The Bride Wore Three Different Oscar de la Renta Gowns for Her Colorful, Interactive Wedding in California

During the fall of 2013, Elle and Daniel were randomly assigned to the same dorm at Brown University, and though the two were hallmates that year, their friendship didn't turn romantic until the following year during a backpacking trip through Guatemala and Belize. In June of 2022, nearly ten years after they became an item, Daniel proposed at the top of a canyon while on a hike with their dog, Nahko, who was entrusted with delivering the ring box. The only problem? Nahko got a little too excited and dropped the box, sending it (and the engagement ring inside!) rolling down a steep hill. "Daniel did manage to get the box back and finally proposed," Elle remembers.

On June 29, 2024, the couple celebrated their wedding with 150 guests at Filoli in Woodside, California. The venue was both a personal and symbolic choice for the bride and groom: Daniel grew up in Woodside and visited the historic estate on school field trips; Elle, who was born and raised on Oahu, appreciated the owner's long-standing ties to Hawaii. "It felt like a serendipitous nod to where we both came from, and it was a convenient middle ground in terms of location for guests from both Hawaii and the mainland," Elle says.

With help from their wedding planner, Erin Taylor at Bustle Events, the pair planned a "fun, joyful, non-traditional" weekend of events that embraced artistic design and a vibrant color palette of sunshine yellow, moss green, pale blue, cream, and orange. "Our goal was for it to feel less like a wedding and more like a party," the bride notes. "We focused our energy around throwing an event that would be the most fun and joyful for our guests."

To that end, Elle and Daniel kicked off their wedding weekend with a family-style rehearsal dinner at Mister Jiu’s and a welcome party at their upstairs cocktail bar, Moongate Lounge. The next day, guests joined them for their ceremony overlooking the Santa Cruz mountains and a reception under the stars with an LED checkered dance floor. LaDichosa was there to capture it all, and you don't want to miss a moment of their unique, colorful celebrations.

With Erin's guidance, the couple decided to work with Iris + Marie on their wedding invitations and big-day paper goods. Guests received customized sunshine yellow boxed invitation suites featuring pockets and windows that opened up to reveal more details of the couple's forthcoming wedding. “We used our website, save-the-dates, and invitation design and language to set the vibe from the get go,” Elle says. “For example, we called it a love party instead of a wedding, and we opted out of formal language on our actual invitations.”

Though the couple says that planning the wedding was "a breeze" overall—"Erin and all our vendors were incredibly creative, and made everything easy," Elle says. "We trusted them completely!"—they did find one pre-nuptial task surprisingly tricky: sourcing the information they needed to actually mail their invitations. "Getting everyone's mailing addresses and last names spelled correctly for the wedding invitations was the hardest part of planning," the bride laughs.

To kick off their wedding weekend, Elle and Daniel invited 75 guests to join them for a rehearsal dinner at Mister Jiu’s in San Francisco’s Chinatown. The restaurant is the only Michelin-starred Chinese restaurant in the United States, and the couple loved that choosing this location gave them an opportunity to celebrate Elle’s Chinese heritage and her parents’ immigration story to Hawaii.

The restaurant—which was simply decorated for the event with arrangements of yellow flowers and table numbers—has its own unique tie the world of weddings. "This location was a wedding banquet hall for Chinese immigrants in San Francisco dating back to the late 1800," Elle says.

The couple selected a "creative cocktail" dress code for the rehearsal dinner and welcome celebration, and Elle dressed the part in a floor-length beaded slip dress from Elizabeth Fillmore, which she paired with a matching sheer overlay top with long sleeves and a high neckline. She accessorized with Miu Miu crystal bow heels and a Self-Portrait crystal bow clutch. Daniel wore a light blue suit that he already owned.

When each guest sat down for dinner, they found a fortune-telling fish at their place setting. “When you put the fish in your palm, it moves, and the movement tells you your fortune,” Elle explains. “We came up with custom fortunes based off of long-running inside jokes amongst our friends and family.”

The couple’s parents and entire wedding party shared heartfelt speeches, which was a highlight for Elle and Daniel. “We cherished every single moment of the speeches,” the bride notes.

The couple selected a family-style menu as a nod to Asian, Pacific Island, and Jewish traditions they each grew up with. “When it comes to sharing meals with family and friends, our moms taught us from an early age: If there aren’t enough leftovers for everyone to take a to-go box home, there isn’t enough food,” Elle laughs.

They worked closely with Chef Jew at Mister Jiu’s to curate a custom dinner menu, including quail stuffed with lap cheong sticky rice that guests are still raving about.

After dinner, the couple moved upstairs to Moongate Lounge, where more of their guests joined them for a welcome party. There, Elle and Daniel served cocktails, wine, and beer alongside custom orange cocktail napkins featuring the couple’s initials and a disco ball.

They also brought in DJ Cherry Pie to spin psychedelic surf rock records all night. “Listening to music and going to concerts together is one of our favorite shared pastimes,” Elle explains. “The very first gift I gave to Daniel was a portable record player and a mint condition, 1974 Neil Young 'On the Beach' vinyl, which I saved up for by working at Brown’s dining hall, The Ratty, for a year.” 

The morning of the wedding, Elle copied her vows from her phone into a vow book while her hairstylist and long-time friend, Benji, got her wedding-ready. “Because we had a two year engagement, Benji and I would just chat and do mini trials during my normal hair appointments,” she says. “For the wedding day, we decided to do a style that I felt the most beautiful inm so I wore my hair down in big, soft waves that were gently pulled away from my face.” Benji added clip-in extensions dyed to match her balayage.

Although they planned to change her hairstyle during the reception, Benji advised Elle to stay flexible and be open to leaving her hair as-is in case she didn’t want to take time away from the fun. “He knew me well and was totally right," she explains. "By the time dancing rolled around, I didn’t want to miss anything and kept the same hairstyle for the whole day!”

Elle prepped her skin in the months leading up to the wedding day with hydrating facials to help her achieve a sun-kissed, dewy look when she walked down the aisle. When her original big-day makeup artist had a health emergency right before the wedding, Elle asked Diane Caranica to step in. "I am so grateful to Diane for saving the day, because I am nowhere near skilled enough to do my own wedding makeup," Elle says. "We set up a last-minute trial the very next day, which was the day before our rehearsal dinner and welcome party… She did my makeup for all the events!"

Elle decided to work with a bridal stylist to choose her wedding weekend looks. She hired Samantha Levis from The Bold and the Bridal, who joined her for her first (and only) wedding-dress shopping appointment. The two went to Oscar de la Renta and found "the one" that same day. "Sam said that we had to try on the new rosette dress, even though I thought I was a hard no on strapless ball gowns," Elle remembers. “It turned out to be the first dress I tried on, and I knew it was the one as soon as I did!”

She paired the rose-embroidered full-length ball gown with a cathedral-length veil, Manolo Blahnik satin slingbacks, and a Simon Teakle diamond fringe necklace, which was a wedding gift from Daniel. Elle’s bridal bouquet was made of white orchids and anthuriums with lots of organic textured greenery. 

Elle’s 12 bridesmaids chose their own dresses in their favorite styles and prints within a designated color palette of light pinks, blues, greens, and yellows. “They’ve all got their own unique tastes, and I wanted my girls to wear what they felt the most beautiful and confident in,” she says. They wore a variety of styles from Anna October, Christopher Esber, Mango, V Chapman, St. Agni, Cinq a Sept, and Love Shack Fancy.

The groomsmen wore classic black tuxedos from The Black Tux. 

Daniel’s wedding-day look was a Ralph Lauren Purple Label tuxedo. Elle gifted him mother of pearl rose carved cufflinks to wear as a nod to her ceremony dress.

The couple shared a first look before the ceremony in front of all their friends and family. “Like many people, we feel a bit awkward being the center of attention,” Elle explains, “so doing a first look before the actual ceremony, with all our friends and family members cheering us on, hyping us up, and cracking jokes took the nerves out of it!”

Guests gathered in the lawn behind the estate’s main house for Elle and Daniel’s ceremony. They took in views of the Santa Cruz mountains framed by a custom oval stage and a slightly winding custom-built aisle. The aisle was decorated with grasses and pops of pink florals, including the bride’s favorite bloom, orchids. The aisle entrance and altar stage were decorated with large pots and arrangements of textured grasses and flowers.

The couple enlisted Colombian artist and business owner, Simone Lejour to create Matisse-inspired hand-painted fans, or avanicos, for their ceremony. They also served as favors for guests to take home at the end of the night.

During the ceremony, Daniel and the wedding party walked down the aisle to The Ramones’ “Baby, I Love You.” Elle chose “To Love Somebody” by the Bee Gees for her entrance.

The couple personalized their ceremony by asking Daniel’s Uncle Jon and Aunt Vicky to jointly officiate the wedding. “We’re very close to them so it was special to have them stand up there with us, offer us some wisdom, and pronounce us husband and wife!” Elle says. The two exchanged vows they wrote for each other. Daniel, a writer, opened his vows with a joke and effortlessly spoke from the heart. Elle, on the other hand, read her vows from her vow book, only realizing in the moment that she forgot to copy the last few lines while getting ready. She pulled it off by closing with a line they say to each other often, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is!”

Daniel originally wanted to walk back up the aisle as husband and wife to “Highway to Hell,” a quirky ideas that Elle was in surprising agreement on. “But it was vetoed by pretty much everyone else in our lives,” she laughs. They ended up celebrating back down the aisle to Father John Misty’s “Real Love Baby,” which played as guests showered them in flower petals.

Guests moved to the sunken garden and garden house to enjoy the cocktail hour. Elle and Daniel hired Alcatraz Islanders, a swing-era Hawaiian band from San Francisco, to perform. Guests enjoyed oysters served fresh by roving shuckers and poke bowls.

Hawaiian-inspired signature cocktails ,including one called the “Lilikoi Love Potion," were also available.

The team at Bustle Events knocked Elle and Daniel's escort card display out of the park: They created a lifelike record shop where each guest received a mini Hawaiian vinyl, or 45, sourced from eBay with their seating assignments on them.

Each 45 was given a brand-new sleeve inspired by famous album covers, only each had been customized with the bride or groom's childhood photos. "So many guests sent us videos of them playing their records at home, even weeks after the wedding!" Elle says. “It felt like a special gift to discover which 45 and which song they had gotten—it felt like we were listening to the music together, even when we were oceans apart.”

Instead of a traditional sit-down dinner, Elle and Daniel chose a variety of different food stations, each with their own unique décor, that guests could visit. The vegetable and salad station was made to feel like a farmers' market and a roasted duck station was designed to look like a street food vendor. The fun, interactive take on a wedding meal was a hit with guests.

Another hit? Their "photo booth," which was anything but traditional. “Instead of a normal photo booth, we opted for a 'live' photo booth, where guests sat down with an awesome watercolor painter to get five-minute portraits done,” the bride says. “We wanted things to feel interactive and experiential the whole way through.”

For the reception, Elle changed into another Oscar de la Renta look—this one was a mermaid style grid-embroidered gown that she paired with Louboutin heels. “Sam introduced me to her friend and jeweler, Melinda, who sourced and created several pieces for me—yellow and white diamond drop earrings, a vintage baguette diamond necklace that I wore for the reception," the bride notes.

The couple’s reception took place in a courtyard surrounded by a grove of trees. The planning team brought in an open-air structure and decorated it with disco balls in various sizes with an oversized heart-shaped disco ball in the center. They wove flowers, vines, and LED tube lights throughout the structure. Black tables were paired with woven black-framed chairs and built-in booth seating. 

Guests danced on an LED checkered dance floor and each bar had LED light-up bar signs designed by Iris + Marie.

The dance floor was opened up with a Chinese lion dance performance. To match the color-changing LED lights on the dance floor, the lions lit up in glowing lights, too! “Many of our guests hadn’t seen a Chinese lion dance before,” Elle explains. “And what’s really cool is that all the performers at Lion Dance Me are actually San Francisco high schoolers who are learning and preserving the cultural art of lion dance!”

Elle changed into one last Oscar de la Renta look for the party portion of the evening: She donned a fringe crystal grid slip dress, which was perfect for dancing and late-night a karaoke session with their closest friends.

Between rock songs, the couple served late-night mini pancake stacks (Daniel’s favorite!) along with ramen in ceramic bowls made to look like Chinese takeout containers (Elle’s favorite!).

The newlyweds went on safari for their honeymoon, visiting the Kalahani Desert and Okavango Delta in Botswana. Elle’s advice to couples planning their own weddings right now is to be confident in your choices. “Don’t worry about what’s trendy, what’s timeless, or what other people would and wouldn’t do,” she says. “Your wedding is just a snapshot of one moment in time during your long lives together, and the truer it is to you (wherever you’re at), the more meaningful, nostalgic, and humorous the experience will be when you look back on the day years in the future.”