Trinity Mouzon Wofford’s upstate wedding took place at Pitney Meadows, the local community farm in Saratoga Springs last fall. She wed her now-husband Issey Kobori-Hotchkiss (the couple founded the superfood and wellness brand Golde) while wearing a vintage white lace dress with a delicate pale green slip.
“I oscillated between ‘who cares, I’ll wear whatever’ and ‘Dear God, why didn’t I take this more seriously?!’—so much of what I decided was a leap of faith because I was pregnant and pulling the wedding together at the last minute,” she tells us.
Being pregnant while shopping for the big day definitely posed an interesting challenge, especially with a September 3 wedding date and a July 18 due date. After trying on dresses at Simone Rocha in SoHo when she was about five months along, she decided to take the plunge and just shop online instead. The first purchase was her vintage lace dress: “I figured if it didn’t work out for the wedding, I could still find something else.”
The finishing touch that really made her outfit shine was a last-minute decision, in an unconventional color. “I ordered the slip about a month out from the wedding,” she says. “I’d been sort of undecided about exactly how I would wear the lace dress. I saw Kamperett had this gorgeous silk slip in Chartreuse. I ordered it online at the eleventh hour and ended up loving the way it layered.”
Her bridal wardrobe also proved that it’s possible to maintain one’s personal style on a budget without compromising–especially if you shop secondhand. She scored the vintage floral lace dress for $217, the Kamperett short slip dress in chartreuse cost $350, and the Ofrenda Studio veil was $298. “While there’s nothing wrong with a great splurge, you don’t have to spend thousands on a dress to look elegant and beautifully bridal,” she says. “We preferred to put our budget toward the things that would either be shared or treasured for a lifetime, like food or photos.” As the wedding festivities came to a close, the bride was still wearing her veil: “It had beautiful little stars embroidered on it that everyone commented on,” she says.
Read on to shop Wofford’s top three bridal investments.
Lucia Zolea Vintage Floral Lace Puffed Sleeve Dress
Photo: Courtesy of Meredith Heuer