After a frenzied hunt for the perfect bridal look (and buying over half a dozen vintage gowns), Rachel Keidan has inadvertently turned her home into something of a wedding dress outpost. “You open up a kitchen cabinet, and there’s a vintage Vera Wang popping out,” she says of the situation six months on from her wedding.
Shortly after tech and media investor Jon Keidan proposed to Rachel, who is head of communications at Semafor, in September 2024, the pair quickly settled on a wedding the following summer in Menorca, Spain, where the couple went on their first vacation together. But while Rachel tapped Gather Events to help plan the weekend, she was so swept up with work that she didn’t start looking for a dress until January.
The bride didn’t have much in mind for a dress, save for one important detail: “I always wanted to do something colorful,” says Rachel, who describes her everyday wardrobe as simple pieces in muted tones. “The vibe was so bright [in Menorca], and I was never going to do a traditional ceremony, so I was gravitating towards a bright and colorful dress.” But she soon discovered a roadblock that not many brides face. “It’s hard to find something that’s colorful but still feels like it’s your own wedding dress,” she says. Of her preliminary options, she thought, “That’s just a really nice dress to wear to someone else’s wedding.”
Rachel even considered giving up her dream of a colorful wedding dress, going as far as to buy white dresses at various vintage markets around New York City. (“I have seven to 10 vintage wedding gowns in my home,” she says.) But she kept returning to an archival yellow tulle Ralph Lauren dress—look 48 from the spring 2015 show—on Shrimpton Couture’s website. “I kept thinking of it and going back to it,” she says. “I would keep going back and checking, and it still hadn’t been snapped up.” So even though the dress wasn’t returnable, Rachel took the plunge and bought it.
Rachel turned to several close friends for sign-off, including fashion journalist Alina Cho, whose endorsement gave her the confidence to go forth with the sunny dress. Though Cho was a new friend, she became something of a fashion fairy godmother to Rachel. “She was so involved, she was texting me like, ‘Rachel, I’m stressed about your wedding attire, what’s going on?’” Rachel recalls. “Because of that, she ended up coming and making final tucks and adjustments on the day of the wedding.”
Despite the heterodox wedding dress choice, Rachel wore white throughout the weekend. For their welcome party at Hauser Wirth, she chose a draped, open-back Kallmeyer dress. Keeping with her spontaneity, it was a last-minute decision. “I had a whole other dress planned,” she says. But the week before she left for Menorca, Rachel’s friend, jeweler Nina Runsdorf, hosted an event with Daniella Kallmeyer. “I went and tried it on—Nina put this long diamond chain down the back, and I was in love with it,” she says.
Runsdorf, whom Rachel met in a Bedouin tent in Morocco, proved another integral part of Rachel’s wedding weekend. “They became core members,” Rachel says of Runsdorf and her sister, Alexa. “They were both at my wedding, helped me style my wedding, and styled all my jewelry. Nina redid my engagement ring, too.”
The following day, the couple and their guests enjoyed a boat ride around the Balearic Islands. Rachel embraced the trend of the season in a multicolored Pucci bikini, over which she wore a white Missoni coverup.
For the reception, Rachel returned to bridal white in a 2006 Blumarine dress from Happy Isles. Initially an open, sheer sheath, she brought the dress to her trusted longtime tailor in Lenox Hill, Ornela. “Ornela is a critical part of my life now and somebody who I would never live without,” she says. “We added the keyhole and then did mesh lining to it, and it was just the most fun dress.”
Rachel had one more dress in store for the after-party—a sleeveless 1930s gown she found while scouring the Manhattan Vintage Show with her friend, Lauren Singer. “It was gorgeous and somehow fit me so perfectly and was an ideal lightweight silky layer to change into after I had been dancing all night,” Rachel says. “I don’t do dancing ‘lite,’ I go full out, and this was perfect for getting a little sweaty, dancing crazy.”
