This Bride’s Dream Wedding Day Was Almost Dashed by Gale Force Winds—But Friends and Family Came to the Rescue
Juno Wheeler and Noah Weinberg first met during the height of the pandemic. It was April 2020, and Juno was living alone at her grandmother’s condo in Sag Harbor while Noah was sleeping on his brother’s couch in New Jersey. They matched on Hinge and started chatting. “At one point Noah suggested we go for drinks when we were back in the city,” Juno recalls. “And I said, ‘Well, who knows when that is going to happen so how about a FaceTime?’ and he said ‘When?’ and I said ‘Now?’ He quickly got past his brief fear of my directness and hopped on the phone.”
After a couple of weeks of FaceTime dates, Noah went out to visit Juno in Sag Harbor for the weekend. “I immediately knew it was game over,” she admits. “I bought a car on Craigslist two weeks later, drove to his house in New Jersey, and we spent the summer together. Soon after—as any responsible couple does—we got a dog, the love of our lives Olive, and moved in together.”
Noah proposed in June of 2023 in the private garden behind St. Marks Church in New York City. “I have lived by the church for eight years and have been through so many stages of my life in the East Village,” Juno, who is a trauma therapist and yoga instructor, explains. “Noah wanted to propose somewhere meaningful to us that we could always come back to and show our children one day.” He had a violinist and a guitarist playing their favorite songs and his best friend was there filming from behind a corner. Afterwards, the two walked to dinner with friends at a favorite local restaurant.
The wedding was on Saturday, September 21, in Westport Harbor, Massachusetts. “I had been planning my wedding since I was five,” the bride admits. “I always knew that I was going to get married in the place I loved more than anything and whoever I married was going to have to get on board.” Juno’s family has spent their summers in the quintessential New England beach town for generations, and she has vivid memories of walking through an ivy-filled arbor on a neighbor’s property and visualizing her wedding there while growing up. “When I took Noah for the first time, he looked at me and said, ‘We are going to get married here,’ unprompted, just another moment when I knew he was the one.”
Even though the bride had been mentally planning her wedding for decades, the couple experienced a few roadblocks on the way to achieving their dream day—the first being that the property where they wanted to get married didn’t belong to them and isn’t a wedding venue, meaning everything was going to need to be brought in. In addition, there are no hotels and very few Airbnbs in the harbor, so the entire wedding weekend had the makings of a logistical headache. The bride, however, was undeterred. “I loved every second of the planning process, and nothing was going to stop me,” Juno says. “I was decisive and clear about what I wanted, and I had the most incredible people supporting me through the whole thing.”
Juno’s parents, Maggie and Daniel Wheeler, were supportive of her vision, and the neighbors offered up usage of their property with joy. The bride’s aunt helped her ask friends and friends of friends to rent their homes for the weekend so guests traveling in had lodging, and people were generous, open, and willing to help. “We also hired capable vendors, who were not only so skilled at their craft but also amazing people to work and create with,” Juno says. Their wedding invitations and all of the paper goods were designed by family friend and the bride’s sister’s godmother Champagne Maker on Instagram. “She watched me grow up, and having her hand paint all of our paper goods was such a gift,” Juno notes. The bride’s sister-in-law baked the cake and did tastings with the couple throughout the year. “It was a family affair through and through,” Juno says. In addition to collaborating with family and friends, the bride had support from her local wedding coordinator, Brigh at Busy B Events.
“I sourced vintage shirts for my girls to get ready in and vintage napkins for the main table and had them all embroidered by the fabulous team at Eva Joan Repair. I lived for the spreadsheets and the mood boards. I honestly had so much fun with every little detail. The whole time I was just so beyond thrilled to be gathering everyone we love most in the place I love most.”
Juno was as decisive with her wedding wardrobe as she was with everything else. “I tried on my wedding dress, the Camille by Danielle Frankel, in August of 2023 and immediately knew it was the one,” she says. “My sister had actually guessed it was going to be the Camille before we went to the Danielle Frankel showroom in New York, but I had my eyes on a different dress of hers. Sisters know best though. When I walked out in the Camille and they added the lace shrug and silk grosgrain and pearl belt, I was done for.”
Meanwhile, the bride’s aunt Kathryn Fortunato and her twin sister Lizzie Fortunato’s brand LF Jewels custom-made all her jewelry for the weekend. “We took inspiration from the natural pearls on the belt and made a pair of earrings with a light green, east/west bezel set amethyst and a natural pearl hanging below,” Juno explains. “Those earrings are going to be a part of their spring 2025 assortment launching in January. They’re named the Juno Earrings, which is so fun!” Juno paired her dress with a simple pair of Mary Janes from Ayede.
The wedding weekend kicked off with a welcome party at The Acoaxet Club. Juno had found her welcome party outfit, the Khaite Bruna dress, a year before the wedding, which she paired with Manolos she found in a Sororite vintage drop and her grandmother’s vintage Ralph Lauren cashmere sweater over her shoulders. For jewelry, she wanted to foreshadow the pearl strand on the wedding dress so her aunts designed a custom double-wrapped natural pearl necklace with a gold clasp and pulled in the light green amethyst with a pair of their fine jewelry charm earrings.
