Tom and Olivia wanted their wedding to have an old New York vibe, so The Lotos Club, where the groom is a member, made perfect sense. “It was really a dream come true,” Olivia says. The ceremony took place at the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church. The bride wore a custom Vera Wang strapless dress, cinched at the waist, wrapped with illusion lace from the neck down to the wrists with an ample A-line skirt.
Tom’s tuxedo was handcrafted at Martin Greenfield Clothiers’ Brooklyn factory, the same tailors responsible for dressing presidents such as Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and for making David Byrne’s extraordinary “American Utopia” gray suits.
“I always had this idea of renting a giant shuttle bus like the Met [Gala], because I wanted to go [to the church] standing up so I wouldn’t have any problems with the dress,” Olivia says. “I did not want an old car, nor did I want a sedan, but rather this giant shuttle bus where I could go with my entire bridal party.” She got her wish, and arrived to the church in grand fashion.
After the ceremony, they made their way to the Lotos Club for the reception, and Olivia went up to her room to change into a column Oscar de la Renta dress with an elegant V-neck and Cornelia James lace opera gloves.
“I am very proud of my roots, so it was important for me to have some hints of my culture at the wedding,” she says. A Cuban son band called Mélange playing live Latin jazz, boleros, and early salsa, and a dress by Alfredo Barraza, a quintessential designer for Colombia’s beauty queens, ticked the boxes.
“It was so interesting to see how everyone coexisted in this very American atmosphere,” recalls Sebastian Cabrices, a Venezuelan friend and writer based in Milan. “Tom’s side, very gringo, with Olivia’s family and friends that are as Colombian as they can get, all from Barranquilla. Right in the middle of the wedding dinner, the band started playing full-on salsa, and half of the party—Olivia included—stopped eating to stand up and dance. You just couldn’t stop them from being Latinos. Dinner was served, but the salsa was served too.”
Olivia had planned to wear her Alfredo Barraza cocktail dress—ostrich-feathered with tiny sequins embroidered to the base for extra carnival shine—but time flew with all the salsa dancing, and before she knew it, the party had only 15 minutes left. “I wanted to enjoy every single second, so I decided to stay and dance a little longer,” she says. There will be time for that dress to make its debut, perhaps on a New Year’s Eve in Cartagena, or when the couple celebrates their next anniversary.
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