This Fairy-Tale Wedding at the Bride’s Family Home on Martha’s Vineyard Was Filled With Blush Pink Hues and Quatrefoil Accents

A decision regarding where to have the wedding was just as seamless. Chelsea’s family has been going to Martha’s Vineyard since the 1940s, and the island has always held a very special place in her heart as a result. “Over a decade before Brown v. Board of Education and desegregation in the United States, Martha’s Vineyard was a diverse island with Indigenous, Black American, and many immigrant communities,” Chelsea says. “For Black Americans in particular, it has historically been regarded as one of the few safe havens to rest, vacation, and socialize with one another without experiencing the same level of discrimination they faced daily on the mainland. My grandparents retired and were buried there, my dad grew up and went to high school there, I met my closest friends, learned to ride my bike, and drive a car there. It was the only place where I got to spend time with other Black kids, see girls on the beach who looked like me, donning the same stretch marks forming around their hips and hair growing by the second with the humidity. It was the first place I ever felt that I belonged—it was home. I moved every few years my entire life, but my constant was the island. Every summer since I was born, I knew I’d get to reunite with my friends and family on Martha’s Vineyard.”

Because, of this Chelsea always wanted to get married there—and specifically in her backyard, the place where she got engaged. “When my parents built our house Ferrylawn 10 years ago, even though they had no idea who I’d marry or when, they designed it with a future wedding in mind,” Chelsea explains. “So this was truly the wedding of our dreams.”

Chelsea and Amile worked with Bryan Rafanelli of Rafanelli Events to plan everything, and the wedding weekend began with a rehearsal dinner at Ferrylawn on Thursday night and a welcome jubilee at the Field Club on Friday. “I’m an extremely type A person and had many opinions and aspirations for the wedding,” Chelsea notes. “I wrote multi-page kickoff documents, had meticulous guest list spreadsheets with tabs for analysis, kept Pinterest boards, and had a list of certain types of vendors I knew I wanted to engage. The first line of defense for every decision was ‘What do Amile and I like?,’ but the second question, and the one I always spent the most time on was ‘What feeling am I trying to evoke for our guests?’ I’m a maximalist, and I wanted every element to be a sensorial delight.”

From scoring the ceremony music to annotating every menu item, the bride was unabashedly in the weeds when it came to making the ceremony and reception at Ferrylawn feel as authentic to her and Amile as possible, but also a phenomenal experience for their guests. “Frankly, I was a bit of a handful,” she jokes. “Luckily, I felt like I was in the best hands working with Bryan Rafanelli and his team. I reached out to them within a month of getting engaged as they are world-class and had experience with Vineyard and Nantucket weddings. As expected, they brought my vision to the next level.”

The music, the colors, the sun, everything had a warmth about it. “The day was so beautiful, and it was almost divine how perfect the weather was, given that the forecast was rainy,” Chelsea remembers. There was a huge pink flag with the couple’s initials waving in the wind to greet guests, and a picturesque view of Martha’s Vineyard in the background. Chelsea and Amile hand-selected every song in the service, and there were string arrangements of Afrobeats, ’90s R&B, contemporary hits from Rihanna and Stacey Ryan, and many more. “Most importantly, we tried to keep the service short and sweet,” Chelsea says. “Reverend Raphael Warnock officiated and offered a wonderful prayer. We got to share our own vows. And we walked off to one of the best love songs ever written, the UGK classic, ‘Int’l Players Anthem (I Choose You).’”

The bride was just as meticulous when curating her wedding wardrobe. “It was an iterative process. I tried on more looks than I’d like to admit,” she says. “I leaned heavily on my mom and maid of honor. I love fun with texture and shapes, and I tried to reflect that in my outfits.”

Chelsea had a lot of ideas about what she might wear for the ceremony—but then she tried on the blush Monique Lhuillier. “All of my preconceived notions went out the window,” she admits. “I knew it was ‘the one’ as soon as I put it on—dramatic, romantic, and warm. I just loved it and could immediately picture the big reveal and the way the light would filter through the layers of tulle during the ceremony. I had a vision for the ceremony jewelry because the quatrefoil shape has been a special symbol throughout our house—tucked around everywhere my mom designs: the window shapes, marble detailing, light fixtures, and grate covers—and we often thought of it as a symbol of good luck. So I borrowed my mom’s Van Cleef pieces to create a full quatrefoil Alhambra look for the ceremony and paired them with my dainty vintage Rolex cocktail watch.”

When it came to hair and makeup direction, the bride knew exactly what she was looking for. “I wanted a makeup artist who was world-renowned for their work on dark skin tones, and I wanted a hairstylist who would be excited and skilled in doing natural curly hairstyles,” she says. “My skin is deep brown, and I had experienced many makeup nightmares where I ended up looking gray or where I felt unheard by my makeup artist. So when I met Renny Vasquez at one of my friend’s weddings, not only had I already been a fan of his work, but I was also overwhelmed with how warm and kind he was. He was such a delight and I knew he would make my wedding party both look good and feel good.”

For hair, Renny gave the highest praise to Jamilah Curry, a stylist he had recently worked with. “I transitioned out of chemically straightening my hair around the time that I met Amile, and it was really important to me to be able to wear it curly,” Chelsea explains. “My mom, in-laws, and a few of my bridesmaids felt the same way, so I needed to make sure that my hairstylist could honor that desire. Jamilah’s portfolio demonstrated her skill with curly and kinky hair. I knew she was a perfect fit when I saw her eyes light up after telling her about my natural hair vision for the wedding.”

Shoes were kept simple, but had a very clear purpose. Amile is over a foot taller than she is, and Chelsea wanted the tallest platforms she could find for every event. She pulled out all of the stops with styles from Amina Muaddi, Valentino, and Cult Gaia. “No shoe was shorter than 7.5 inches,” she says.

During the ceremony, the bride remembers feeling euphoric, present, and grateful. “We laughed, we cried, it was the best half hour of our lives and perfectly reflected our 10 years of love and commitment,” she says. “The love in the room was contagious; we are a product of love and it was beautiful to see that personified in all our friends and family’s joy throughout the ceremony. We walked out of the moment feeling lucky to have all that we do.”

At the reception, friends and family gave speeches and the music brought everyone out of their seats from the second they entered the custom-designed tent on the edge of the property. “The tent was something out of a dream—it looked like a Barbie dream house—and it was raucous fun!” Chelsea remembers. The flowers, with their vibrant colors and unique textures, spilled from quatrefoil-shaped chandeliers, while the stage background and dance floor were covered in a floral mural that was designed in a nod to Kehinde Wiley, one of the bride’s favorite artists. Guests also leaned into the dress code and lit up the room with their brightly colored looks. “Aesthetically it was grand, jovial, and extremely forward,” Chelsea says.

The bride changed into a custom dress by Tony Ward for the reception. “I was enamored with the idea of doing something sheer, so he re-envisioned one of his old designs,” she explains. “It was a delicate, handwoven fabric and crystal-covered corset bodice with a multi-layered tear-shaped sculpture along the neckline.” (Knowing that there would be bright studio lighting in the tent, Chelsea wanted something that would glimmer.)

For the after-party at The Loft, a local bar and well-known Martha’s Vineyard watering hole, Chelsea reached out to Di Petsa. “Dimitra Pesta’s work had been sitting in my inspiration folder for years,” she says. “I reached out to her right before the wedding because things had gotten busy with school, and despite the short timeline, she quickly responded saying that she wanted to work together.” She happened to have a popup in New York the next week, so Chelsea flew over to see her and the designer sketched an off-the-shoulder after-party dress that she could dance all night in.

Looking back, Chelsea and Amile are still in awe of how well their August wedding weekend played out. “Our friends and family felt so loved and welcomed,” the bride remembers. “Guests who had never been to the island grew to know it and love it. Every room was so filled with love. It’s amazing how weddings unite a family and people who have never met each other can quickly bond over a shared love for the bride and groom. Our friends are now meeting up all over the world independently of us. Love was the theme for our wedding and that love had a snowball effect. It’s continued to grow, and we are just thrilled that our wedding could help facilitate that.”

Chelsea also has a deep thankfulness for the wedding’s significance and its importance to her and Amile’s families. “Neither of our families ever had the opportunity to have anything like this,” she explains. “My grandfather grew up sharecropping on the tobacco plantation where his grandmother was born a slave. Amile grew up in southwest Philadelphia. With this wedding, we were really trying to honor the progress both of our families made in less than two generations and give them the opportunity to reflect on and appreciate the products of their hard work and good fortune. This wedding wasn’t just for me and Amile, it was for all of us.”