When Alix Masters and Emil Weinstein married in the Hamptons this past September, they threw what Emil describes as a “1950s steakhouse-meets-classic wedding. But really gay.” The duo imposed an “outrageously fabulous” dress code, and, he adds, “we tried to hold ourselves and everyone else.”
It’s safe to say the newlyweds more than succeeded. “I am a doctor in my day life, so I have to wear scrubs a hundred percent of the time, and I do not like that,” Alix says. “For my wedding, I really wanted to bring it.” For the pair’s rehearsal dinner, Alix wore a white silk suit that she spotted during an appointment with the celebrity-approved Tab Vintage. “I went and it was mostly poofy dresses,” she says. Though they were beautiful, she knew they weren’t what she was looking for. “And then I saw that suit.” The suit in question, a shiny double-breasted number from John Galliano’s tenure at Dior, had an even more exciting pop-culture history: Céline Dion had worn it to the 1999 Oscars—backwards.
Alix tried it on à la Dion, but it wasn’t working. “My boobies didn’t fit in it backwards, and I was very sad,” she says. However, when she turned it around, she recalls saying, “Well, I guess that’s it. Period.” The bride, a fan of both fashion and Dion, knew the “piece of wacko fashion history” was the perfect way to kick off the queer-classic wedding festivities. “It’s traditionally a gorgeous suit and the way she styled it was so innovative. So it was nice to bring that history,” she says.
Alix was able to spring for the Dior suit thanks to her family friend, Debra McGuire, the costume designer behind Friends, Freaks and Geeks, and New Girl. “I knew I was not going to do a traditional wedding dress,” Alix says. “I really wanted to look like Madonna meets a suffragette.” As it turns out, McGuire had fashioned her dress for her own 1980s ceremony the exact same way, and offered to remake it for the bride as a wedding gift. For the ceremony look, the designer created a dress with a voluminous ankle-length skirt with a polka dot tulle overlay and a strapless bustier top reminiscent of Madonna’s 1984 VMAs “Like A Virgin” performance, as well as an Edwardian overcoat with a bustle. Alix, who describes herself as “a hat girl more than anything,” eschewed the traditional veil, instead attaching netting and rhinestones to her headwear. (She completed her look with a pair of vintage Chanel sunglasses and a Simone Rocha pearl bag.)
That McGuire costumed the first lesbian wedding on television—the marriage of Susan and Carol on Friends—is not lost on the pair. In fact, dressed in bustled jackets and early 20th-century hats, their wedding looks bear more than a little resemblance to Alix’s ceremony outfit. “Those characters were kind of the villains, which she didn’t love. She just really wanted to give them this special moment. I looked at the photos, and it’s actually very similar to [my] look,” she says. “In hindsight, I think it all just imprinted.”
Emil also had fun with fashion for the big day. While the groom, a writer and director, was in New York for work, Alix encouraged him to poke around his favorite store. “I didn’t know what I was going to wear and I was having a really hard time. And then Alex was like, ‘Go to Bode and try on some of their wedding collection,’” he says. As a trans man, Emil isn’t used to finding off-the-rack clothing that fits perfectly. But when he slipped on a white suit jacket with ivory lapels, he knew it was kismet. “As I’ve transitioned, men’s clothes just didn’t fit me that well,” he says. “Being able to go into a store and try on a suit jacket that fit perfectly was really amazing.”
On the dance floor, Emil shed his jacket to reveal a sheer Bode shirt embroidered with climbing ivy. “I liked being able to show my top surgery scars,” he says. “Being able to be sort of out and trans and naked with my scars and my tattoos was fun because even though [Alix’s] family is extremely accepting, and it was a very queer space, it pushed the envelope a little bit.”
For the after-party, Alix shed her custom dress for something a little more casual—yet still in keeping with the eclectic spirit of her bridal wardrobe. She found a white slip skirt with a lace hem and flowing tendrils of fabric from New York cool-girl favorite Café Forgot, which she paired with a vintage brocade Dolce Gabbana pirate jacket from Aralda Vintage in Los Angeles and white Maison Margiela tabi ballerina mules. While Alix’s entire wedding weekend look was filled with statement pieces, perhaps nothing was more in-your-face than the T-shirt she wore with a photo of Samantha Jones that read, “It’s pathetic how far a gal will go for a good fuck.”
