A New York Wedding With Touches of the Couple’s English and Japanese Traditions
Hair and Tinder brought Masami Hosono, the owner of Vacancy Project—a gender-neutral salon and artist hangout in the East Village—and ceramicist Laura Chautin together. “My friend Lauren asked me to go with her for her haircut because she knew I thought Masami was cute,” Laura remembers. “I booked a haircut the next day, so that I could see Masami again!”
“Laura came for a haircut, and we matched the same week,” Masami says. “So I slid into her DMs on Instagram.”
The two started dating, and in 2019, they visited Masami’s hometown of Kyoto, Japan, to celebrate New Year’s Eve. “I was planning to propose to Laura with an engagement ring from my grandmother,” Masami explains. “I asked my mom to resize it before we flew into Japan for the New Year, and she hid it under her planter in her garden.”
When Laura and Masami arrived in Kyoto, they were, as one might expect, very jet-lagged, so they decided to take a nap and then go to dinner. “My original plan was to propose to Laura by the river where I grew up, but that failed,” Masami says. “As a backup plan, I booked a really romantic Kaiseki dinner by the Japanese Garden. But we got too tired from sightseeing and ended up canceling our dinner reservation.”
Instead, they walked into 7-Eleven, bought some pork buns, and went back to the house. Laura ran a bath, and Masami decided to postpone the proposal until the next day. “We both got in the bath together—a tiny bathtub in a tiny house on a little hill in south Kyoto,” Masami says. “I realized: This is the most relaxing and romantic moment for us, so I asked her to marry me. She was confused, I freaked out, I got out of the bath and grabbed the ring, opening the ring box with wet hands. I started to cry, so Laura finally realized I was actually asking her to marry me. She said yes.”
After the engagement, the wedding planning commenced. “We wanted all of our friends to be involved in our wedding because they are all so talented,” Masami says. “So we asked for everyone’s help, that was the first step.”
Home Studios in Union Square served as the location for their early June wedding, and the couple handled the majority of the planning themselves but leaned on Justine Broughal and Maryam Shariat Mudrick from Together Events to help coordinate final details six weeks before the wedding.
“We wanted a very New York wedding with touches of both of our backgrounds, English and Japanese,” Masami says. Flower artist Kana Togashi from Saffron, who does the bouquets for Vacancy Project each week, agreed to oversee florals for the wedding, and luckily, Laura’s best friend Katie Kimmel also happened to be taking on a fun nighttime craft making paper flowers. “When seeing these, we knew we needed them to be a large part of the florals, so Kana and Katie worked their magic in creating beautiful, almost illustrative bouquets,” Masami says.
Laura knew early on that she wanted her friend Sandy Liang to make her dress. “Her vision and unique design is always flawless,” she explains. “We started off by sharing inspiration images—a lot of Renaissance paintings and French ’60s dresses.” Sandy and her team immediately understood the vision and sketched up the perfect dress.
The bride knew she didn’t want to wear white, so they went for a light pink instead. The team also unanimously agreed on a pink veil. “I wanted it to be sweet and charming, which it was,” Laura says. “My mum found my Manolo Blahnik white slingback pumps on The RealReal and later on in the night I changed into a pair of Sleeper flat satin shoes. My friend Susan Alexandra had recently launched her bridal collection, so we added some beautiful beaded bow clips to the shoes, which were a fun, personal touch that I will cherish forever. Lastly, I wore my grandma’s diamond hoop earrings—something borrowed.”
Akina Shimizu did Laura’s makeup, and Sonny Molina did her hair. “I trust Sonny endlessly, they just get it!” she says. “We didn’t do any practices with my hair or makeup, they both just know me and what I like, which was really comforting and fun.”
Masami wore a custom suit by Peter Do. “He is an Asian-queer designer, and I am a big fan of his work,” Masami says. “I told him that wearing his suit for my wedding was my dream, and I would like to purchase one from his collection, and he immediately said, ‘I will design a custom suit for you.’ When I went to the fitting at his studio, I felt so cute, and I felt like myself. It was a very gender-neutral and edgy design.”
On the day of the wedding, the ceremony was intimate—short and sweet. Once guests were seated, live music by Isle of Klezbos started to play. “They’re a very East Village, queer Jewish band, and we chose to walk down the aisle to ‘Till There Was You’ by The Beatles,” Masami says. The couple’s close friend Christine Lee officiated the wedding, and she walked in first, followed by Masami and Laura’s mom Gaby Longhi Chautin, hand-in-hand, and then Laura and her dad Lee Chautin following.
The couple shared their vows, and Laura made a joke about how when she first met Masami, they told Laura that they learned English from Simon Cowell. From then on, Laura knew Masami was her soulmate. Masami described their first date and the awkward language barrier that led to an immediate spark and desire to hang out every day.
“[During the service,] I felt completely at-ease,” Laura says. “I had been prepping myself to feel like a complete nervous wreck, but I actually was so calm and happy.”
“I looked at the guests and immediately thought, ‘Wow, everybody looks fabulous!” Masami says. “And, this is the most stylish and gay wedding ever!’”
The ceremony ended with a celebratory breaking of glass and a recessional walk to “L-O-V-E” by Nat King Cole.
