Melissa Booher, a Google partner lead in beauty, and Mike Malone, CEO and founder of Livestock Framing, connected via an email set-up from their mutual friend. He was visiting New York for that friend’s birthday and suggested they go for coffee at Grey Dog, which, unbeknownst to him, was right across the street from Melissa’s apartment. After caffeine, he invited her to go with him to the birthday dinner the next night. “By the time dinner was done we were inseparable,” she says. After a little less than two years of dating, and some long distance between NYC and Portland, he proposed in her living room, while a Velvet Underground playlist was playing.
“Mike joked in his wedding toast that since we couldn’t pick a location that was convenient for everyone, we picked a location that was convenient for no one!” Melissa says. Mike’s parents have a house in Palm Springs and the couple spent a lot of time there while dating, so they chose the California city as their destination. They decided on the Parker for several reasons, including that it could accommodate all their guests and allowed the party to go past 10:00 p.m., and booked out President’s Day weekend. To help plan and organize everything, the couple hired Bash Please’s Sunna Yassin and Lauren McWilliams Jones.
The welcome party was hosted at Mike’s family’s home, and the bride-to-be wore a Trina Turk caftan to set the Palm Springs mood. Mr. Lyons was the venue for both the rehearsal dinner and after-party, and at the former, Melissa wore a gold, long-sleeved Tibi cocktail dress—her favorite outfit of the weekend, besides “the dress.” She made the look more bridal with Lele Sadoughi pearl drop earrings and off-white heels.
When it came to shopping for her wedding gown, Melissa struggled because she had no idea what she ultimately wanted. “Originally, I wanted something very simple, but when I tried on this Monique Lhuillier embroidered dress, I fell in love with the beautiful train,” she says. For her “something blue,” she wore her grandmother’s sapphire ring that had been restored and given to her for Christmas. Erica Beukelman and her team from 10.11 Makeup specialize in a natural look and made the bride look like the best version of herself.
The couple met Sid from Sid Mashburn at a party, and Mike liked him so much that when it came down to picking a suit to wear, he knew there was no one else. He chose the light grey Kincaid suit, tailored to perfection. For their large wedding party, the bride was deterred from letting her bridesmaids pick their own gown, so she selected a light green watercolor patterned Jenny Yoo design that her girls could pick or let them pick a solid dress that complemented. The groomsmen are always much more simple and all wore grey suits from The Black Tux.
On the Croquet Lawn, the bride walked down the umbrella-lined aisle with her father to meet Mike under two beautiful olive trees. “I couldn’t stop laughing and couldn’t believe that so many people would stand in the desert rain to watch Mike and me say our vows,” Melissa says. Prior to the service, their officiant, Mr. Sterchi, asked both to write down their love story and shared their answers with everyone on the big day.
Due to the unexpected rain, their ready-for-anything planners had to move the reception dinner inside at the last moment. The clean and warm aesthetic still translated well despite a location change into the ballroom.
The newlyweds took to the floor for their first dance to “Someone Like You” by Van Morrison, and then the band kicked off. “We had never seen our band (AMFM) live prior to our wedding, and my biggest regret was not realizing in advance how INCREDIBLE they were going to be,” the bride says. “They got everyone on the dance floor, even Mike.”
Once the reception came to a close, the two did a formal exit around 10:30 p.m. and the band continued to play until midnight. “We decided before the weekend that we were staying out after the wedding until the last person wanted to go home,” Melissa says. For the after-party, she changed into a short Hervé Léger A-line dress and followed guests to the Parker’s lobby bar. “I quickly realized that I was starving, since we had missed the late night chicken biscuits and fries, so we ordered sliders and cocktails and laughed until late.”
