Diotima Designer Rachel Scott and Chaday Emmanuel Scott’s Brooklyn Wedding Was a Love Letter to Their Caribbean Roots
Rachel Scott, the fashion designer, founder, and creative director behind the ready-to-wear brand Diotima, first met Chaday Emmanuel Scott in September 2021 at an event for ConnekJa, the grassroots organization, resource center, and safe space for the LGBTQIA+ community in Jamaica and worldwide that they cofounded and operate. The event brought together creatives in the Caribbean diaspora to learn more about ConnekJa and the work they are doing on the ground in Jamaica, over a dinner by DeVonn Francis of Yardy World. “The only way I can describe this first encounter is love at first sight,” Rachel says. “There was an instant attraction and magnetism between us.”
After the dinner, everyone went to Le Bain at the Standard. “I was so confused and overwhelmed by the new emotions I was experiencing I tried to slip out without anyone noticing,” Rachel remembers. “Chaday noticed and intercepted me at the door. We exchanged contact information and what ensued was a months-long courting where we would travel to visit each other, as Chaday was based in Kingston, Jamaica, and I was in New York.”
In the summer of 2023, Rachel was invited to Palm Heights in Grand Cayman to celebrate the opening of a boutique called Dolores, where her brand Diotima is stocked, and she, Chaday, and a group of friends traveled down to Grand Cayman together. “As the weekend festivities were in full swing, Chaday asked me to follow them up to our suite for a small surprise,” Rachel remembers. “On our balcony, filled with gorgeous tropical floral arrangements, overlooking the Caribbean Sea while Grace Jones’s ‘La Vie en Rose’ played from the beach, Chaday proposed to me at sunset. [Afterwards,] my friends emerged from the room to join us and celebrate, and everyone on the beach cheered from below, friends and hotel guests alike.” What was meant to be a Diotima and Palm Heights weekend celebration, also became an impromptu engagement party. In September of 2023, on the couple’s two-year anniversary, they were staying in a suite at the Rockaway Hotel, Rachel took Chaday up to the roof and surprised them with a small group of friends—and a proposal back to them.
The couple had a springtime civil ceremony at City Hall, with two close friends in attendance, and then celebrated with cocktails at Nine Orchard and dinner at King. (A much larger event took place earlier this month.) “Planning the wedding was not unlike planning a fashion show for me, or an event for Chaday,” Rachel says. “It was quick and all solidified in the days leading up to the wedding. I am not very traditional, while Chaday is a bit more traditional, so we wanted to find a good balance that included the elements that felt important during the ceremony, while still feeling true to the worlds we have both created. The event planning team SAA Brooklyn executed everything with such finesse.”
After the couple decided to get married, there was no question that Rachel would create the wedding looks for both of them. “I wanted to wear pieces that were entirely crafted by hand,” she says. “Having the energy and love of the people I collaborate with for Diotima was important for me.”
Her first look was a white and ecru starched crochet strapless gown that she wore with white Alaïa crystal embellished ballet slippers, white and black diamond drop earrings that her stylist Marika-Ella Ames loaned her, gold and silver rings that she borrowed from her mother, and a small evil eye amulet that her friend designer Burc Akyol made and affixed to her gown right before the ceremony.
Chaday wore a cream wool suit and white shirt that was pieced together with decorative hand stitching in white, with a black bolo tie, a gold bangle that her grandmother loaned to them, a vintage lapis and diamond ring that was a gift from Rachel, and black Prada brushed leather loafers. Meanwhile, their friend and collaborator Joey George did the couple’s hair. “I wanted my hair to feel like me, so he did a take on my classic hair look but better,” Rachel says. “And for Chaday, he did an asymmetrical look with five braids coming forward on one side.”
The ceremony took place at 6 p.m. on the top floor of 53 Scott in Brooklyn, with a full view of the city skyline on a spring evening. The unofficial dress code of the day was Diotima, with friends taking part in the ceremony all wearing the brand. Qween Jean, who officiated, wore a Hibiscus crystal mesh dress, while Rachel’s best friend who read during the ceremony wore a black macrame top with cascading fringe and a black crystal mesh skirt with a beaded fringe hem.
Rachel’s young nephew and ring bearer greeted everyone joyfully while walking down the aisle at the start of the ceremony. Chaday then walked down the aisle with her grandmother, and Rachel followed with her father to “Wisdom Eye” by Alice Coltrane. Qween Jean welcomed guests with words on love and community, while Chaday’s uncle Che Emmanuel and Rachel’s best friend Shinae Lee both read poems by Audre Lorde. “We wrote our own vows and both read a piece of poetry to each other,” Rachel says. “Chaday read a piece, again by Audre Lorde, and I read a piece by Angela Davis. It was a windy day and during our vows the wind picked up furiously—it was magical. I felt an incredible amount of joy and excitement, and the love in the room was oceanic.”
