Inside a Marin County Wedding With Cheese Urns and Chanel
Ciao Lucia designer Lucy Akin approached her wedding to Luke Reyes like she would a photo shoot. “There was just a vibe and a look that I wanted to capture, and that was the most important to me,” she says of marrying the chef. “I didn’t want it to feel like an over-the-top extravaganza. I wanted it to feel a little more intimate, with backyard elements from both of our backgrounds that made sense and had a vintage vibe.”
They held the wedding in Lucy’s hometown of Tiburon, California, which is located outside of San Francisco, but featured a seafood tower that was a nod towards Luke’s Massachusetts upbringing. And, most importantly, they were able to incorporate their young daughter into the evening. “She got to sit with us at our table and got to be a part of the everything, which was so special,” Lucy says. Ultimately, the fun culture clashing of small-town Tiburon with Lucy and Luke’s artistic friends was one of the best parts. “I think the overall fun of the wedding was having all the creatives from L.A. and New York come to this small town,” Lucy says. “Tiburon had no idea what hit them. People with tattoos [were] walking around. There were people with cool haircuts, they were just like, what?”
The Venue
St. Hilary’s, where the ceremony took place, is no longer an active church, but rather a historical monument. Lucy loved that it was set on a hill, overlooking the bay. The reception was held at the Corinthian Yacht Club, where Lucy sailed with her father as a child. “It made complete sense to have it at the Yacht Club,” she says. “Aesthetically, it was exactly what I wanted with the sailing flags coming from the ceiling and the dark wood...it really felt cool and different.”
The Welcome Party
It was important to Lucy to keep the weekend streamlined and not too packed with events. On Friday, the couple held a welcome party at Sam’s Anchor Cafe. “It’s the place you go if you visit San Francisco—you take the ferry over and you get a seafood tower and it’s really pretty on the deck there,” she says. “That was a really fun night. We had a little jazz band playing [and served] appetizers. We also had really cute personalized napkins. A few people gave speeches and then thankfully it was over.” Lucy and Luke included several children in the wedding party and welcomed all of their caretakers to the Friday night event. “I had so many flower girls and ring bearers and all of their people could come—a grandmother flew in for the weekend to watch the baby when there wasn’t wedding stuff happening, they all got to come to it. That made it really fun.”
The Looks
Lucy didn’t have go on any bridal appointments, and instead kept her eye out for white dresses that she loved. “If I saw a white dress that I liked, I would just buy it. The Chanel dress that I wore for the actual wedding day I sourced on The RealReal, and I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw it. I just scooped it up immediately. I ended up adding lining to and altering it a bit to make it feel more elegant,” she says. “For [the] Friday night [look], I went to pretty much every vintage store in L.A. and tried on everything. I wanted to feel a little more camp—an ’90s Chanel moment. Thankfully, I found it: a 1992 Chanel dress that Linda Evangelista had worn down the runway.” She chose not to wear a second wedding day look, as changing it would have required her to step away from the wedding and potentially miss part of it.
Lucy’s friend Maurice Harris, whose has a floral design studio called Bloom & Plume in L.A., helped with her hair, in addition to assembling the flowers for the wedding. “My hair flowers needed a moment, because I had sent Maurice a picture of Princess Caroline of Monaco and her wedding in the ’70s,” she says. “I was like, ‘Just give me something like this. My hair will be down though, not up.’ And then he whipped out these crazy barrettes that luckily stayed in all night and smelled so good.”
The Inspiration
“Definitely The Graduate,” Lucy explains. “Specifically, that last scene where they’re in the back of the bus. Since I grew up in San Francisco, I wanted to pull in elements of Hitchcock movies and women driving up the coast and kind of capture that.”
The Flowers
“[Maurice is] a really fun personality and he just took over that church,” Lucy adds. “I told him, ‘Go off. Do whatever you want, just make it insane.’ The woman who worked at the church was like, ‘I’ve never seen anything like this before.’ She was just spiraling. I think that was my favorite moment: the church and everyone set up and standing for us to come out of it all the way down the stairs that have been there for 200 years.”
The Ceremony
The service was short, but sweet. “The church was just so special and cool,” Lucy says. “They even had these needlepoint pillows on the pews featuring different California wildflowers. That was a total surprise to us.”
They had seven flower girls and two ring bearers, and watching them make their way down the aisle was a highlight.
The Reception
After the ceremony, guest took shuttles from the church to the Yacht Club. Lucy loved that moving between events allowed guests to see more of Tiburon’s beauty. The party had plenty of caviar and seafood and big cheese urns that people could break off and eat.
“We had a big band, Big Moon Band, and then after the big band, Pop Rocks, a fun band that I completely micromanaged with my personalized playlist,” Lucy admits. “They probably wanted to kill me, but everyone had so much fun. I made them perform an Italo Disco song. And then everything was over by 11!”
The welcome party was held at Sam’s Anchor Cafe, which is located the water and has views of the San Francisco skyline.
Lucy wore a Chanel dress from 1992 to the welcome party.
The bride’s hometown of Tiburon.
Lucy’s hometown of Tiburon.
Lucy with her daughter.
Lucy with her daughter.
Chanel slingbacks featuring a camellia embellishments.
Lucy’s beautiful Chanel slingbacks had a grosgrain toe and camellia embellishments.
Maurice Harris transformed the church.
Maurice Harris transformed the church.
The pews had pillows embroidered with California’s state flowers.
The flower girls leading the way.
The church pews had pillows embroidered with California’s state flowers.
The flower girls led the way.
Just married!
Just married!
Lucy and Luke with family members.
Lucy and Luke with family members.
The couple and their champagne tower.
Lucy and Luke had fun with the champagne tower.
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