The Bride Wore Carolina Herrera for Her Paris Wedding That Included Midnight Museum Tours and an All-Night Disco
Alexa Buckley and Alexandre Roussel’s courtship was a true pandemic love story. It all started with a series of texts in 2020, but their digital meet-cute had one twist: Instead of an app, designer Tory Burch played matchmaker and orchestrated their initial introduction. “I was attending a joint engagement party for my best friends, Chloe Burch Seaver and Neely Burch Morandi, hosted by their aunt, Tory [Burch],” Alexa, the cofounder of the popular footwear brand Margaux, remembers. “Toward the end of the party, I went to thank Tory and say goodbye, and we got to chatting. As we were catching up she asked if I was dating anyone, to which I said no. She told me I had to meet her stepson, Alex, that he was brilliant and handsome, and she thought we might really hit it off.”
Unbeknownst to Alexa, Tory then called Alex and told him to come over—but he was at the office, and understandably, the idea of dropping everything to meet a stranger on a rainy Monday night in February wasn’t the most enticing. And so it was a missed connection, and Alexa completely forgot about the conversation.
Then, one night a few weeks later, Alexa got a text from Tory following up to see if she could connect her with Alex. “Alex was totally untraceable online—and a Frenchman!—so I had no idea what to expect,” Alexa admits. “That week, I received a text from Alex on the exact day the lockdown started.”
Thus began their text-based courtship. “For me, it was the most unexpected, perfect way to fall in love,” Alexa reveals. “It started exceptionally slowly with—long-form messages that felt more like letters than texts, sent every few days filled with questions and musings—the kind of getting-to-know-a-person that had become so difficult in the fast-paced whirl of normal life in New York City. The texts turned into FaceTimes, and eventually our first meeting—when we were finally brave enough to step outside of our pods for the night—on the grass behind the West Side Highway over a bottle of wine and a makeshift plate of cheese.”
From there, things sped up—thanks to the unusual pressures of the lockdown—and they went from letter writing to a fourth date in which Alexa essentially invited him to come and spend nine straight days with her family. “Thankfully, it went spectacularly well!” Alexa notes.
They got engaged in August of 2022 on a beautiful, sunny morning in Paris. As soon as they woke up, Alex suggested that they have a “Parisian day”—a day of wandering the city and seeing where it took them. “The planner in me had to catch myself,” Alexa admits. “But since it was the first day of our summer vacation, I agreed. We left the apartment and started to walk, and when we passed the entrance of the Musée Rodin, Alex suggested we stop in and walk around the garden. Because this is something we love to do—and do often—I thought nothing of it.”
The Musée Rodin is one of the couple’s favorite places in Paris. “We often go to sit and soak in the quiet amidst the whirl of the busy city, so that is exactly what we did,” Alexa explains. “As we went to leave, we walked down one of the windy paths covered in flowers and trees, and at the little bend where you can see the museum and the Dome of the Invalides in one view, Alex got down on one knee and proposed. I was stunned. There were many, many happy tears, and we stayed in the garden a while longer to take it all in. It was also the morning, so one of the best parts was that we did get to have that Parisian day! And it was perfect—filled with cafes and Champagne and a boat ride on the Seine, ending in a long dinner where we lingered at the table late into the night.”
Their wedding was in Paris just a little over a year later on September 23, 2023. “And, in a full-circle pinch-us kind of way, we were married at the Basilique Sainte-Clotilde, followed by cocktails, dinner, and dancing late into the night at the Musée Rodin,” Alexa says.
The couple partnered with Victoria Botana de Beauvau of the event planner Concept Haroue to plan the wedding. “She brought an incredible group of people together to work on this, and we had so much fun,” Alexa says. “She and her team have an exceptional attention to detail, a great understanding of logistics, flow, and ambiance.”
On the Wednesday before the wedding, Alexa and Alex were “officially” married at a courthouse in the 7th arrondissement. The bride wore a white Brandon Maxwell cape-effect crepe mini dress, with sheer white lace pointed-toe flats from the Margaux bridal atelier.
For the other events surrounding the wedding, she worked with bridal stylist Anny Choi. “I loved working with Anny,” Alexa says. “For the rehearsal dinner on Thursday, I wore an Oscar de la Renta gown from their fall 2023 collection. I knew I didn’t want to wear white for this night and that I wanted to lean into the atmosphere of the boat. As soon as we tried on a sample of the Oscar de la Renta dress, I knew it was the one, and their team was so nice to let me get it a bit ahead of its debut in time for the wedding.” She paired the dress with custom strappy Margaux sandals and a white pochette from Savette.
For Friday night, Alexa worked with Mark Ingram on designing a dress for her welcome party at Maxim’s. “Mark is one of my mom’s best friends, and I have known him all my life, so this was special for many reasons,” Alexa says. “We were inspired by vintage Dior dresses with tulle and tiers and had so much fun diving into the history of Maxim’s for inspiration as well. Mark designed the perfect dress, and the best part was that he was there at the party to see it, and dance late into the night together.”
