Enjoying a bit of serendipity, my friend Debora Ott shared with me about her daughter Alice’s wedding dress selection. The bride-to-be, who lives in New York City, had her gown made by designer Mary Adams, a dressmaker on the Lower East Side in an area where Alice often walked when she was a college student visiting her big sister. “While strolling past the designer’s store front window,” Debora shared, “Alice declared that she was going to have her wedding dress made there one day.” The ironic twist is that Debora found her “second wedding costume” strolling past a neighborhood shop window in Atlanta and then had it refashioned to wear for Alice’s wedding several years later.

Mother and daughter walked down the aisle together, Debora escorting Alice in the Jewish family tradition honoring their heritage.

Alice’s designer gown was a frothy, yet sophisticated bit of while silk wonder with a ballet bodice and pink undertone in the skirt that gave it a dreamy afterglow. Her accessories were gifts of love. Debora’s husband Grey—“Alice has his heart,” Debora said of the relationship of her husband and his stepdaughter—had a special pendant made for her with a pear-shaped, pink rubellite tourmaline. And Alice’s jeweled band headpiece was a gift from Debora’s mother, Miriam Ott, who now lives in Atlanta to be near her only daughter. Debora had a pink sapphire ring made for Alice, who loves pink, which was offset with tiny diamonds that had once been her grandmother’s.

Returning Home
Alice and Dan’s wedding was in Buffalo, New York where Alice was born and grew up. “It just felt right to have it there,” Debora said of Alice’s decision. Debora had been a single working mother with two young girls during the 1980’s. She shared that it was the support of this lovely and close-knit community that brought workability into the not so easy single-parent life. Debora and her daughters share an intimate bond that is reflected in the deep connection with the community there.

Staying open to more serendipity, both mother and daughter made choices for Alice’s wedding with ease and grace. “In Buffalo, it’s very much a matter of ‘two degrees of separation’ for us,” Debora acknowledged. One person would introduce them to the next ‘just right’ choice in putting all the pieces of the wedding planning puzzle together. (Like Alice admiring art photographs on a friend’s wall for years and unbeknownst to her, this artist was the same man who became her wedding photographer!)

For another bit of close connection, the young minister who married Alice and Dan was the son of friends of the family and also a former school mate of Alice’s older sister Sabina.

Returning Home
Although she had originally wanted a garden wedding, Alice had an immediate affinity for the Trinity Episcopal Church in downtown Buffalo. As soon as she walked in, she browsed the bookstore inside the church feeling a resonance with the selections there. With its Tiffany and LaFarge stained glass windows and 19th century stonework, it was a rich, regal setting for the wedding.

The bride & groom under the canopy of stars.

Both Debora and Alice continued to be tuned in to their intuitive nature. “I purchased the fabric for the chuppah in Atlanta,” Debora explained, “and then I bought trim and designed the canopy in Buffalo. Separate and apart from my efforts, Dan’s brother Adam cut saplings for the four posts from land belonging to his family in the Adirondacks. He then found four granite blocks at a quarry in New Hampshire for the foundation and it all came together perfectly as though he and I had made a precise plan for its construction!”

The fabric Debora used for the chuppah had silver stars on the underside, so Alice and Dan got married ‘under the stars’ after all, beneath a heavenly canopy—just like what one would expect on such a magical evening. Like relationships, weddings become even more beautiful when we follow our intuitive wisdom, trust the heart’s voice, and allow the flow of life to speak its language of deep connection. A connection that has mysterious depth and breadth for mothers and daughters—along with lots of fun attention to “just the right costume.”

PHOTOGRAPHS BY: Brandon Bannon
TEXT BY: Cornelia Powell

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