Since 2014, Susan Alexandra has made jewellery and bags for other people's big nights. For her own wedding, she designed a butter yellow gown.
She wore it on 29 August 2026 at Villa Magnan in Biarritz, where she married Andy Nahman. Vogue published the weekend in 77 photographs, captioned in her own words.
The gown was duchesse satin, scattered with rhinestone flowers and cherubs holding roses.
"The cherubs represented Andy and me, and the roses represented our ever-growing love," she says.
It was one of three looks, and the last one had a dog on it.
As a designer, she always knew she would make her own. She drew it, and specialists made it.
"Over the course of six months, Melissa and I worked with a patternmaker, a couturier, and master of embellishments to create The Dress and the after-party gown," she says. Melissa is her director of production.
The cherubs began on paper. "I sketched floating flowers and cherubs, and the artisans re-created the drawings with rhinestones."
The colour has a source too: "1930s Hollywood sirens and the sun", which she calls "two things I worship". The silhouette "was based on a gown from the 1930s."
Weddings, she writes, "feel like a portal to another time." While designing, she thought of "black-and-white photos of ancestors in gilded frames."
That thought became the veil. It was Edwardian in style and worn low, cut from "a yard of fabric I found balled up in an antiques shop in Connecticut."
The shop owner told her it was 60 years old, from a now-closed boutique on Madison Avenue. She has a shop on Madison Avenue herself, and called it *beshert*, Yiddish for meant to be.
Satin rosettes with beaded stamens hold it in place. Her friend Doria insisted on it: "When else in your life will you wear a veil?!"
For more veils worth the detour, see our iconic celebrity wedding veils.
The earrings were her own designs, Art Deco-inspired pearl drops and enamel pansies. The diamond tennis necklace was borrowed.
Even the shoes had a past: golden Manolo Blahnik kitten heels, found on The RealReal. In the lining of her sequinned bag, the artisan embroidered their names and wedding date as a surprise.
The couple met in March 2023, at writer Naomi Fry's birthday party in Brooklyn. Alison Roman, a close friend, was there that night.
Andy proposed in September 2025 outside the Matisse Chapel in Vence. The chapel was closed and the champagne flutes had broken in the boot, so he proposed on the kerb "as a few people looked on quizzically from a bus stop," Susan says.
Business Insider reported that he designed the ring himself: a 14-carat gold flower of rubies, rubellites and amethysts around a round diamond, with an emerald stem and leaves.
"It is the most fabulous thing I've seen, and by far, the most fancy thing I own," she said.
The weekend opened with a small train to the Biarritz lighthouse for Champagne at sunset. Dinner followed at Denen Kanttua, a Basque restaurant in Saint-Jean-de-Luz.
Susan wore a nude tulle and paillette Jenny Packham dress she found on Vinted, with vintage Beverly Feldman lucite heels. "Everyone asked if I designed the dress because it was so quintessentially me," she says.
Andy wore natural linen from Stoffa and chocolate suede loafers from Morjas.
On the table sat Pigeon, the couple's chihuahua, sculpted by a local artisan in French salted butter and served with radishes and bread. It was Andy's idea.
"I've never had a more delicious dog," Susan writes.
Roman officiated. She spoke "about how the colors of marriage deepen as time passes," Susan writes. "Here I am asking her if it's okay if we kiss. She was like, 'Do whatever you want!'"
The couple came down the villa staircase to live piano: Aphex Twin's "Avril 14th". The family who own the villa arranged the flower-covered chuppah, the canopy of a Jewish wedding.
Andy wore a custom deep brown Saman Amel suit, an RRL shirt and a vintage Hermès tie printed with tiny carrots and radishes, a birthday gift from Susan.
Villa Magnan, built between 1927 and 1931, sat empty for nearly 80 years before Anne and Jérôme Israël restored it, The Socialite Family reports. Now a guesthouse, it won the couple over partly with Hector, the donkey on its lawn.
Dessert was a pavlova "the size of a small country". Every guest took a spoon.
After dinner, the couple slipped back to their room. The sequinned dress she changed into came from the artisans who make Susan Alexandra jewellery and bags.
"I made this sequined dress, which was a manifestation of our future: a cottage with a garden, flowers, and butterflies," she writes.
Across the back, bedazzled, sat Pigeon.
Butter yellow is having a bridal moment. FashionUnited's FW27 bridal trends call it "a colour you can walk down the aisle in, too", and our 2026 wedding guest dress code had already tipped it for guests.
Her gown came from somewhere older.
Our verdict: the trend is real, but it is the smaller part of this gown. Look at what she chose around it: a 1930s silhouette, a veil from 60-year-old fabric, vintage heels on Friday and a vintage tie for the groom. The yellow belongs to that story first.
For more brides who went beyond white, our edit of coloured wedding gowns includes a light yellow ball gown by Andrew Kwon, and Micarah Tewers drew every one of her own looks.
Susan and Andy had the villa's own team and the producers Mathilde and Ann Charlotte of Sauce to run a weekend across two towns. Most couples marrying abroad build that team themselves, or hand it to Wedded Concierge.
She has spent twelve years making pieces for other people's big nights. On her own gown, the cherubs were Andy and her.
Written by
Content and Creative Manager | Wonder Group
Joseph Joshua is the SEO & Content Manager at Wedded Wonderland, bringing an editorial and search strategy perspective to the publication’s coverage of luxury weddings, destination celebrations and bridal lifestyle. His approach to content centres on helping readers move from inspiration to informed decisions, with attention to the design, craftsmanship and personal details that give a celebration its character.
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