This Michelin Star Chef's Friends Walked Her Down the Aisle at Her Laid Back Mallorca Wedding
As the owner and head chef of Kin Dee, a Michelin-starred Thai restaurant in Berlin, Dalad Kambhu knows a thing or two about food. So perhaps it’s fitting that she fell in love with architect Geoffrey Grunfeld while making a meal. In the summer of 2019, artist Rirkrit Thiravanija and gallerist Gavin Brown invited Dalad to stay with them at Geoffrey’s family villa in Deia, Mallorca. One night, she decided to cook the whole group a special paella—a dish that Geoffrey, as it turns out, knew how to make all too well. He quickly assigned himself the role of sous-chef. “We met making Thai-ella in his kitchen,” she says. “It was love at first sight.”
Two years later, Geoffrey proposed at sunset on a beach in Dalad’s home country of Thailand. He presented Dalad with a claddagh ring—a style traditionally given by Irish sailors to their loved ones before heading out to sea. The piece features a heart representing love, a crown representing loyalty, and two hands holding them both representing friendship. Geoffrey, who is part Irish, resonated with the symbolism. “He told me that although the design of the ring wasn’t his aesthetic, he was touched by the story, as we both have a semi-long-distance relationship between Mallorca and Berlin,” says Dalad. “He opened it, and inside there was a ring from his interpretation of a claddagh ring. The crowns became a diamond holder, the heart became a beautiful semi-heart-shaped raw diamond, and the two hands became 10 little yellow diamonds, five on each side.”
On October 29, 2022, Dalad and Geoffrey wed at Son Ru, the villa where they first met. It was once a Spanish monastery, and legend has it that the monks chose the location for its beautiful sunsets—so the couple settled on a golden-hour ceremony with their closest friends and family in attendance. Both knew from the start they didn’t want a traditional wedding. “We couldn’t see ourselves walking down the aisle with music or having bridesmaids wearing the same dresses,” Dalad says. “We just wanted to get our friends together to eat good food with good wine.” In lieu of a professional photographer, she asked a few friends to capture the day and laid out disposable cameras for guests.
Dalad wore a dress by Nhu Duong, an Swedish Vietnamese designer based in Paris, fitted with the help of her tailor, Loic Gros. During one of their fittings, Duong suggested cutting an emoji “heart” shape in the back—and given her desire for an untraditional wedding aesthetic, Dalad loved the cutting-edge feel of it. With the help of her bridesmaid and stylist, Nausheen Shah, she paired the gown with a pair of custom white satin wedges by The Attico, designed by the brand’s cofounder and her other bridesmaid, Giorgia Tordini. For jewelry, she wore a simple diamond bracelet from her mother and a diamond ring from her grandmother. Finally, she kept her makeup minimal and let her hair air-dry after her morning shower. (“I was quite relaxed,” the bride notes.)
Dalad also asked her bridesmaids to walk her down the aisle in suits. “I chose to break the tradition of having a man give away the bride to another man,” she explains. “I wanted my friends, my chosen sisters, to walk with me instead. There is nothing more powerful than sisterhood, and for that, I had asked my sisters to wear suits, to celebrate our strength as women.” Shah wore a vintage Yves Saint Laurent suit, Tordini wore one of her own designs, and photographer Vicen Akina opted for Celine.
On the big day, Dalad and Geoffrey held two ceremonies. The first was a traditional Thai ceremony, where the groom and his wedding party had to pass through symbolic “gates” before reaching the altar. “Each gate came with tests and challenges to test his undying love,” Dalad explains.
It was a humorous exercise: At the first gate, they asked them all to sing “New York, New York”—an ode to Dalad’s time in the city—as well as do the limbo. A second gate saw Geoffrey swarmed by their friends’ children, who made him reenact a scene from Frozen. At the third gate, Dalad’s girlfriends from Berlin jokingly acted like bouncers from the notorious club Berghain, scanning him up and down to see if he could “get in.” When he reached the final gate, Geoffrey was made to dance, swear his love to Dalad in Thai—and then do a one-minute plank.
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