Model Jessie Li’s Intimate New York Wedding Was Inspired by English Country Gardens
In 2017, after two years of studying to be a concert pianist at Juilliard, Jessie Li transferred to Columbia University and chose to commit more fully to her modeling career. And it was there, while on a campus tour, that she first met Yoni Schanzer. “Since Columbia was my first non–art school, I was shy and intimidated,” Li recalls, “but he came up to me and made me feel at ease. I remember him making me laugh a bunch, and he asked me out for coffee.”
They became fast friends—but it naturally evolved into something more, despite the fact Jessie was unable to attend school that year due to work. “Yoni was really good about keeping in touch despite all my traveling and was quick to introduce me to everyone in his family, who made me feel at home almost immediately,” she says. “Had he not approached me that day or kept in touch, we likely would have never crossed each other’s paths again.”
The couple dated for three years before getting engaged in June 2020. “I typically travel a lot for work, so one silver lining during the pandemic lockdowns of 2020 was that Yoni and I were home together,” Jessie says. Everything being shut down also meant a lot of at-home fashion shoots, with companies asking models to recruit their roommates or partners as photographers. Yoni—who works in film as a screenwriter, director, and actor—used one of these moments as a ruse to bring Jessie out to the Williamsburg waterfront for a fake shoot. “He had me pose and got down on one knee with the city skyline behind me and pretended to be snapping away while secretly recording me,” she remembers. “Then all of a sudden, he pulled the camera aside to reveal the ring and asked me to marry him. It was incredibly sweet.”
The wedding took place nearly two years later, coming together all at once—and not entirely on their own schedule. “To be honest, we didn’t actually have a lot of time to plan this wedding,” Jessie admits. Being close to Yoni’s family, she chose to convert to Judaism in honor of their heritage: His grandfather was the sole family member to survive the Holocaust. “I knew how important that was to them,” she notes. The conversion process had taken almost two years, and then one day, Jessie recalls, “the rabbi called us out of the blue and basically said, ‘It’s happening! We’re going to convert and marry you two at the end of this month!’ It was pretty much off to the races from there.” Xin Huang from Le Petite Prive helped them pull the wedding off in just under a month, and they were married in March 2022 (“on a Wednesday—not by choice!” Jessie says).
The ceremony was inspired by the couple’s travels. “Some of our favorite memories were of our stays in London, where we balanced our exploration of the city with visits to the botanical gardens,” Jessie says. Opting for a small, intimate wedding due to COVID, they settled quickly on The Foundry in Long Island City as a venue. “It had a nice balance between an industrial-city look and a courtyard that we could bring to life with a delicate wild-English-garden theme,” she notes. “It seemed to be the perfect size for our guest count as well, and we liked the variety of spaces and levels we could play around with to give the day multiple different looks and vantage points.”
For her bridal gown, Jessie wanted something elegant and timeless; most dresses, however, take six to nine months to produce. Fortunately, Jimmy Choo, the creative director of The Atelier Couture since 2017, sent her a jaw-dropping Victorian-inspired gown from his latest line all the way from Shanghai. “Not only that, but his incredibly talented team managed to bring the dress down from a size 6 to a size 0 in one day and have the dress delivered to my door less than five days later,” Jessie says. “I was floored and was so honored to be able to wear that dress for my ceremony. I felt like a real princess.”
She also scored a beautiful dress in her size that a bridal boutique near their home in Darien, Connecticut, had ordered by accident for another bride. She changed into that one after the ceremony, “as it was a touch more modern and weighed about 20 pounds less.” With the first dress being so heavy—and knowing she wanted to dance the night away—heels were out of the question for Jessie, who, at five feet ten, is lucky to be tall enough that both dresses grazed the floor perfectly without heels. Instead, “I went with a beautiful blush satin Manolo Blahnik slipper for something that had both style and comfort.”
Since Jessie planned to wear her hair pulled back in a classic bun for the ceremony and her Atelier Couture dress was so grand, “for jewelry I wanted something simple that could both stand on its own and be able to match the dress in a way that wasn’t too over the top.” They visited their friends at Betteridge in Greenwich, Connecticut, to select the perfect jewels to complete the look. “They always go above and beyond for us,” says Jessie. “Randy—the manager, jeweler, and our friend—was so helpful to Yoni in picking out the right ring for me without me ever knowing. It was only natural he helped pick the other jewelry for the wedding!”
Betteridge closed off the back of the store so Jessie could sort through its jewelry collection. “We came up with the perfect combination of these magnificent diamond stud earrings with a diamond choker that played off the delicate lace and beading details of the dress,” she says. “The whole team is just so wonderful, helpful, and friendly and made our quick turnaround a pleasant and easy experience.”
As for hair and beauty, “I’m fortunate enough to know some of the most brilliant artists in fashion through my career as a model,” Jessie notes. Ann Benjamas at All Brides New York did her makeup, and Brent Lawler did both her and Yoni’s hair. “Both understood the aesthetic we wanted immediately, and we felt comfortable giving them creative freedom,” she continues. “Ann’s makeup was incredible, and Brent managed to throw in a major hair change in the 15 minutes between my ceremony and reception. Not only that, he’d gone to a flower market in the morning and made one of his signature floral headpieces for me!”
