The Bride Wore a Velvet Cape and Rode in a Carriage for Her Wedding in Argentina
While we’re all currently social distancing and committed to mask wearing, this wedding took place before the coronavirus pandemic began. We hope it will bring some joy to your reading list.
Clément Le Coz was scouting interior designers’ houses for an event he was planning when he met Justina Socas in May of 2016. “It was a Saturday morning, and Clément was standing in front of my mother’s house,” Justina remembers. “I opened the front door, and it was love at first sight.” They had a date two weeks later at the Teatro Colón, where they attended the Dido and Aeneas opera, and then dined at Dada Bistro.
Three years after that first date, Clément got down on one knee in the middle of the Swiss Alps and proposed. “I remember he didn’t want to hug me before proposing as he was hiding the engagement ring, in a big red box, in his skiing jacket,” Justina recalls. After she said yes, they toasted over vin chaud at a Gstaad tavern to celebrate the special moment.
The couple decided early on that they wanted to get married at La Lucila, Buenos Aires, where Justina’s family has an estancia, or cattle ranch. (They’re early descendants of Justo José de Urquiza, the first constitutional president of Argentina in 1854.) “We both wanted to celebrate our wedding in the beautiful park designed a hundred years ago by botanist Charles Thays and share my childhood memories with friends,” Justina explains. “Argentina is about endless Patagonian landscapes, savory pieces of meat cooked over flames, elegant gauchos riding their horses throughout the pampa, and of course, the unique Buenos Aires city, an amazing melting pot of immigrants’ traditions coming from all over the country and all over the world. France, where Clément is from, is about detail-oriented culinary talents, ‘art de la table’ family traditions, beginning-of-the-century quaint houses lost in the middle of the countryside, and of course, Paris, the city of romantic bridges, coffee shops, and shops promoting local craftsmanship. All of these elements were part of the inspiration for our wedding.”
On March 7—one week before the whole world shut down because of the pandemic—Justina and Clément got married at Nuestra Señora de Fatima chapel in the small village of Juan Anchorena. Guests came from Argentina and France. “Women were sexy!” Justina jokes. “They wore hats, especially the French, and men were elegant in their dark blue suits. It was a hot day, and the priest arrived late! I wanted to get out of the car, but we had to stick with the scheduled ceremony. I was desperate to go to my entrance. When I arrived at the top of the stairs of the church, I think I ran instead of walking to Clément. I love him!”
The priest, an uncle of the bride’s, incorporated both Argentinean and French traditions. Clément carefully selected all of the hymns. “We wanted the ceremony to start with Ravel’s ‘Bolero,’ and I made my entrance to ‘The Mission,’ a composition by Ennio Morricone,” Justina remembers.
Justina never wanted to get married in white, so she went to Gino Bogani, an Italian-Argentinian couturier, for her wedding look. “I knew him through my mother who modeled for him in the ’80s,” she says. “My favorite color is green, and I had this idea of a poetic dress that could match the color of my eyes. I am an artist and an art historian so my inspiration for my dress took root in the Renaissance aesthetic and culture.” To complete the look, she wore a velvet cape and shoes by Aquazzura.
Justina and Clément both love unique objects and knew their wedding rings had to be special. “We came up with the idea of engraving our mixed fingerprints on the surface of each ring,” Justina says. “So we asked the artists Celina Saubidet and Marina Molinelli Wells from Cabinet Óseo to create them in red gold.”
