The Bride Wore a Chanel Couture Wedding Dress Inspired by Claudia Schiffer
Grace Morton, the vice president of production and development for Taylor Sheridan’s Bosque Ranch Productions, and Matthew Budman, a producer and partner at DreamCrew Entertainment, were both enrolled in USC film school during the spring of 2015. Grace had an internship at the production company where Matthew was working at the time. “No, he wasn’t my boss—but yes, this did come up several times during the roast at our rehearsal dinner,” Grace jokes. “Months after the internship ended, I mentioned to a mutual friend and coworker that I thought Matthew was cute. In fact, I still have text messages saved to this day of me gushing to my girlfriends about how in love with him I was—but I kept it fairly coy with said coworker for the sake of the setup.” That very same day, Matthew reached out to Grace, asking to take her to dinner at the Sunset Tower. “The rest is history,” she adds.
After dating for a little over seven years, Matthew proposed in September 2021. “Over the years, he and I spent a lot of time in Montana when I was out there working on the Yellowstone series,” Grace explains. “He’d visit me during shoots, and we’d use the weekends to explore our beautiful surroundings. We both fell in love with Montana, and Matthew surprised me with an impromptu trip to the Ranch at Rock Creek. About an hour after we arrived, he took me to an empty field, just the two of us. Suddenly, over a hundred wild horses began running toward us, and at that same moment, Matthew got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. It was the most serene and intimate setting I could have ever envisioned and a real testament to our mutual love of nature and the outdoors.”
Following the engagement, Grace and Matthew knew early on that they wanted to host a destination wedding. “It was important to us to give our guests a memorable and unique experience that extended beyond just the wedding itself,” Grace explains. “We also knew that we wanted to get married somewhere with significance to us and our relationship, and Jamaica felt like the most sentimental setting.” The couple’s attachment to the island lies partly in the fact that both of their fathers lived there in the late ’60s, with Matthew first visiting when he was only three months old and returning every year since. “Over the course of our relationship, he and I would visit every Christmas holiday,” Grace explains. “The confluence of our separate family history, as well as the time we had spent there together as a couple, made Jamaica the obvious answer when determining where to get married.”
In April 2022, a little under a year before the wedding, they began working with planners Van Wyck Van Wyck. Planning a large-scale destination event is never easy, but the Van Wyck team made everything as seamless as possible for the couple. “They instantly understood the importance of emphasizing the natural beauty of Jamaica,” Grace says. “We wanted to illuminate rather than reinvent the existing aesthetic of the island, and Van Wyck brilliantly integrated this with our own individual style.” From the cocktail napkins to the welcome bags, merch, menus, property signage, and beyond, almost every single visual element was personalized—most often portraying a sketch of the couple’s two miniature dachshunds, Marvin and Otis, who unfortunately couldn’t in Jamaica to celebrate (but still had their own custom cocktails).
To kick off the festivities on Thursday, Grace and Matthew welcomed guests with a traditional Jamaican barbecue on the beach. Rum was served in fresh coconuts embellished with the couple’s wedding logo. “I knew I wanted this look to be barefoot,” Grace says. “I chose an embroidered Valentino halter-neck minidress for this event, which allowed me to feel fancy while also effortless. It felt bridal but still very much like something I’d otherwise wear.” Matthew, on the other hand, wore Ralph Lauren and paired a vintage T-shirt that said “Bud Paradise” with a pair of custom white trousers. After dinner, Zen Freeman had everyone dancing barefoot in the sand under the string lights, and at the end of the night, fireworks erupted to the song “54-46 Was My Number” by Toots and the Maytals.
On Friday, there was a beach party during the day. For this, Grace chose a vintage Chanel pink-sequin bra top and tweed miniskirt from 1995 that she purchased from Tab Vintage, along with a pair of white Chanel Gabrielle slingbacks. “I actually wore the sequin bra top as a bikini with swim briefs I had on underneath the skirt, which allowed me to jump into the ocean with all of my friends without having to alter my look,” she says. It also served as the perfect precursor to the ensemble she wore later that same evening—both pink and vintage Chanel—at the rehearsal dinner Matthew’s parents hosted on a seaside terrace. While Grace knew she wanted to wear something vintage, she also warmed to the idea of avoiding traditional white—instead purchasing an iconic Chanel set from the spring 1999 haute couture collection at Lily et Cie in Los Angeles. She accessorized the look with a vintage white Chanel Kelly mini bag from 1994, a pair of pink crystal Amina Muaddi satin mules, and fresh purple orchids in her hair.
During dinner, four close friends and family members delivered toasts that left the wedding party in a combination of hysterics and tears. “And before we went downstairs for the after-party, Bill Murray gave an impromptu a cappella rendition of the song ‘Brandy’ by Looking Glass, singing directly to me to say what a good wife I would be,” Grace says. “It was performance art.” For the Friday night after-party, Bob Marley’s son Ky-Mani also performed the ultimate reggae set. “Matthew and I both absolutely love reggae music, and it was important for us to highlight this throughout the weekend,” Grace explains. “And of course, there is no one better to deliver this than a Marley himself!”
For her wedding-day look, Grace worked with the Chanel team to create a custom dress that echoed the brand’s illustrious history. “The entire experience ignited a much deeper appreciation for fashion within me,” she says. “The unparalleled expertise of the haute couture team at Chanel is reflected in the craftsmanship.” When it came to finding the perfect reference, Grace turned to a favorite Karl Lagerfeld–designed bridal look from a 1992 Chanel show originally worn by Claudia Schiffer. “I wanted to wear something that felt quintessentially Karl, and I was actually able to try on the original bridal look from their archive when I first visited the atelier in Paris. Claudia is married to my godfather and is a good friend. She helped guide me throughout the entire process, and I am deeply grateful for her support—a true fashion fairy godmother.”
