The bride also put plenty of thought into her meaningful accessories, including a 17th-century French lace veil and moonstone and pearl earrings made by her family jeweler in Ann Arbor, Chris Petersen. Even her shoes—a pair of Maison Margiela Tabis—featured embellishments by Nadal.
Zoé met Colton, who wore a Dries Van Noten tuxedo, under a pillar of orange tulips and Queen Anne’s lace as a string quartet played “Merry-Go-Round of Life” from Hayao Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle—the first film they watched together in college. Her bridal party watched on in jewel-tone dresses inspired by the colors of Mexican architect Luis Barragán.
The bride describes their ceremony as peaceful and full of bliss. “I was so focused on Colton that I lost track of time,” she says. An emotional pinnacle came when their friend Alex read out a poem read by the couple’s favorite professor from Kenyon. “As undergrads, Colton and I had only taken one class together—titled ‘Meanings of Death,’ taught by poet and religious studies Professor Royal Rhodes. It was our last class at Kenyon, and meant the world to both of us,” Zoé says.
Afterwards, they held a cocktail hour on the lawn of The Madrona before dinner in the citrus grove. Guests entered through a curtained entrance by artist Karina Puente, which revealed six long tables adorned in pink florals and hurricane candles. Their stationer, Gates Paper Co., created place cards inspired by her great-great-grandfather’s Cartier watch designs. “Everything felt
cinematic but also deeply personal,” Zoé says of her reception. “We loved that about working with Ashley’s team—they knew how to dramatize and elevate the performative nature of the wedding without the artifice and grandiosity.” The emotional pinnacle came when Zoé’s bridesmaid, the Broadway actress Maya Boyd, performed an acoustic version of “Simply the Best.” It brought the bride—and many of the guests—to tears.
As the night grew later, it was time to party. Which they did: friends and family danced under a disco ball on The Madrona’s terrace as the bride changed into her second dress by Paula Nadal. Then, they went inside the Victorian mansion for late-night snacks, which included fried lumpia and brick oven pizza.
Just over half a year later, the couple describes their wedding as surreal. “It felt like a waking dream. There were family squabbles (as there always are), new friends meeting old ones, barefoot dancing, outfit changes upstairs in the mansion with my best friends—it was all so us,” Zoé says. “We are so grateful.”
