News

Jun 01, 2023

Beanie Feldstein and Bonnie

By Alexandra Macon On a brisk January night in 2018, actress Beanie Feldstein

By Alexandra Macon

On a brisk January night in 2018, actress Beanie Feldstein and producer Bonnie-Chance Roberts first met—in person, at least—at Dean Street Townhouse in London. "Actually, we first met on Skype," Beanie laughs. "Bon had been developing Caitlin Moran's book How to Build a Girl into a movie for over five years when they finally started the casting process for Caitlin's fictional proxy, Johanna, a 16-year-old girl from Wolverhampton, England. With a dash of luck and a push from the universe, they ended up being open to meeting a Jewish girl from Los Angeles."

It turns out the couple's initial meeting over Skype wasn't as auspicious as you might expect. "In classic Bon fashion, she hadn't actually introduced herself, she just launched into it all," Beanie remembers. "At the end of the call, I wrote in my notes: ‘the producer… Brooke?’"

Not long afterwards, Beanie finally figured out the correct name, and the film's creative team—including Bonnie—decided to fly Beanie out to London to do a weekend-long audition test. "It was a series of walks through East London, discussions of the character over meals, and of course, scene after scene of auditioning," Beanie says. "Two weeks later, on Valentine's Day actually, I found out I had the part."

The two clicked from the very beginning—first as friends, and then, as the relationship evolved, into love. They spent the summer of 2018 making How to Build a Girl while also taking walks through Hampstead Heath, eating dinners at Osteria Basilico in Notting Hill, and falling for each other. "From the moment we first kissed, we both knew we would get married and months after that, Bon had announced that when the time came, she wanted to be the one to propose to me," Beanie recalls. "Because of the pandemic, we were not able to see each other in person for 13 months."

Bonnie was in Liverpool with her family, and Beanie was in Los Angeles—first with her parents, and then filming Ryan Murphy's Impeachment: American Crime Story. "I had spent the time apart designing Beanie's engagement ring with the infinitely talented Michelle Oh," Bonnie says. "The dream was for the ring to look as if a shard of magic was frozen in time and I think she absolutely achieved that!"Bonnie wanted the proposal to be just as magical as the ring. "After so long apart, I felt like Beanie deserved a perfect moment that would feel out of time or space," she says. "We’ve always marveled at the fact that we come from two very different places and that, despite the odds, we found each other. It never felt more palpable than during our 13 months spent separated in Liverpool and L.A. And so the proposal was a celebration of the long roads we had taken to find each other and to get to the moment of committing to marriage."

With a lot of help from their friends, Bonnie decorated the backyard of Beanie's childhood home with 600 mason jars and fairy lights, along with hundreds of photos on long pieces of string that spanned their childhoods all the way up to their relationship. There were quotes that spoke to their journey as a couple, as well as wooden signs painted to look like the road signs of all of their significant places. Most importantly, every friend that was in L.A. at the time was invited to witness and celebrate the occasion. "After so long apart from each other and from them, it felt like heaven to all be back together," Bonnie says.

Almost two years later, the wedding was held on the weekend of May 19, 2023, at Cedar Lakes Estate in the Hudson Valley. "It is our happy place together," Beanie says. "I grew up going to summer camp for ten years, and my parents and both sets of my grandparents met at summer camp, so camp is a lineage of love through the generations of my family. Even though we met in London and fell in love on a film set, to get married at a camp was a truly beautiful emotional homecoming."

All of the vendors who worked on the wedding were women, including the planners, Amanda (and her right hand Natalie Sanderson) of Amanda Savory Events. Cedar Lakes is also owned and run by two sisters, Stephanie and Lisa. "Our genius designers, Little Sister Creative—well, it's all in the name—they are sisters too," the couple says. "It was very special for us as two creative women to work with such esteemed and talented women."

To kick things off on Friday night, fashion was the focus. Bonnie has always loved the brand Bode, so she ended up wearing a custom tuxedo featuring night sky embroidery with the couple's wedding crest featured, hanging in a hot air balloon among the stars. On the sleeve, they embroidered Bonnie's favorite A.A. Milne quote about love and friendship, encapsulating how she feels about her and Beanie's love: "And together they touched the sky." Bonnie topped it off with earrings from The 10, a jewelry line founded by Beanie's sister Dana, as well as a stunning antique diamond and heart and arrow brooch from Briony Raymond.

As a fan (and front-row favorite) of the Rodarte sisters, Beanie decided to go with a rehearsal dinner dress silhouette inspired by the leopard dress that she wore to their New York Fashion Week show in February, but in a floral applique fabric featured in their fall collection. Beanie has always been a headband girl, so she asked Sylvio, the tailor she was working with, if he could use the extra Rodarte fabric to create a custom headband using a Jennifer Behr white headband as the base. For jewels, she wore her mom's diamond studs, and her platforms were by Christian Louboutin.

Creating the exact aesthetic Beanie and Bonnie wanted for Friday night—and the entire wedding weekend—was the most challenging part of the planning process, they explain, but the couple notes they felt confident in Julie Guinta of Little Sister Creative's capable hands. "On Friday night, we wanted to take our guests on a true camp experience with bandana tablecloths and s’mores for dessert, with pennant banners and friendship bracelets: a true ‘We’re at summer camp’ feeling," Beanie says. "Then, we really wanted to surprise guests when they entered the barn for the reception. We wanted it to feel unexpectedly elevated and romantic and like nothing they had seen."When Julie suggested personal embroidery on the tablecloths and on choice decorations across the weekend, things really started coming together. The theme of the wedding, they explain, was a "love note" to guests. "We embroidered song lyrics, personal items such as our favorite childhood toys, road signs of significant places, a cake from an anniversary, items found in our apartment, and funny quotes or jokes that only our friends would understand," Beanie says of the intricate details, brought to life by designer Megan Mussari. Across the tables, there were friendship bracelets with personal sayings and places on them, personalized wooden oars, little row boats, and even birdhouses made to look like the cabins at Cedar Lakes.

Beanie and Bonnie took an equally personal approach when it came to their wedding day fashion choices. "Never in our wildest dreams could we have imagined that we would wear Gucci to our wedding," Beanie says. "After we got engaged, I called my stylist Erin Walsh, and we started daydreaming. At that time, I was in the middle of working with Gucci, as I was beyond lucky to be a part of the Gucci Love Parade campaign. She said to me, ‘Beanie, it's your wedding—what's your dream?’ and I said, ‘Gucci!’ So, she asked them if they would be willing to make me a wedding dress. I could not believe that they said yes!"

To get started, Gucci asked Beanie to pull inspiration from their previous designs. "I created a mood board of sorts with different elements that spoke to me," she says. "I also included a photo of my mom's wedding dress from 1975 because her dress featured a fabulous lace sleeve I knew I wanted to pay homage to."

A few weeks later, the Gucci design team sent sketches over. "The moment I saw the sketch of the dress I ended up wearing, I knew it was the one," Beanie says. "I’ve always been such a bow obsessive, and the moment I laid eyes on that stunning bow piece they created, my breath left my body and I knew I was looking at my wedding dress. The thing that absolutely blows me away about the dress is that it is simultaneously incredibly vintage feeling, it almost feels like they took a dress from a hundred years ago and restored it, and also remarkably modern and fresh. It is modest yet sexy. The dress is a beautifully complex piece containing multitudes within it. I still cannot believe it's mine." Finally, for jewelry, Beanie wore her great-grandmother's earrings. "I was named after her so it was particularly special," she says. "They were passed to my beautiful grandma Audrey, who we lost during Covid, and then to my mom and now to me."

When it came to thinking about what Bonnie would wear, the couple knew they had the opportunity to really change the way people look at bridal suiting. "Bon knew she wanted to wear a suit, but she wanted to look like a bride, not a groom," Beanie explains. "When we were researching for inspiration, we came across a stunning photograph of Julia Roberts modeling the suit that was to become Bon's—we figured that if it was good enough for the queen of ‘the Robertses’ it would work for the Scouse one too!" They worked with Gucci's tailor Sam to fit it to Bonnie and twist it into her style. "It is absolutely everything we dreamed of and more," Beanie says. "Stylish, whimsical, unexpected. Bon says she feels like she stepped out of a storybook about a princess in it and that is the highest compliment she could give! Truly magical."

While taking pictures before the ceremony, Beanie got choked up looking at Bonnie. "Of course, it was because she looked outrageously beautiful," Beanie says. "But it was also because I knew how many people she was going to inspire with this outfit. There are so few representations of brides wearing suits at their weddings, let alone something so special, so out of the box, so Gucci!"

Their wedding bands were made by Michelle Oh. The couple wanted them to be matching but imbued with their own personal style, so Beanie's is yellow gold with all diamonds and Bonnie's is white gold with half diamonds and half sapphires to match her engagement ring—a vintage Art Deco sapphire and diamond ring sourced from Fox and Bond.

"Because we knew we wanted so many bridespeople, of all different genders, senses of style and expression, we pretty quickly knew we would not go with the traditional route [when it came to their wardrobe]," Beanie says. "It was very important to us for our friends to feel like themselves on our big day. We didn't want them stuffing themselves into anything that didn't feel right to them. We ended up asking them to wear a single block springy or light color with no patterns. In all honestly, we were very worried about it, but on the day, it really took our breath away. It was such a joyous wash of color amongst the trees."

The ceremony itself, meanwhile, was "Jew-ish." "We are both proud Jewish girls, but we didn't have a rabbi or cantor that we felt knew us both equally and that was very important to us to get married by someone who could capture and reflect us both equally," Beanie explains. "So, when thinking of the perfect person, we decided on our wonderful guncle, Charles. Charles is Sharon's—Beanie's mom—oldest friend in the world, but through the years, we have really formed our own bond and friendship with Charles and his partner, Greg." Still, Beanie and Bonnie did not know what Charles was planning to say in advance. "We wanted it to be a surprise," Beanie explains. "And, his writing took our breath away. He captured us as a couple so brilliantly and without reading either of our vows, referenced themes and moments reflected in them."

The ceremony itself took place on the lake under a canopy of trees. The weather on Saturday had been looking bad all week, but the couple felt strongly about getting married outside by the lake. "It had been our vision for two years, and we just were not willing to let it go," Beanie says. "It rained pretty hard leading up to the ceremony, but as we were about to walk down the aisle, the sun came out briefly."

Both brides chose to write intimate vows. "Reading them for the first time to each other surrounded by everyone we love was the most profound moment of our lives," Beanie says. While under the chuppah, in the middle of an especially emotional moment in their vows, a beautiful, all-encompassing foggy mist rolled in. "It made it feel like truly there was nothing else in the world except for all of us there beneath the trees," Beanie says. "It was genuinely the most magical, awe-inspiring moment of our lives."

"To see our two worlds, American and British, sitting together under the damp trees, getting to listen to our friends and family read their personal blessings for us, a take on the Jewish tradition of the Seven Blessings, and then to hear Charles articulate our relationship in the same exact way we do, while the fog rolled in," Bonnie adds. "It is no surprise that both of our vows referenced magic, because for that time, magic was present."

After the ceremony, the newlyweds snuck away for a few more pictures during cocktail hour. Then, everyone entered the barn for the reception, which Little Sister Creative had transformed into a pink, personalized masterpiece. The tablecloths for the reception were all custom embroidered with the couple's favorite James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, and Beatles lyrics. They also had images of their dogs, their childhood stuffies, restaurants they love, symbols of their homes—tiny touches of their lives everywhere.

"We started the reception with a bang and did the hora right away!" Beanie says. "We learned that night that it was a lot of people's first hora experience! It was really important to Bon to hora right away, as that is the tradition at Liverpool Jewish weddings, and it was amazing!"

To round out the night, family members gave speeches, and the couple introduced their best friend Ben Platt to sing their first dance song. "We just kept mouthing ‘I love you’ to him while he was singing," Beanie says. "It was such a special moment. And then we truly danced the night away in the barn—and then even more at the after-party in the treehouse."

"The Gucci bow that made my dreams come true." —Beanie

"My final fitting at Gucci's gorgeous new Meatpacking store, smiling at my mom who is making me laugh because she is impossibly funny." —Beanie

"Thinking about how lucky I am to be standing in this room in this dress." —Beanie

"Giggling with my mom, who was, to put it simply, losing her mind." —Beanie

By Christian Allaire

By Christian Allaire

By Tish Weinstock

"Being captured by the most talented photographer in the world, Corbin Gurkin." —Beanie

"Finally at Cedar Lakes on the dock, trying not to fall into the lake in my Louboutins." —Beanie

"Lighting up like the stars on my jacket, looking at my bride-to-be." —Bonnie

We love this shot because it truly captures how luminous we felt going into our festivities.

By Kerry McDermott

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