The Bride Wore The Row and the Groom Wore Custom Bode for This Creative Winter Wedding in Brooklyn
Rowan Spencer and Emma Leigh Macdonald both attended McGill University in Montreal yet never crossed paths. Time—and their careers—eventually brought them to New York City, where Emma started out in the art world and Rowan moved into creative direction while moonlighting as a DJ and music curator. They finally met when Emma was looking for a DJ for a launch event of her magazine Le Dépanneur in 2016 and their mutual friend Jaime connected them.
“I was in Ireland at the time, but we met up weeks later at a now shut bar on MacDougal to discuss,” says Rowan. “I was totally smitten. Emma went with some other DJs who threw the party at their house—an obvious oversight on her part.” Adds Emma, “But we became extremely close regardless. Fast-forward to now, and fortunately I’ve essentially devoted my life to making up for it as we plan so many events together, both personal and professional.” Love grew over the years, as did their creative pursuits. The couple even launched a successful music-and-food pop-up series, Mon Petit Canard, in 2023, which they are now working to establish as a full-time, brick-and-mortar business.
In 2022, Rowan began work on another creative project—their engagement. He recruited Emma’s friend Mary that spring to help him pick a jeweler to design a ring in secret, finally landing on the brand Prounis. “I was going to propose to her around the time of the five-year anniversary of our first kiss here in NYC, but she was cooking in Paris on chef Jay Wolman’s team during his residency at Early June,” says Rowan. “I realized I could theme the whole thing around the movie Amelie, which I took Emma to see at a rooftop screening for one of our first dates.” Rowan arrived in Paris during La Fête de la Musique, a summer festival through the city streets. After spending some time exploring, “he suggested we stop in a Photomaton photo booth on our way to see a friend play piano and go out for the night,” remembers Emma. “In the booth, he had a Prounis ring with him, and the moment is perfectly documented in a way that is very us.”
Wedding planning was their next great creative challenge. “Since our work and personalities lead to so many collaborations as it is, planning our wedding together was in many ways the ultimate version of what we do every day,” says Emma. “This started with deciding on the Wythe Hotel’s Main Hall and Bar Blondeau for the ceremony itself and reception. Rowan has worked closely with the hotel for years, initially with design before the pandemic hit, and he’s currently curating music for its lobby, Blondeau, and Le Crocodile.” She adds, “If you are lucky enough to get put on hold when you call the hotel, you’ll also hear an original track of his.” The duo also decided to host a rehearsal dinner at their friend Alex Tieghi-Walker’s Tribeca gallery Tiwa Select. Rowan notes that the two were aligned in their wedding vision, which featured some less typical choices like a midwinter ceremony and working mostly with friends as vendors and talent. “We had so much fun dreaming up every detail, right down to putting the seating chart together,” he says.
The final piece of the puzzle was wedding planner Melissa Sullivan of Studio Sully. “We asked her to come on board after we were already well underway with planning,” shares Rowan. “It’s hard to imagine working with anyone else who could have stepped right into those conversations so seamlessly. [It] felt like working with a friend immediately too. She was a dream to work with and handled so many crucial moments and decisions in a way that seemed, but certainly wasn’t, effortless. That helped maintain the sweet, fun nature of planning right through to the end of the wedding night.” Sullivan helped orchestrate the reception space with ikebana-inspired tablescapes by Fox Fodder Flowers and a flow between the multiple areas of the celebration.
It’s no surprise music and food were a primary focus of the creative couple’s wedding plans. “For our rehearsal dinner at Tiwa, it had to be a menu from Anthony and Sadie of Ha’s Đặc Biệt, a favorite fellow pop-up,” explains Emma. “And they are also planning their own wedding. As we said to each other many times over the course of planning: ‘We love love!’” The evening at the Wythe Hotel would feature the pair’s neighbor Ben Callicott playing guitar as guests entered the hall, Jake Leiber and Aidan O’Neal’s French menu from Le Crocodile, and Bryndon Cook, a.k.a. Starchild the New Romantic, as DJ during dinner. “For dessert, instead of a cake to cut, we fed each other choux from the top of a croquembouche—a dessert that has become a favorite of ours partly as I’ve made them for events and weddings for others.” To finish off the evening on the dance floor, the couple planned for guests to migrate down the street to the newly opened club by Eli Escobar, Gabriela, where their friends spun tracks into the night.
Fashion was the final ingredient to pull the entire day together. Emma shares that guests got creative with the winter-wedding dress code and dressed to the nines. She says, “Tuxes and elbow-length gloves and velvet abounded, and our officiant wore a long-sleeve black dress with a slit up to her waist!” As for the couple, their ensembles were elevated reflections of their own style and personality, with a bit of help from their friends. “Similar to the other aspects of planning our wedding, we wanted to work with friends wherever we could for the design elements of the weekend,” notes Emma. “We worked with our friend Emily Adams Bode Aujla to incorporate items that would feel timeless but very personal to us.” For the rehearsal dinner, Rowan wore shoes from her brand Bode and donned an Issey Miyake pleated suit, “inspired in part by our choice to go to Japan for our honeymoon and in part by an unofficial cozy element to the dress code that night,” says the groom. Emma also leaned into texture for the event, wearing a cream ruffled set by Super Yaya, a Sophie Buhai clip, and Chanel pumps.
