Successfully getting through Covid-19 lockdown together was what really cemented the deal for Bianca Turetsky and Peter Bach. “We saw one another at our best, our worst, our frightened, and our typical,” says Bianca, author of a series of YA books called The Time-Traveling Fashionista. “It was more of an inevitability than a moment: if we could spend that intense period together non-stop, and still find ourselves laughing and enjoying being with each other, it meant we should just keep being together.”
For their September 2021 wedding, the couple returned to the site of their first date: the Beekman in downtown Manhattan. Both ceremony and reception took place alfresco, on the rooftop of the hotel’s penthouse suites. While they adhered to certain traditions—the bride had her something old, new, borrowed, and blue, for instance—they eschewed others. “We didn’t have a first dance. Or a cake cutting. Some of the more old fashioned wedding traditions didn’t resonate with us,” says Peter, a physician and health policy researcher at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and T&C contributor who, in 2011, wrote a widely read series in the New York Times chronicling his late wife Ruth’s breast cancer diagnosis and treatment.
“We wanted our wedding to be the kind of NYC dinner party we love: wine, great music, wonderful food, endless conversation. We just modified that format by dropping a 10 minute pop-up wedding into the middle of the cocktail hour.”
The Proposal
The couple met on the dating app Hinge. “We first fell in love with each other’s writing,” Peter says. Their first date started with drinks at the Beekman hotel, which then progressed to dinner at Augustine (which has since shuttered due to the pandemic), and ended at the Donut Pub. After three years, during which they made it through Covid-19 quarantine together at home in Sag Harbor—with a teenage son and 12-pound Schnoodle, no less—the couple got engaged in October 2020, on Peter’s birthday.
The Dress
“I had a hard time finding a dress I loved,” Bianca says. “In a stroke of good fortune, my cousin Jackie had an extra Vera Wang wedding dress hanging in her closet she bought at a sample sale over ten years ago which I had refitted at Madame Paulette by an incredible tailor who used to work for Halston.” For the reception, the bride changed into a short Valentino dress she found the week before on TheRealReal. “I think the only new thing I was wearing were my blue Loeffler Randall pleated heels,” she says.
The Details
“I knew I wanted to incorporate lots of the “something old” part of the tradition,” Bianca says. Along with her two dresses that fit the bill, there was her engagement ring, a 1920s heirloom. As for her “something borrowed”? A French Art Deco diamond bracelet and circle choker, both on loan from their wedding officiant Patti Belinger (who was the maid of honor at Peter’s first wedding to his late wife Ruth). The aforementioned Loeffler Randall shoes checked off both the “something new” and “something blue” boxes.
The Groom
Peter found a midnight blue Jil Sander suit on TheRealReal, which he paired with Berluti sneakers, a wedding gift from his brother.
The Ceremony
The chuppah under which Bianca and Peter were married was lent to the couple by their friends. It had been made by the late artist Frank Moore. In lieu of bridesmaids and groomsmen, the pair walked out together to “Here Comes My Girl” by Tom Petty. “Our guests were family by blood and family by choice, all who had been in our lives for eons. They were all our groomsmen, bridesmaids, and witnesses, all at once,” Peter says.
The Venue
The Beekman hotel, where Bianca and Peter had their first date four years ago, was the natural choice. They opted for a Covid-safe alfresco affair that took place on the rooftop of the property’s penthouse suites. Jeff Stillwell of Stillwell Events was their wedding planner, while invitations, menus, and escort cards were created by Schuyler Polk of Polk Paper.
The Reception
Tom Colicchio masterminded a dinner menu with dishes like heirloom tomato salad, King Kampachi crudo, Berkshire pork cheek, glazed lobster, and a strawberry shortbread parfait for dessert. “A lot of my friends said they didn’t end up eating at their weddings—I definitely did not have that problem,” Bianca says.
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