The main character at Dolly Lana Meckler’s wedding was probably her dress: a theatrical, reconstructed Pucci gown that was more than two years in the making.
Her parents, both “eccentric” artists, first spotted the dress at a Pucci store at Woodbury Common Premium Outlets in Woodbury, N.Y., in February 2022, Ms. Meckler said. They sent her a photo of the dress, but a wedding hadn’t yet been on her radar.
Over a year later, after getting engaged, she couldn’t stop thinking about that voluminous, ruffled dress that looked a bit like a giant snowball. After searching for it everywhere, and even sending a DM to the designer, Tomo Koizumi, she called the Woodbury Common’s Pucci store. By luck, the store had the dress in a box in a back room. She purchased the dress, and Tati Kova, a seamstress who made Kim Kardashian’s Marilyn Monroe replica dress, reconstructed the Pucci gown to fit Ms. Meckler.
On May 11, Ms. Meckler wore the gown and flashed its Pucci underlining to “oohs” and “aahs” from guests at Temple Emanu-El on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, where she married Jordan Scott Cohen. Mr. Cohen’s outfit was not too shabby either. He wore a black velvet Tom Ford tuxedo jacket and tie, a Ralph Lauren shirt, Giorgio Armani pants and leather Louboutin loafers.
Before the wedding, the couple went to Central Park to take photos, where people stopped to take videos and cheer them on and tour buses honked at them.
“Central Park is somewhere we go every day,” Ms. Meckler said. “The dress is outrageous, and walking to Central Park in the gown felt so outrageous.”
Ms. Meckler, 32, and Mr. Cohen, 34, met in July 2020 on the dating app Hinge. Soon after, they had a FaceTime date that lasted around two hours. Ten minutes after they got off the phone, he called her back.
Ms. Meckler picked up and said, “What?”
Mr. Cohen responded, “I just wanted to keep talking to you.”
The next day, on July 24, they grabbed to-go drinks from Jeffrey Craft Beer and Bites on the Upper East Side and walked to Central Park.
They immediately got along because they “speak the same language,” Ms. Meckler said. They both work in social media: Ms. Meckler is the head of digital at Becca, a public relations firm, and Mr. Cohen is a social strategy director at McCann Relationship Marketing.
“One thing my dad always said to me is: ‘When it clicks, it just clicks,’” Mr. Cohen said. “It hadn’t really clicked for me in the past. And with Dolly, it just clicked and felt so easy and natural.”
Their second date was two days later. He went to her Upper East Side apartment and brought her flowers, Chinese food from Deluxe Green Bo (she loves Chinese food) and cheesecake from Veniero’s Pasticceria and Caffe (she loves cheesecake). They played board games in her backyard: Connect 4, Set and Guess Who?
Through the pandemic, they took many walks through Central Park. He had never watched “Sex and the City,” so they binged the series and joked about who was who: “Dolly is definitely a Carrie. And we decided I’m a Charlotte,” Mr. Cohen said.
That fall, they became official, and in October 2022, he moved into her apartment.
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On July 15, 2023, Mr. Cohen proposed in their backyard, which he decorated with rose petals. They had discussed it at length, and he even sent her a calendar invite. “I really don’t like surprises,” Ms. Meckler said.
He created a 30-minute photo video montage for her. “I didn’t even say, ‘Do you want to marry me?’” Mr. Cohen said. “I said, ‘Let’s do this thing.’ Because we were already planning the wedding.”
She then read to him 50 reasons she loves him, including: “You always call me on your lunch break to say hi,” “You give the most delicious hugs,” and “You get excited about chocolate chip cookies.”
Ms. Meckler was born in Manhattan and moved to New Canaan, Conn., when she was 10. She graduated from Indiana University with a bachelor’s degree in telecommunications. Mr. Cohen, who is from Marlboro, N.J., graduated from Ohio State University with a bachelor’s degree in finance and marketing.
On May 11, the couple were married in front of 167 guests by Rabbi Joshua Davidson, the senior rabbi at Temple Emanu-El.
After cocktail hour, Ms. Meckler changed into an off-the-shoulder red sequin mermaid gown to pay homage to her mother, who wore a red Norma Kamali wedding coat dress at her New York City wedding in 1989.
“It was just filled with so much love,” Mr. Cohen said. “I had the biggest smile on my face the whole night.”
“She’s an Aries and I’m a Pisces,” Mr. Cohen added. “I really feel that complementary connection — we’re a team.”
