The Grooms Wore Armani, Tom Ford, Versace, and Balmain for Their Wedding in the Central Park Zoo
In November of 2021, fashion stylist Andrew Mukamal connected with registered nurse Connor Bailey on Hinge, and the two had their first date over Thanksgiving weekend at Felice 83 on the Upper East Side. (At the time, both were living just a few blocks from the restaurant.) They started dating shortly thereafter and got engaged on July 22, 2023, in Central Park.
“After a typical Saturday lunch at The Mark, a few blocks from our apartment on East 76th Street, we walked into the park to spend the afternoon watching the roller skaters at the skate circle behind Sheep’s Meadow with a bottle of wine,” Andrew remembers. “We love the music they play—and the people watching. We settled into our usual spot under our favorite tree, and when Connor suggested I open the bottle of wine, I reached into the tote bag I had carefully packed that morning and pulled out a small Goyard ring box that contained a custom black ceramic band from Taffin that I’d designed and picked up months earlier. Sitting there on our big black blanket, hand in hand, I asked him to marry me. Tears in his eyes, and in a state of shock and surprise, he said, ‘Yes, of course.’ We kissed and opened the special bottle of Dom Pérignon I had packed instead of our usual rose to celebrate.”
The couple was married on August 31, 2024, under a floral arch of white hydrangeas created by Julia Testa in front of the sea lion tank in the Central Park Zoo. “[From the start,] we knew we wanted to get married in New York,” Andrew explains. “We were living there at the time and both of our families live on the East Coast in New York and Florida. We had visited the zoo in Central Park several times together—we both love animals—and spent countless hours enjoying the park together since the early days of our relationship.”
The zoo was only the second venue the couple looked at, and they knew it was the perfect place to celebrate their special day almost immediately. They started planning in September of 2023, and from the beginning, they had a clear idea of how they wanted the night to look and feel. To achieve that vision, they worked with Anita Pandian at Morton Street Events. “She had planned one of my best friend’s weddings at Blue Hill at Stone Barns a few years earlier, so we knew we were in good hands,” Andrew says.
In the lead-up, Andrew and Connor had their hair cut by their friend stylist Cervando Maldonado in LA two weeks ahead of the ceremony as they wanted a slightly grown-out look. They also had facials by Fabricio Ormonde in New York the day before the wedding.
The couple knew they wanted to wear black tie, and for the guest dress code to be all-black. For their own looks, they kept things timeless and classic. Connor wore a tailored tuxedo from Armani and Andrew was in a similarly classic Tom Ford tuxedo that his father helped him pick out before he passed away in 2017. “Although he couldn’t be there with us celebrating, it felt like the perfect way to honor his memory and have him there with me for such a special moment in my life,” Andrew says.
Manolo Blahnik was the footwear choice for both grooms, and their shoes were monogrammed with their wedding date on the inner heel. Andrew and Connor’s friend Lorraine Schwartz—who was a guest at the wedding along with her sister Ofira Sandberg—was the only jewelry designer they could imagine entrusting with their wedding bands. She created dome-shaped 18-karat yellow gold bands that were engraved with the couple’s initials and wedding date on the inside.
On the morning of the wedding, both grooms got ready at The Carlyle in complementary Versace robes with their wedding date emblazoned on the back. After getting dressed, they made the walk from the iconic hotel to Central Park, stopped by the tree where they’d gotten engaged in 2023, and then made their way to the zoo for the ceremony.
Andrew’s close friend Rebecca Gargiulo served as the officiant. “She’s been a sister to me since grade school, and we couldn’t have imagined a more perfect person for such a momentous task,” Andrew says. “She found the perfect balance of gravity and humor and had both of us—and all our guests—in tears before we had even gotten to our vows, which we both wrote and read to each other. As if her task as our officiant wasn’t important enough, we also asked Rebecca to bake our dream wedding cake—which she absolutely nailed!”
As the couple stood together, Connor remembers feeling as if the entire world had stopped—and trying to keep the tears to a minimum. “Becca surprised us with who would go first when it came to reciting their vows and luckily I went first,” he says. “I kept taking deep breaths and trying to remember to speak slowly and enunciate every word. We obviously hadn’t read each other’s vows, but when he started reading his, they were so similar to what I had written. It really shined a light on how truly deeply connected our love is.” Having practiced his vows dozens of times after being afraid of “messing them up,” Andrew eventually read his without missing a beat. Adds Andrew: “At the end, we stomped our foot on the glass—a Jewish tradition we chose to include—and finally we’d gotten to the good part: the kiss!”
After the ceremony, the newlyweds spent a few minutes back in their green room having a drink together as husbands and reveling in everything that had just taken place. Then, they made their way over to cocktail hour so they could start greeting family and friends.
The dinner portion of the evening took place outside, before guests moved inside a black tent for dancing afterwards. For this part of the night, Versace made the grooms “party versions” of the classic tuxedo. “We drew inspiration from the fall 2024 collection,” Andrew explains. “They featured liquid-like black sequins. Donatella and her incredible team went above and beyond, and our guests went wild when we came out on the dance floor after dinner for our first dance.”
Just before the couple’s final dance, the newlyweds made one final outfit change for their send-off and to wear downtown to their after-party at the private club, The Nines. “Olivier at Balmain offered to make us something special for our big night, and he created the most incredible—and heavy!—embroidered bomber jackets,” Andrew says. “Mr. Rousteing really outdid himself with these—our guests were gagged! The jackets featured our favorite animal at the zoo, the snow leopard, as well as a vintage Central Park Zoo logo, our names, and our wedding date—of course.”
