Jessica Rawls, Senior Fashion Editor and Brand Manager at ShopBAZAAR at Harper’s Bazaar, discovers designers and labels for a living. Therefore, it’s no surprise then when it came time for her big day, Jessica wouldn’t end up choosing a bridal heavyweight like Oscar or Monique, but rather an indie Spanish designer called Alejandra Alonso Rojas.
“I was working during New York fashion week and wasn’t going to make it to her collection because I was sitting in traffic,” Jessica explained a few months before her wedding, which took place in early October. “That night, I’m lying in bed scrolling through Instagram and I see she posted a picture of a group of models and saw a dress that I loved. Her PR is a friend of mine, so I wrote to him and he wrote right back saying he had texted the designer. She offered to make me my wedding dress. She said, ‘Come try on the sample, and no hard feelings if it doesn’t work.’ But in my heart, I knew it was the one.”
Jessica and Alejandra worked together on a muslin version of the original dress she spotted on Instagram. “We tried it on and made slight alterations together,” Jess said. “It’s all French silk and three-tiered. It’s beautiful but also simple. I love everything she does. I’d wear anything she’d make for me.”
For accessories, Jessica paired her dress with vintage earrings borrowed from her sister, and some vintage pieces that belonged to her grandmother, as well. As for her shoes, the fashion editor worked with Manolo Blahnik on custom ivory satin shoes. And for her after-party look, she settled on an Olivia von Halle white slip dress and a Lele Sadoughi headband.
Funnily enough, while Jessica is a Delaware native, her wedding look turned out to be quite the Spanish affair. “I found my ring, a black diamond, at Catbird and initially didn’t know who was the designer,” she said. “I later found out it was another Spanish designer called Blanca Monrós Gómez. She’s based in Brooklyn and she makes everything from recycled materials.”
Coincidence? Sure. But maybe the bride had Spain on her mind during her wedding planning since that’s where she got engaged to her fiancé Barry Gosnell last year. During a vacation there last August, the couple was traveling around Spain and stopped in a small beach town called Sitges, just outside Barcelona. “We were walking by this little chapel and there was a musician playing Louis Armstrong’s ‘What a Wonderful World,’” she recalled. “We were both in our wet bathing suits; he had on his board shorts that he’s owned for ten years. It was perfect. He says he blacked out when he proposed but I can remember every word. He said he was waiting for the perfect moment and for everything to be completely right, and that it never came. That night, he was lying in bed and realized that perfect doesn’t exist. Perfect is what you make of it.” Sounds about right.
Inspired by Jessica’s unconventional approach to bridal, we styled her in a NET-A-PORTER Modern Bride look. Shop the look below.
