From Sunset With Love: A Surprise Wedding at the Chateau Marmont
Lisa Conn and Joe Wilson were on an MIT group trip to Iceland when he first caught her eye. “By the end of the weekend, I had developed a huge crush,” Lisa says. “I arrived early to the airport before our return flight, and secretly requested a seat change to sit next to an unsuspecting Joe. We talked the entire way back and started dating immediately.”
Lisa worked for President Obama’s campaign, the MIT Media Lab, and Facebook before becoming a full-time entrepreneur and launching her own tech start-up in 2018—a video platform called Icebreaker. Meanwhile, Joe is a venture capitalist who invests in early stage Los Angeles–based start-ups. “We regularly guest lecture—together!—on entrepreneurship at USC,” Lisa says.
After two-and-a-half years of dating, Joe planned a romantic weekend trip to California’s Big Sur. They soaked in Esalen’s cliffside hot springs, indulged in massages at the Ventana, and took in breathtaking views over dinner at the Post Ranch Inn. “When we arrived at a beach to watch the sunset, I realized it was the same beach where we had said ‘I love you’ for the first time a few years prior,” Lisa remembers. “Joe got down on one knee, pulled out a little box, and asked me to marry him.”
The next morning, Lisa had planned to fly to Paris for work. Joe knew this and sweetly surprised her by revealing he was going to join her. “The next thing I knew, we were sipping cocktails at Bar Hemingway at the Ritz and strolling through the streets of the Marais, dreaming about our future together,” Lisa says. “It was completely surreal and incredible.”
By April 2019, they were in full swing planning a destination wedding in a tiny surf village in Mexico when Lisa’s father had a heart attack. The save the dates had gone out just a month prior, but after determining that it was unsafe for him to travel to such a remote place, Lisa and Joe canceled the original wedding plans and got to work on an event closer to home, reimagining what a wedding could be along the way.
Lisa is originally from L.A., and she and Joe moved back there prior to their engagement. “We love the style, the energy, the people, and the history,” Lisa says. “Suddenly, it clicked—our wedding would be an ode to our home, Los Angeles, past and present.”
Selecting venues was the easiest part. They chose the two most iconic L.A. hotels, Sunset Tower and Chateau Marmont, and worked with Jo Gartin, the owner of Love, Luck, and Angels, to put together the entire weekend, which kicked off with a surprise ceremony at what was supposed to be the rehearsal dinner on Friday.
“My background is in community organizing and conflict resolution, and I know there is nothing like a shared experience—in our case, an unexpected surprise—to bond people quickly,” Lisa says. “Creating connection between our closest friend and family in the first hour of our wedding weekend was the primary goal of the surprise.”
At the start of the cocktail hour Friday night, Lisa escaped to a private room where her veil and bouquet of white roses were waiting. “Our wedding planner brought my parents to me,” Lisa says. “I’ll never forget the looks on their faces when they saw me in that veil: completely surprised and full of love. We had kept the secret from everyone, including them.”
Meanwhile, Joe stood in front of the couple’s friends and family, and announced: “I know we sent you invitations for our ceremony tomorrow, but we just couldn’t wait any longer. We are going to get married right here, right now, in front of all of you.”
A guitarist played Elton John’s “Your Song” as the bride’s parents walked her down the aisle. She wore a late ’80s strapless satin corset gown with beaded ribbon details and an architectural waist from Happy Isles. “It made me feel like Wonder Woman,” Lisa says. She paired the dress with Yves Saint Laurent sandals and a marabou jacket from the ’70s.
