The Bride Wore Galia Lahav—And the Groom a Thom Browne Skirt—At This Coachella Valley Wedding

“I actually had her unveil a Renaissance-inspired painting of us where I was proposing to her,” Van Auker says.

After the engagement, the wedding was set for September 2022. They two rented an estate in California’s Coachella Valley for the weekend. “We’d just bought a ranch in the desert and love spending time there,” says Van Auker.

The planning process took some time by design—two years to be exact—because the couple didn’t want to feel like they were rushing anything. “We were pretty solid on wanting to get married in the desert, and I knew what I wanted to wear, and that was basically it,” Cooper says. 

They decided early on that they wanted all their vendor’s companies to be BIPOC-owned. “Before working with every vendor, my planner Elana Walker of Elana Walker Events and I looked into each company to see who owned it—not just managed or worked there. It took a bit of digging. Some companies we worked with hadn’t done a wedding this size, or this style. Some of them didn’t want to. Sometimes we couldn’t find any companies in SoCal at all that were available, or within our budget.It all proved to be more difficult than I imagined, but was completely worth it in the end..”

“Nesta was the leader of all of this, and we had an incredible planner in Elana,” Van Auker adds. “We actually hired Elana during the pandemic and planned to have a much smaller wedding simply because we didn’t know when it was going to end. It proved to be just as difficult waiting. So we picked it back up in late 2021. It was an incredibly fun and bonding experience.”

Years before she got engaged, Cooper knew she wanted to wear a Galia Lahav dress. “They have an ethereal quality that I’m very attracted to,” she says. She also knew that she wanted sleeves and for her dress to be more champagne than white. The Tally dress had the romance she was after. “The airiness of the dress and fabric made it feel dreamy, and the A-line cut is timeless,” Cooper says. “It was the perfect mix of whimsy and classic.” The bride’s platforms were by Miu Miu. “You can’t spell romance without Miu Miu,” Cooper jokes.

She kept jewelry simple and borrowed everything, wearing diamond studs from her best friend and MOH, Maya, and a sapphire blue ring that belonged to her agent Jamie’s grandmother. “Jamie has been my agent since I was 17, and is family to me,” Cooper says. “Finally, my aunt gave me a locket with a photo of my late mum in it to put in my bouquet.” Makeup was done by the bride’s friend and make-up artist Emily Cheng. “We had so much fun doing glam—just giggling from Saturday to Monday,” she says.