The Bride Wore a Monique Lhuillier Lace Dress Inspired by Grace Kelly to Marry on Lake Como
Model and musician Grace Kennedy and musician turned restaurateur Hayden Tobin met briefly through friends at the end of 2019, before quickly developing a rapport over Instagram DMs. “[Eventually,] I told him to come down to my Chinatown apartment and crash girls’ night,” Grace remembers of their first proper “date” in January 2020. “Unfortunately, he came with my most-hated drink—White Claw.”
Thankfully, they bonded quickly over their love of music and food. “I was getting breakfast at JFK before a 7 a.m. flight home for Christmas and some guy pulled up and boldly asked for lobster ravioli and a Sex on the Beach—neither of which were on the menu—and I thought that was a good enough story to break the ice over DMs,” Hayden reveals. “We still laugh about lobster ravioli and his insane order every time we’re in JFK. Mr. Lobster ravioli—if you’re reading this, thank you.”
After dating for more than two years, one of the couple’s friends, photographer Chad Moore, invited the pair to a show of his work in Tokyo in May 2022. “Chad had to get us visas for it and all he would say was, ‘I have a surprise for you there,’” Hayden remembers. “We love to travel and are both obsessed with Japan, so we jumped at the opportunity. And, we had been talking about getting engaged for a while, so I also jumped on this perfect opportunity.”
For the proposal, Hayden sourced an antique platinum ring from the late 1800s. “Grace loves all things vintage and doesn’t wear gold, which was a bit of a relief when Japanese customs asked me if I was traveling with any gold,” he remembers. After a few days in Tokyo, the couple traveled to the beach town of Atami, where Hayden had booked a stay at a traditional ryokan onsen. One night, after returning to their room from dinner, Hayden asked Grace to order a bottle of sake to celebrate. “Celebrate what?” she said. Hayden recalls, “I got down on one knee, pulled out the ring, and asked if she wanted to marry me. The sake came. We celebrated. We made it back to Tokyo only to find out the kicker: Chad’s big surprise: He used an old photo of Grace and I kissing to promote his book—on the giant electronic billboard in the middle of Shibuya Crossing. He had no clue I was going to propose. It just all worked out.”
The wedding itself was on Tuesday, May 21, 2024, at the Villa Balbiano on Lake Como in Ossuccio, Italy. “After crashing girls’ night, I wrote in Grace’s notebook, ‘One day, I’m gonna marry you,’” Hayden remembers. “On our next date, she told me to read her notebook, and she had written, “Okay, May 21st!”
Back in 2017, Grace and her mother traveled to Lake Como on vacation, and she remembers immediately thinking it was the most magical place on earth. “My mother fell in love with Italy and eventually bought a house there,” Grace says. “Italy has always had a special place in my heart so I knew I wanted to get married there. Everyone loves pasta, right?”
Once she found the 16th-century Villa Balbiano online, she scheduled a tour, and her guide happened to be Sofia Bute, the event director at The Heritage Collection. “We loved her and asked if she planned weddings and would be willing to plan ours,” Grace recalls. “She said yes! And, once we found Sofia, the planning process became exciting and easy.”
The bride’s wedding dress search was a little more onerous. “I think I went to five appointments in one week and didn’t find anything that felt quite right,” the bride says. “I was named after Grace Kelly and my entire life I dreamt of wearing her wedding dress. She was a literal princess. I knew I wanted long lace sleeves and to replicate her dress as close as possible. I started to freak out and go into shutdown mode when I couldn’t find what I was looking for.” Eventually, a friend of Grace’s suggested a visit to the vintage fair A Current Affair, which happened to be taking place that weekend. “I bought a ticket and went the next day to search for the vintage dress of my dreams,” she says. “I ended up running into a mannequin wearing a silk Chanel top that was the closing piece of the fall 1987 show. That ended up being the ‘closing piece’ to end out our wedding weekend and was my top for the after-party accompanied by vintage Celine pants from Amarcord Vintage in Brooklyn. Finding this piece made me feel a bit more at ease—but I still hadn’t found the dress.”
After that, Grace made an appointment with Happy Isles Salon, who had just opened up a store in Soho, and there, she discovered a Pauline Trigère dress from the 1950s. “Pauline Trigère designed for Grace Kelly, and this dress was stunning,” Grace says. “It was raw silk that landed at my toes with long sleeves that ended in a beautiful ruffle. It spoke to me and became the rehearsal dinner dress that I wore to kick off the wedding festivities.”
Yet the hunt for the perfect wedding dress continued. With only six months to go until the wedding day, she made an appointment at Monique Lhuillier and tried on a few dresses. Eventually, she found one that took her breath away. “I asked to try it with the matching bolero and that was it,” she says. “That was my dress. The only thing I wanted differently was the back to be changed from a keyhole to a V shape. They made my perfect dress, I paired it with Miu Miu shoes, and I lived the dream.”
For Hayden, the tuxedo was always going to be Tom Ford. “I just think he does the quintessential tuxedo,” he says. For the rehearsal dinner, he wore a shirt he had taken from his grandfather’s closet after he passed away many years ago. “It was white with blue pinstripes, and I just saw it and for whatever reason really loved it,” Hayden admits. “But it had French cuffs, so I never had the right occasion to wear it. I found the occasion. His initials were still embroidered on the chest pocket as I welcomed all our guests. I wore that with my Ralph Lauren linen suit, and my off-white chucks. I had always wanted a burgundy velvet suit, but lacked the audacity to hunt one down. Finally, I had the reason: my wedding after-party. It was also Tom Ford.”
