avex_audio_visual | Nida's Ceremony Dress : Monique Lhuillier @moniquelhuillier | Nida's Party Dress : Markarian @markarian_nyc | Thomas' Suit : Ralph Lauren Purple Label @ralphlauren | Wedding Rings : Jangmi @jangmijewelry | Nida's Heels : Stuart Weitzman @stuartweitzman | Thomas's Shoes : Jil Sander @jilsander | Lapel Pin : Vintage | Nida’s Pearl Bracelet : Family heirloom of her Grandmother’s