“I love vintage, love antiquing, love anything old,” Lizzie Nelson tells Vogue. So it’s no surprise, then, that when selecting her wardrobe for her New Hampshire nuptials to Samual Cox, she chose to wear three vintage bridal garments to wear on her wedding day. Two looks were heirloom pieces worn by family members to their own nuptials, while the other was carefully sourced from a vintage bridal shop.
Lizzie grew up surrounded by fashion—with her mother designing menswear for Timberland and her aunt working at Ralph Lauren Purple Label. “Playing dress up was a regular activity for my sister and I,” she says. “But it was a lot of playing dress up in real clothes—not in costumes from Party City.” She recalls running around in Ralph Lauren runway samples, mink scarves, and her grandmother’s wigs when she was young, as well as watching her mother sketch her designs.
With that sartorial spirit already in her, she was ready to take on the challenge of both curating and redesigning vintage pieces for her wedding day. The ceremony and reception would take place at a club in her coastal hometown in New Hampshire. “It felt like a private house with a very intimate tent on the ocean,” describes Lizzie. “We both like to dress up and have fun, but we’re both pretty low key, so the venue felt like a perfect blend of both.”
Photo: Parker Selman
Lizzie found her main wedding dress at Brooklyn-based vintage store Cha Cha Linda, which specializes in restored, one-of-a-kind pieces. Before the first appointment, she asked her recently engaged bridesmaid to join and take half the appointment for herself. While her bridesmaid found a dress that day, Lizzie needed to keep looking. She went to another vintage wedding salon Happy Isles, and also tried on new gowns by major bridal designers. “I probably tried on at least 50 different dresses, but just didn’t have a moment with them,” the bride shares. One day, her bridesmaid sent her a DM with a dress posted on Cha Cha Linda’s page, and Lizzie knew she had to try it. She texted the store’s owner, Eva Lopez, who was able to sneak her in before her appointments the next day.
The dress was by Carolina Herrera, from the designer’s first bridal collection in 1987. The deep ivory gown with a faint floral print featured a sweetheart neckline, a dropped waistline, and a removable shawl with a rosette at the front. Lizzie was doubting if she would love the design when she arrived and saw it on the hanger with Lopez. However, she recalls, “We put it on, both looked at each other, kind of laughed, and were like, ‘Wait, it’s really good.’”