“I will say, at the beginning, when I was just starting to organize and plan the wedding, I thought to myself. Do I even want to design my own look?” says Marina Moscone of her civil ceremony in Rome to Fadi Sawaya, which took place four days before Christmas in 2023. “But then I saw what was out there and thought okay, absolutely. My brand speaks so much to my sensibility that I had to do it myself. I gave my tailors a heart attack when I told them I needed a suit within four weeks—and, by the way, I am pregnant!”
Those who know Moscone, know her for her fashion label’s hush-hush prettiness. Launched in New York in 2016 by sisters Marina and Francesca Moscone, the brand is for the cool girl who grows up and wants a closet filled with stylish classics. Slip dresses feature knotted twists at the necklines, cocktail dresses are sculpted with statuesque asymmetrical drapes, and, suiting has the perfect smidgen of edge. Brides have been wearing Moscone for years now, too—her twisted satin capelet is a particular favorite.
True to the brand, Moscone’s wedding also went the understated elegance route. Between her own origins (Moscone grew up between Italy and South Africa) and her now-husband (he’s Lebanese and lives in Beirut full-time as a surgeon), a big fat Lebanese-Italian wedding was what was to be expected. “We just decided that’s so not us; neither of us really cares for the attention of a big wedding to do,” says Moscone. “And it’s kind of amazing, because I think we both feel like the universe has decided everything for us. It’s time to do it now—it’s time to move on to the next chapter.”
Moscone wore two looks on her wedding day. First came her City Hall ceremony at the historic town hall of Tivoli, just 40 minutes outside of Rome. Around 30 friends and family joined her and Sawaya for the ceremony, for which she wore a white suit of her own design made for the occasion: a super slim ivory tailored trouser and a boyfriend’s jacket with cape sleeves crafted at the Naples tailor who handles all her collection’s tailoring. (Fans of Moscone might be delighted to know the suit is based on a spring 2024 jacket that’s about to hit stores.)
Moscone accessorized with a bouquet of ranunculi tied by a white satin bow and a pair of white Ferragamo heels she had picked up a few days prior in Milan. “I wanted to feel really me, I didn t want to be a bride that felt different on her wedding day,” she notes. After being married by the Tivoli mayor, everyone regrouped in Rome at Ristorante Gallura. “We had like eight or nine courses of ongoing food, we cared a lot about that—when you have a wedding in a city like Rome, Rome kind of hosts the wedding because it’s so beautiful.”
For her reception look, Moscone wore a dress of her own design—but not one made specifically for the occasion. “I was really not planning on changing,” she explains. “I loved my suit and I loved getting married in a suit, but one morning, I was going through stuff here in New York, and I remembered I had this beautiful ivory crepe cape dress, which was one of the first cape dresses I designed back in 2018, for my second collection. I had never worn it! I don’t know why I got myself one back in 2018, and it’s pretty specific in that color.”
Somehow she knew she was saving it for something special: “I literally had to dust it off; it was so wrinkled from being in my clothing storage.” The midi-length dress features an underdress that hugs the body just below the bustline (perfect with a subtle baby bump) and a capelet that adds the perfect amount of drama. “It worked perfectly,” says Moscone. “It was like the perfect kind of heavy drape and worked really well for a dinner in December—and again, it was just clean and understated.”
At the restaurant’s long table filled with white calla lilies—Moscone says she was inspired by a Robert Mapplethorpe tableau—her marriage was celebrated just as she had hoped. But there was more to celebrate: the start of her family and a new life spent split between Beirut and New York.
“I think both of my looks that day very much spoke to my sensibility and that I designed my collections—they had architecturally tailored pillars, and a masculine-feminine sort of tension, and a hand that showed the workmanship. My clothes tend to look very minimalist, but they’re alsop sort of maximalist in the way they’re constructed.” For a bride who didn’t know if she wanted to wear her own design, she’s now certainly glad she did.
