Roller Discos and ’70s Music Videos Were the Inspiration for This Wedding in L.A.
While we’re all currently social-distancing and committed to mask wearing, this wedding took place in the months before the coronavirus pandemic began. We hope it will bring some joy to your reading list.
These days, Dani Nelson Smith manages e-commerce customer service for a sustainable fashion brand in L.A., but once upon a time she worked as the “door girl” at a music venue in her hometown of Minneapolis. For reasons that are still unclear, her now husband Cole Smith decided to leave Manhattan one summer and live in Minneapolis the summer she happened to have that gig. “He says he would go to the venue all of the time and talk to his friends about why a 19-year-old girl was working there and make up stories about who I was,” Dani says. “About a year later, I spotted him at a music festival in Austin and thought he was pretty cute.”
They kept running into each other, and became friends on social media. Then about six years later, they finally went on their first date when he was in L.A.—the city she had ultimately moved to—for a show with his band, DIIV. “Our first date was playing mini golf in the valley, followed by drinks in Chinatown where I lived,” Dani remembers. “We were pretty much dating from then on, and shortly after, he moved to L.A. to be with me!”
Three years later, they had purchased an engagement ring at Erica Weiner in New York, so Dani knew a proposal was coming, just not when. A trip to New York City to visit his family was on the horizon, and about a week beforehand, one of Dani’s friends texted her saying: “It’s going to happen in NYC! Be ready.” “Then a couple of days before the trip, I was walking into our place from a workout, and the second I opened the door, he was standing right there holding flowers,” Dani says. “I could see behind him that he had set the table and made dinner, and then he got down on one knee and proposed.”
Shortly after the engagement, they were on a walk near their house when they saw the new location for the Bob Baker Marionette Theater. “It’s an L.A. institution,” Dani says. “We peeked our heads in and asked if they held events, and they said yes! We knew we wanted something fun, weird, and even kind of tacky. We’ve been to so many beautiful, perfect weddings, but we kind of just wanted something that felt more comfortable and at-ease.”
The Bob Baker needed zero decorating. “It’s wild in there,” Dani says. “Very Disneyland meets David Lynch meets ’60s children’s television.” Since they wanted to keep everything in their neighborhood of Highland Park, they decided to have their reception a block down from the theater at the Hi Hat music venue.
Both the ceremony and reception spaces didn’t have much natural light, so the couple knew they needed to have high flash photos at their wedding. “We found our photographer Bradley through a mutual friend,” Dani says. “From there, I realized nothing looks better in flash than tinsel.”
The inspiration was Andy Warhol’s Factory, Studio 54, roller discos, and ’70s music videos. Local vendors and friends were used as much as possible to pull it all together. “Our friend Katrina Urton did our flowers,” Dani says. “We wanted to stick to the wedding colors of red, burnt orange, mustard yellow, and hot pink. We added a lounge of random old furniture from Collective Rentals and put ferns everywhere. Last minute, I had Katrina spray paint the fern pots neon pink. They looked great.”
For her own look, Dani tried on a few traditional wedding dresses, but couldn’t find exactly what she was hoping for. “I kept thinking of 2018 Gucci, circa Lana at the Grammys, and the ‘Heavenly Bodies’ exhibit at the Met Gala. I saw a photo of this 2018 Gucci gown and thought of it as inspiration, knowing I could not afford a Gucci dress. But, I kept thinking about it and thought it couldn’t hurt to just ask.” Lo and behold, there was one left in her size at the Gucci outlet in Chicago at half-price. It felt like fate, and even though Dani hadn’t tried it on and there was a strict no return policy, she ordered it on a whim. “The second my mom and I pulled it out of the box and saw the crystals sparkling, we knew it was the one. The ivory tone and the shape was perfect for our loose ’70s theme, and the sparkles were definitely disco.”
An organ player set the scene for the ceremony on February 9th. “We wanted the ceremony to really create the mood for the rest of the day and have people realize they could get weird and let loose,” Dani explains. “The organ sounded so spooky and strange and for sure set the tone.” After a marionette show, the curtain opened, revealing Cole and their friend and officiant Ryan. “We feel so grateful we were able to have our wedding before the COVID situation got really bad,” Dani says. “We’ve had friends who have had to postpone their weddings, and it’s totally heartbreaking. Our hearts go out to anyone who has had to cancel or postpone.”
Dani wanted to surprise Cole with the song she walked down the aisle to, so she kept it a secret throughout the planning process. “We didn’t have a ‘first look,’ so it was his first time taking it all in,” she says. “I walked down the aisle to Bjork’s rendition of ‘Like Someone in Love.’ He said when he heard it begin, he immediately broke down and ‘felt like he was hallucinating.’”
After a minute of the music playing, Dani’s mom and dad escorted her down the aisle. “Our officiant Ryan did a wonderful job,” Dani says. “He laughed and cried. So do we. And from what I’ve been told so did everyone else. Cole and I have been through a lot, and Ryan really found a way to put it all into words but keep it fun.”
