The Brides Wore Custom Cowboy-Inspired Outfits for Their Fall Wedding in the Hudson Valley
Kelsey Randall and Perry Fuchs first met in 2018 at a 12-step recovery program. For two years, they remained friendly while working on their sobriety—but in June 2020, when meetings moved over Zoom, Perry decided to ping Kelsey over the chat and asked her if she’d like to get a socially-distanced coffee in a park. They did, and a whirlwind romance followed. “We went through so much together just in that first year—the global pandemic, a major career switch for Perry, the loss of my best friend to cancer, loved ones relapsing, and supporting each other’s recovery,” says Kelsey. “We both knew this was the real deal.”
In August 2021, Perry tied an opal ring around their cat Jerry’s neck and asked Kelsey to marry her. Well, sort of. “Perry totally clammed up,” Kelsey recalls. “I was like, wow, this is such a beautiful ring—is there an occasion?” After some heartfelt rambling, she realized it was a proposal. “I said, ‘This sure sounds an awful lot like you’re proposing to me,’” Kelsey recalls. “Perry said, ‘Will you?’”
Just over a year later, they wed on October 16, 2022, in the Hudson Valley. Not only is “16” Kelsey’s lucky number, but it also happened to be homecoming weekend: “Being a good southern girl, I knew that the weekend of October 16 would be homecoming for Georgia football (an easy win), meaning I wouldn’t be tearing my family away from a big game for any wedding festivities,” she jokes. The ceremony and reception took place at Blooming Hill Farm, with all of the food, vegetables, and flowers coming straight from their fields.
Kelsey, a made-to-measure fashion designer and stylist who has created custom looks for Lizzo, Lil Nas X, and Beyoncé, designed the outfits for both herself and Perry. Inspired by the Western-inspired style of Gram Parsons, she sketched up a chain stitch embroidered suit for her wife complete with motifs of cacti, palm trees, and their dog Jimi.
It was a difficult outfit to make. “Chain stitch is such unique embroidery,” Kelsey explains. “It’s done on a machine that uses a hand crank to steer the fabric as the single thread needle loops each stitch.” To bring her vision to life, she tracked down the artist Meghan Mussari, who was able to execute the embroidery pattern, which was designed by Mark Rokusek. Meanwhile, their friend and tailor Keith Mosberger made the final suit pattern, which included 8,000 Swarovski crystals as embellishments.
For her wedding dress, Kelsey designed a slip dress of oyster white silk fabric with a high-low ruffled hem, all lined with baby pink mesh. On top, she wore a custom white and silver French brocade corset with powder pink ribbons, made in collaboration with Swayed Stature. For some final sartorial drama, she added a 10-foot train. “I had this vision of running through the fields of the farm with my dress flying behind me,” Kelsey explains.
Both brides wore cowboy boots, serving as a nod to Kelsey’s southern roots as well as a more practical touch: They were, after all, getting married on a farm. Perry finished the look with Versace earrings, a necklace, and a vintage Hermès scarf, while Kelsey accented her dress with a pearl Vivienne Westwood choker, an Alexander McQueen knuckle ring clutch, and antique earrings. (She also fastened tulle and pearl bows in her hair.)
Their ceremony took place under a gigantic oak tree, with rolling hills of blazing fall foliage as a backdrop. The couple walked down an aisle of pampas grass and eucalyptus, meeting beneath an arbor of flowers and branches of persimmons. Kelsey admits she rushed down the aisle acoustic rendition of the Flaming Lips’s “Do You Realize??” played: “My dad made me laugh as we started to walk, as he calmly said, ‘Whoa, city girl, let’s walk slower today’ to keep me from speed-walking,” she recalls. Finally, after exchanging their vows and rings, the brides kissed and walked out to Fleetwood Mac’s “You Make Loving Fun.”
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