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Jenelle Hamilton has been the PR rep for fashion and costume legend Bob Mackie for over 15 years. As she describes it: “He’s family at this point.” So when it came time for her to decide on a wedding dress for her August nuptials, “It had to be Bob. I just couldn’t envision myself wearing anyone else. If I did choose someone else, I know he would have critiqued it or tried to redesign it for me,” she jokes. While Mackie has officially gone into retirement and wasn’t designing any new pieces—instead, he’s been lending archive looks to celebrities like Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus—he made an exception for Jenelle.
Having Mackie design a gown for Jenelle’s wedding made perfect sense since he knew the couple from their beginnings. The England-born PR pro first met L.A. native lawyer Bart Williams in 2021 through a dating app when they both were living in Beverly Hills. “He was eight minutes down the street,” she says. “But we run in different circles. If it wasn’t for technology, I don’t think we would ever have met.” The pair eventually connected over a phone call date that lasted two-and-a-half hours. “We had a lot of chemistry and just started dating from there,” shares Jenelle. Two years later, the couple were already integrated within each other’s lives and blended families, and began discussing engagement rings. Bart surprised Jenelle with a proposal at home in their kitchen. “I love to cook, and we were having a very casual dinner,” says Jenelle. “After the meal, he asked me if I would cook for him forever. I thought it must have been a really great meal. Then, I saw the ring.” Jenelle adds she wouldn’t have it any other way: “It was just us being our natural selves.”
The couple wanted their wedding to reflect their backgrounds and history, incorporating both classically Los Angeles and English aesthetics. They kicked off the festivities with a speakeasy-style welcome party at the Hollywood Roosevelt, a hotel from the golden age of Los Angeles rumored to be haunted by stars like Marilyn Monroe and Montgomery Clift. The next day, they would harken to Jenelle’s upbringing with an English countryside-inspired ceremony in the backyard garden of their Beverly Hills home, followed by an Art Deco-themed reception at the Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills.
Jenelle had long loved a two-piece look Mackie designed for The Cher Show that the singer actually wore again for her own wedding dress. “It was designed it the ‘70s, but still looks so relevant now,” says Jenelle. The bride asked him to create something based on the look and “do Bob Mackie.” So the designer pulled out the original sketches from his archive and found a bronze fabric he thought would pair with the look and her complexion for the outdoor ceremony. When she first saw his sketch for her gown, Jenelle said: “Bob, you nailed it.”
“He had encapsulated my personality as his sketches are very personal,” she continues. “He was inspired by the original design, but it was really for me. He loves my legs, so he said, ‘I need to put the slit in there.’” The designer also thought the ensemble should be paired with a veil, so he added a romantic, ruffled cathedral-length design with face-framing florals to the original look.
Going through a fitting process with multiple muslins and draping on her body showed Jenelle how Mackie is a true genius at his craft. “Just the way he thinks with the placement of the form, I knew the sketch looks exactly like the finished product,” she says. “Every single seam and every single placement of every jewel is exactly what he had in his mind and put on paper made to the same specifications.” Along with his design director Joe McFate and dressmaker Dorothy Crutcher, Mackie was able to bring the vision to life. “I got emotional in the fitting and on the wedding day when I saw the dresses because he did it from the heart,” says the bride.
With his background as a costume designer, Mackie put plenty of thought into how Jenelle would not only look but also move in the wedding ensemble. “He wanted the corset to stay in place but also have me be able to move. He thought about how it felt when I danced at every angle and the practicality of it,” she explains. “He showed me how to walk down the aisle, how to pose, and how to fluff it out. He gave me instructions on how to perform."
Jenelle says Mackie wasn’t only there on her wedding day to help her get dressed and make a final few tweaks to the look, but was a guest at every event. “He was there with me from the moment I got there, in the car on the way over to the house, and literally was in the room with me before I went down the aisle,” she shares. “He’s a friend and family.”
Mackie wanted the bride to be dressed to the nines for her entire wedding weekend, so he had Jenelle and McFate peruse through the books of his archives to find looks for every single part of her celebrations. Jenelle decided on a green hand-beaded couture gown from his spring 2004 collection for the welcome party and Mackie himself pulled a gold beaded gown from his fall 1997 collection for dancing at the reception.
“I was determined to do them justice,” Jenelle says. “I thought they were loaned, but after the wedding, Joe told me, ‘Bob said that no one else should ever wear these gowns that you wore and he will be gifting them to you.’ Now I have them and probably will be cleaning in the house with them on.”
“You put on that dress and you literally transform,” Jenelle says of Mackie’s designs. “You just feel so sexy and empowered. You become who you really are.” As the wedding continued through the night, Jenelle says she could rely on Mackie to be present for her. “He just stood there, admired the work, and was enjoying me in every outfit.”
