“We both have our version of the story,” says Danielle Naftali or her meet-cute with Lucas Pergament. According to her, at least, “We first met at the Winter Wonderland Ball in New York City, and he fell in love the moment he met me!” Though she initiated the first text exchange, it was Lucas who officially asked her out on a date, to a New York Rangers hockey game.
They dated for five years before Lucas’s romantic proposal in the Hamptons. “Lucas knew that the beach out East is both my happy place and my escape,” Danielle says. “It was Lucas’s birthday week, and I was throwing him a birthday party with all our friends when he told me that his mom, last minute, wanted to do a family photoshoot on the beach in the morning. I obviously did not think I was getting engaged as it was his birthday week.” But, upon arriving at the beach and seeing the setup—flowers, Champagne, a blanket—Danielle realized what was happening. “It was picture perfect. We now have our special spot at the beach.”
Getting engaged in their happy place made them realize that’s how they wanted their wedding to feel, as well. “We wanted to get married in a destination where we could create a memorable weekend for our guests,” Danielle says. “It was important for us to have an intimate-sized wedding to make sure that we would spend quality time with each guest during the weekend.” They’d visited Rosewood Mayakoba in Mexico’s Riviera Maya on a recent trip and fallen in love. “What was special for us was all the various beautiful spaces throughout the resort that we could curate throughout the weekend: the beach, the gardens, the landscaping, and the lagoons.”
Danielle is the executive vice president of marketing, sales, and design at real estate development firm Naftali Group and that naturally informed her decisions and wedding aesthetic. “Coming from a background in design and space planning, I knew that the opportunities were endless and that each event had to be authentic to the location to enhance the space with the perfect amount of detail,” she says of planning, for which she enlisted Jennifer Zabinski of JZ Events. Renowned photographer KT Merry and videographer Frame Wedding Film captured that love and energy along the way.
For their guests’ first night in Mexico, the couple hosted a welcome party to which Danielle wore a silk Vera Wang dress. “When I started thinking about all the outfits and fashion for the weekend, I knew that each dress had to make its own statement and be completely different in style and design,” she says. “Night one was all about simplicity. The dress was perfectly elegant and simple, yet had the most beautiful train, which gave it a dramatic look.” The party featured a Shabbat dinner and entertainment from Big Bang Productions.
Then came the rehearsal dinner. Clear-top tables were erected over farm-fresh vegetable planter boxes in the resort’s garden, and singer and trumpeter Chris Norton performed. “On night two, I wore a dress designed by Monique Lhuillier,” Danielle says. “I was looking for a gown that would pair perfectly with the garden setting; its embellished hand-sewn flower details made it truly a piece of art. We added a black velvet belt to create the perfect contrast.”
On the wedding day, Danielle was glammed by Olivia Halpin and Ashlee Glazer. Her ceremony dress was also by Lhuillier. “I wanted a gown that I would look back on and forever find timeless—nothing trendy,” she shares. “I felt that the dress for my wedding was the one I had to feel the most myself in.” To that end, she made sure the gown fit her vision down to the last detail. “I worked with the team at Monique Lhuillier to perfect the color to be a modern white.”
Danielle’s final look was actually the first one she purchased. “A few weeks after I got engaged, I was in Capri, Italy, and walked into the Dolce & Gabbana store and found the dress of my dreams,” she remembers. “It was the most beautiful hand-beaded dress, and they only made ten in the world. I knew immediately it was my after-party dress.”
On March 20, 2022, Danielle and Lucas signed the Ketubah—“one of the greatest moments of the entire weekend,” the bride says—before making it official beneath a lush floral chuppah by florist Vanessa Jaimes. “It was the perfect atmosphere: love in the air and the most important people in our lives in our favorite place. The sun was setting in the last moments of our ceremony. It was pure magic.”
Guests grabbed coconut cocktails—branded with the couple’s monogram—as they ferried into the reception space, where beautiful florals and rentals from Archive and Rebel Bloom set a pretty but party-ready tone. Their favorite deejay from Nikki Beach in St. Barths, Philippe Paris, kept the energy high with saxophonist Michael Gheagan. Danielle and Lucas shared a romantic first dance to “Dancing in the Moonlight, “but the second [the sax] started performing, we all danced the night away.” They did the hora, and the bride even crowd-surfed—“a highlight for me!” she exclaims. The finale was a fireworks show by Pyrocaribe, an explosive finish to the perfect wedding weekend.
