This Fashion Editor Bride Carried a Sugar Flower Bouquet for Her Chicago Wedding
Los Angeles traffic is rarely seen as a positive thing, yet it was the surprising catalyst for love between fashion editor Rachel Besser and jewelry designer David Marley Perry. The two first connected through a friend in April 2021 when they both were living in LA. “I was temporarily based there while working as a fashion editor at Vogue and was researching new jewelry brands for a story,” explains Rachel, who now is the associate fashion director at Wall Street Journal Magazine. “David and I first met on the roof of my building at Villa Carlotta and became friends, looking out for each other in the industry before anything more developed.”
Not long after, Rachel had a plus-one to a Reese Cooper fashion show and invited David to join her. David offered to drive—unaware that they would need to spend hours in the mountains getting there. “Trapped in traffic, we figured we’d make good friends," says Rachel. “At the time, we were both seeing other people, so neither of us thought about it as anything more than that. A family friend once joked, ‘Just keep getting out in traffic and you’ll meet your person.’ In a way, that’s exactly what we did.”
Almost two-and-a-half years after their first meeting, Rachel and David would get engaged in Rachel’s hometown of Chicago. “My family is very close, and David had the foresight to include my mom, dad, sister, and brother in the setup,” notes Rachel. “He told me we needed to meet one of his best clients, who was supposedly flying in to pick up a tennis necklace as a Christmas gift for his wife. He even carried the decoy necklace with him, so I was completely unsuspecting when we opened the hotel room door to find candles everywhere, arranged by my parents and siblings.” David proposed with a ring he designed himself with a vintage European stone. “I had not weighed in at all even though I am a control freak. It is his business, and he nailed it,” says Rachel.
After the proposal, the newly engaged couple headed across the street for dinner at RL Restaurant, where Rachel’s family was waiting. “When we walked in, the entire restaurant stood and clapped, a gesture that was both mortifying and unforgettable,” she remembers. The night finished with a final surprise: the bride’s childhood friends and their spouses were waiting back at her parents’ house to celebrate with Champagne.
Rachel and David decided to return to the location of the proposal for their wedding at the Chicago Cultural Center on May 2, 2025. “When we finally settled on Chicago, we wanted a venue that felt historic but also like a place we could shape into something of our own,” says the bride. Complete with a Tiffany dome and mosaics, the 1897-built venue is a significant structure in the city s history. “My family is fiercely proud of our Chicago roots, so we wanted a venue that felt unmistakably of the city,” notes Rachel. “The choice also carried its own symbolism: At the time, David had just been named a finalist for the Tiffany Co. CFDA Award, which made the setting feel both meaningful and perfectly timed."
Rather than a standard Saturday wedding, the couple wanted to “turn the usual wedding weekend on its head.” They began with the wedding on a Friday evening “so there was no holding back” and continued the energy into a huge day party at the bride’s childhood home. “Our family gatherings are famously unrestrained, and holidays often end with someone, even my mom, dancing on the countertops,” says Rachel. “We wanted that same unruly joy to define the wedding.” The couple admits they had some wild ideas aesthetically, but didn’t want the wedding to feel too “of-the-moment” or caught in the latest Instagram trend cycle. Working with Chicago-based planner Rachel De Marte and the bride’s cousin, curator and creative director Alexander May, allowed them to find that perfect balance of timelessness and originality. One big choice the couple made for the wedding day, however? Creating an all-black dress code for guests. “The idea was to neutralize any outfit that might compete with the room itself. Guests teased me by quoting the invitation back, but it worked,” says the bride.
For her wedding day attire, Rachel notes that she manifested working with Danielle Frankel. “She doesn’t know this, but when her first collections dropped—long before I ever worked at Vogue—I remember thinking that if I ever got married, she was the one who could understand what I would want to wear,” she says. “I never really imagined the wedding itself, but her work felt like it rewrote what bridal could be and where the industry could go, and I admired that from the beginning.” At first, the bride attempted to find a vintage piece so she could wear a gown that felt singular. “Meeting with Danielle gave me that same sense of rarity, only it felt entirely my own,” she explains.
Frankel pitched a modular outfit complete with a corset, a sheer crinkled chiffon blouse, and a chiffon column skirt wrapped at the waist. “It was essentially my version of a three-piece suit,” adds Rachel. For dancing, the designer made an additional shirt with more weight to it that could be paired with a mini version of the column skirt without the corset. “I remember my mom telling me the story of Ali Larter’s wedding, where her skirt was cut off mid-reception and—if I remember correctly—tossed into the fire. I wanted a control freak’s version of that,” says Rachel. “A few guests asked how I had managed to shorten my skirt so quickly, but the truth is she had made me another one.” She paired the set with Frankel’s Ida pumps in ivory satin. “They had an architectural quality that gave the look the edge, and the team was kind enough to let me buy the sample pair even though the shoe wasn’t out yet,” says the bride. For jewelry, she wore her fiancé’s designs, including diamond studs, her engagement ring, and her wedding band.
For beauty, Rachel worked with makeup artist Shannon O’Brien. “I rarely wear makeup, but she made me feel like myself—only better,” notes the bride. Jessica Pintia, who has done her family’s hair for years, helped with her coif. “She stayed all night, fixed everything, helped me change, and even ushered people in and out of photos,” shares Rachel. “Though I didn’t have bridesmaids, she felt like one.”
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