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The Bohemian Embassy, Cambridge, MA (2026)

09/29/2026

The Bohemian Embassy Weddings Book I, Ch. IV: The Gown

♥️

There are very few moments left in modern life when an ordinary person gets to dress ceremonially (too few, IMO), to wear something gloriously impractical because the occasion calls for it. A fifteen-foot train has no utility! But ritual has never been concerned with utility.

Of course, a wedding is a special kind of transformational ritual: ceremony that holds a rite of passage. Anthropologist Arnold van Gennep described these rites in three parts: separation, a liminal period in between, then incorporation into a new self. Across cultures, ceremonial dress makes that inner change visible.

For me, after 44 unmarried years, this was a BIG transformation. Big big. (The first line of BOTH my wedding speeches was, “They said it couldn’t be done.” That’s how big my commitment issues were!) So I went big-big with my gown.

It took almost a year to find. I wanted the archetypal ball gown, enormous & timeless, grand enough for Widener’s marble & monumental scale. I searched Chicago, Boston, LA & New York before finding The Atelier Official (by Jimmy Choo) at Bridal Reflections. I loved the voluminous satin skirt & 15ft train, but simplified the bodice: strapless, with detachable off-the-shoulder sleeves for the ceremony. I designed a custom veil & added elbow-length opera gloves by Cornelia James.

The finished concoction was so big-big that I couldn’t do much without help. My bridesmaids had to arrange me inside the gown, carry the train & eventually unleash me from its satin confines. Between the corset, heat, nerves & sheer weight, I was so worried about fainting that I brought smelling salts. (Which I actually used!)

But all of that was a feature, not a bug. The more unlike ordinary life this day became, the more meaning it held. Even needing other women, sisters I have loved for years, to support me felt symbolic: we do not cross the great thresholds of life alone.

The gown changed how I felt: I felt like a BRIDE. And it kept bringing me back to what I *most* wanted to remember: “This is a wild & sacred day that will never come again.”

♥️

Follow the story on TheBohemianEmbassy.com

09/28/2026

The Bohemian Embassy Weddings Book I - Chapter III: The Wedding Morning

♥️

I woke up at 7 a.m. The weather had been miraculously taken care of (thanks to my frantic prayer & a strategically placed rosary, perhaps?), but I was nervous. Like, really nervous. Like probably-should-have-taken-a-beta-blocker nervous.

Still, I loved waking up at home on our wedding morning. My bridesmaids filled the bedrooms, bouquets and decorations arrived from the florist, makeup artists crowded into the pink-monkey-wallpapered kitchen, and my unbelievably cheesy ’80s-baby-playlist played over the Sonos. (If you can’t play cheesy love songs on your wedding morning, when can you play them?)

The whole house felt like the getting-ready montage from Father of the Bride, which was exactly my goal.

Why was I so nervous? I don’t know. Twenty years of expectations, probably. I had dreamt of this day since I was eight years old. The feminist in me winces slightly at that sentence, but the truth is that I was raised on equal parts Disney & Ms. magazine. I always wanted happily ever after … who doesn’t!? But I wanted it on my own terms. (I did not, for example, take Noah’s last name when we married.)

It turns out you can be both a feminist and also very, very, very excited for your wedding.

I hadn’t expected it to take until 39 to find Noah, or until 44 to marry him. The long engagement was admittedly my doing; it turns out that planning two weddings while getting a master’s degree is tricky! I had wanted, so intensely & for so long, to find my life partner, my soulmate, and yes, to have the fairy-tale wedding.

Now it was all here, actually happening & my psyche could barely absorb it. Despite my best efforts to stay in my body, I struggled to be fully present.

Eventually, my bridesmaids laced me into 30 lbs of gown, arranged the 15-foot train & got me out of the house. We were very, very late.

My childhood best friend Natasha rode w me to the library as “Going to the Chapel” played. We arrived, bridesmaids waving, crowd cheering. My ♥️ exploded.

As I climbed the steps, I turned to the crowd & shouted: “TRUE LOVE IS POSSIBLE!” (It is.)

Follow the story at TheBohemianEmbassy.com

09/22/2026

The Bohemian Embassy Weddings Book I: The Harvard Library Wedding Album ♥️

It’s not an exaggeration to say that I had been dreaming about my wedding for 30 years. (The benefit of waiting a very, very long time to get married, as I did.)

But I never knew what said nuptials would look like, outside of a few elements: a truly enormous gown (check!), a classically beautiful location (check!), a reception that had a sweet backyard-wedding-at-home feel to it (check!)

I also wanted a wildly colorful, maximalist, syncretic, Burning Man sort of fête! After fruitlessly trying to fit it all into one experience, & I opted for divide & conquer.

So, over nearly 3 years, while also getting my master’s degree (a combo I do not recommend!!), I planned two weddings: a tiny, formal ceremony at home for us & our closest friends & family, then, six weeks later, a five-day, fully Bohemian celebration for 140 friends in Bali.

On June 15, 2025, we became the first couple ever (!) to be married in Harvard’s Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library in its 110-year history. Of course, it’s a bit on the nose for a Harvard professor to get married in Harvard’s library, but I liked that. Sapiosexual romance! 😘

The vision was dark academia meets classic “Father of the Bride” vibes: the latter at the backyard reception at our home, The Bohemian Embassy, where I wore my mother’s 1978 wedding gown, unaltered in any way. 🥹For the library ceremony, I chose an ivory satin gown, customized by Atelier by Professor Jimmy Choo, with a 10-foot train & 13.5-foot veil.

Senator Cory Booker, Noah’s close friend since their days as Rhodes Scholars at Oxford 30 years ago, officiated, assisted by Rabbi Jessica Kate Meyer. Cory’s speech-sermon was pure poetic genius. My middle name is Rainbow, and he connected God’s rainbow covenant with Noah, James Baldwin’s interpretation of the rainbow sign in The Fire Next Time, and his own idea of alchemical fire as the essence of love: that which transmutes and creates.

The day was so sweet, so intimate. Just magic.

Featured in Town & Country, online now, in print this fall.
Vendors on next slides 🌹

09/01/2026

The Bohemian Embassy Weddings�Book I, Ch. IV: The Gown

♥️�

There are very few moments left in modern life when an ordinary person gets to dress ceremonially (too few, IMO), to wear something gloriously impractical because the occasion calls for it. A fifteen-foot train has no utility! But ritual has never been concerned with utility.�

Of course, a wedding is a special kind of transformational ritual: ceremony that holds a rite of passage. Anthropologist Arnold van Gennep described these rites in three parts: separation, a liminal period in between, then incorporation into a new self. Across cultures, ceremonial dress makes that inner change visible.�

For me, after 44 unmarried years, this was a BIG transformation. Big big. (The first line of BOTH my wedding speeches was, “They said it couldn’t be done.” That’s how big my commitment issues were!) So I went big-big with my gown.�

It took almost a year to find. I wanted the archetypal ball gown, enormous & timeless, grand enough for Widener’s marble & monumental scale. I searched Chicago, Boston, LA & New York before finding (by Jimmy Choo) at . I loved the voluminous satin skirt & 15ft train, but simplified the bodice: strapless, with detachable off-the-shoulder sleeves for the ceremony. I designed a custom veil & added elbow-length opera gloves by .�

The finished concoction was so big-big that I couldn’t do much without help. My bridesmaids had to arrange me inside the gown, carry the train & eventually unleash me from its satin confines. Between the corset, heat, nerves & sheer weight, I was so worried about fainting that I brought smelling salts. (Which I actually used!)�

But all of that was a feature, not a bug. The more unlike ordinary life this day became, the more meaning it held. Even needing other women, sisters I have loved for years, to support me felt symbolic: we do not cross the great thresholds of life alone.�

The gown changed how I felt: I felt like a BRIDE. And it kept bringing me back to what I *most* wanted to remember: “This is a wild & sacred day that will never come again.”

♥️� Follow the story on TheBohemianEmbassy.com

08/31/2026

The Bohemian Embassy Weddings
Book I - Chapter I: On Marrying in Harvard’s Widener Memorial Library

♥️

Everyone asks how we came to be the first couple married in the Library’s 110-year history.
The answer is below, in the words of my brilliant husband . It’s a love letter to Harry, libraries & impossible dreams being made (somehow) possible. Worth reading in its entirety at TheBohemianEmbassy.com
♥️

“I got married in Harvard’s Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library last year in the rotunda, the place where Harry dwells. The marriage has changed who I am; the wedding has changed, and enhanced, my understanding of the library, and of Harry’s place in it and in my life.

Harry Elkins Widener was the promising young man, just out of college, who had died in the wreck of the Titanic, as had his father. His mother had built the library in his memory. Widener, who was graduated in the Class of 1907, had collected 3300 rare volumes by the time of his death in 1912.

After we became engaged, Julia and I conducted a kind of procession through the public spaces of Cambridge and Boston to see if any would match her senses of drama, beauty, grandeur, and uniqueness sufficiently to be suitable for a wedding. One or two came close. But the only place in either town that Julia deemed worthy of the wedding she envisioned was Widener; specifically, the rotunda.

Of course, there was, as in any good story, a substantial roadblock to be overcome. No weddings are permitted in Widener Library.
‘It’s my dream to marry you in Widener,’ Julia said to me. ‘But it’s not allowed,’ I replied. ‘I know! So we’ll just need to pray to Harry and manifest it,’ she insisted, completely undeterred.
And so it was that we got married in Widener Library. That is, in its essence, all you need to know to understand Julia and to understand our relationship.

The library is Harry’s temple, architecturally and spiritually. He lives at its beating heart. What a place to join with my beloved Julia in a life that incorporates what is, learns from what has been said and known and asked, and strives to create for the future.”

♥️ More on TheBohemianEmbassy.com

08/18/2026

The Bohemian Embassy Weddings Book I: The Harvard Library Wedding Album ♥️
It’s not an exaggeration to say that I had been dreaming about my wedding for 30 years. (The benefit of waiting a very, very long time to get married, as I did.)

But I never knew what said nuptials would look like, outside of a few elements: a truly enormous gown (check!), a classically beautiful location (check!), a reception that had a sweet backyard-wedding-at-home feel to it (check!)

I also wanted a wildly colorful, maximalist, syncretic, Burning Man sort of fête! After fruitlessly trying to fit it all into one experience, & I opted for divide & conquer.
So, over nearly 3 years, while also getting my master’s degree (a combo I do not recommend!!), I planned two weddings: a tiny, formal ceremony at home for us & our closest friends & family, then, six weeks later, a five-day, fully Bohemian celebration for 140 friends in Bali.

On June 15, 2025, we became the first couple ever (!) to be married in Harvard’s Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library in its 110-year history. Of course, it’s a bit on the nose for a Harvard professor to get married in Harvard’s library, but I liked that. Sapiosexual romance! 😘

The vision was dark academia meets classic “Father of the Bride” vibes: the latter at the backyard reception at our home, The Bohemian Embassy, where I wore my mother’s 1978 wedding gown, unaltered in any way. 🥹For the library ceremony, I chose an ivory satin gown, customized by Atelier by Professor Jimmy Choo, with a 10-foot train & 13.5-foot veil.

Senator Cory Booker, Noah’s close friend since their days as Rhodes Scholars at Oxford 30 years ago, officiated, assisted by Rabbi Jessica Kate Meyer. Cory’s speech-sermon was pure poetic genius. My middle name is Rainbow, and he connected God’s rainbow covenant with Noah, James Baldwin’s interpretation of the rainbow sign in The Fire Next Time, and his own idea of alchemical fire as the essence of love: that which transmutes and creates.

The day was so sweet, so intimate. Just magic.
Featured in Town & Country, online now, in print this fall.

08/17/2026

The Bohemian Embassy Weddings
Book I - Chapter II: The Invitation

♥️

I’ll confess: I wasn’t sure I wanted real paper invitations at all. What was the point? Everyone RSVPs online anyway. Surely they were a waste of money!

Reader, I was wrong.

My vision for our Library wedding was dark academia meets Father of the Bride: classical, traditional, elegant, & luxe the deliberate opposite of everything we would do in Bali. Deep crimson roses against white marble, an all-black, black-tie dress code. I wanted the invitations to reflect that same world.

Enter Frances Ledgewood of Ledgewood Fine Stationery the sweetest and most talented stationer I could have dreamt up.

The design began with our crest, which our friend calebscrepnek spent months creating with me: Ganesha on the top, two Hanumans with sacred Balinese tedung, the hawk & the wolf, the unicorn & the fox, our initials quartered on the shield. The invitations marked its first formal appearance.

There was one catch. Gold on velvet is an unforgiving medium, and the full crest simply would not hold. So Frances’s team distilled the coat of arms into a simplified shield for the velvet reception card. They nailed it.

These were not merely invitations. They were works of art: thick white paper, crimson ribbon, gold engraving, wax seals bearing our crest. We keep one framed in our front hall.

The embarrassing truth? I didn’t send them until the last possible moment. In case any brides are thinking I had my s**t together: I did not.

If I could go back and do it all over again, I would begin with the real thing. An invitation is not merely an old-fashioned way to transmit information. It’s ART; the first act of hospitality & the first physical artifact of a gathering. Long before any guest arrives, the beauty you intend to create arrives in their hands. Something they can touch! Something with weight.

A gorgeous paper invitation sets the tone before a single guest arrives. And it changes the experience of everything that follows.

Sometimes Partiful just doesn’t cut it. 💌

♥️

Follow A Tale of Two Weddings The Bohemian Embassy

♥️

Styling & Photo: Peterson Photography and Design

08/17/2026

The Bohemian Embassy Weddings
Book I - Chapter I: On Marrying in Harvard’s Widener Memorial Library

♥️

Everyone asks how we came to be the first couple married in the Library’s 110-year history.

The answer is below, in the words of my brilliant husband Professor Noah Feldman . It’s a love letter to Harry, libraries & impossible dreams being made (somehow) possible. Worth reading in its entirety at TheBohemianEmbassy.com

♥️

“I got married in Harvard’s Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library last year in the rotunda, the place where Harry dwells. The marriage has changed who I am; the wedding has changed, and enhanced, my understanding of the library, and of Harry’s place in it and in my life.

Harry Elkins Widener was the promising young man, just out of college, who had died in the wreck of the Titanic, as had his father. His mother had built the library in his memory. Widener, who was graduated in the Class of 1907, had collected 3300 rare volumes by the time of his death in 1912.

After we became engaged, Julia and I conducted a kind of procession through the public spaces of Cambridge and Boston to see if any would match her senses of drama, beauty, grandeur, and uniqueness sufficiently to be suitable for a wedding. One or two came close. But the only place in either town that Julia deemed worthy of the wedding she envisioned was Widener; specifically, the rotunda.

Of course, there was, as in any good story, a substantial roadblock to be overcome. No weddings are permitted in Widener Library.

‘It’s my dream to marry you in Widener,’ Julia said to me. ‘But it’s not allowed,’ I replied. ‘I know! So we’ll just need to pray to Harry and manifest it,’ she insisted, completely undeterred.

And so it was that we got married in Widener Library. That is, in its essence, all you need to know to understand Julia and to understand our relationship.

The library is Harry’s temple, architecturally and spiritually. He lives at its beating heart. What a place to join with my beloved Julia in a life that incorporates what is, learns from what has been said and known and asked, and strives to create for the future.

♥️ More on The Bohemian Embassy

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