Mother Of: Taylor
Wedding Venue: Park Cities Presbyterian Church and Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas
Vibe: New Orleans meets Havana Nights
Dress: Rene Ruiz from Saks Off Fifth
Dana didn’t shop for a mother-of-the bride dress. The summer before the wedding, her daughter Taylor called to say she picked up a strapless blue-gray mermaid style gown with a short train. The tiny clear crystals and silver thread woven into the linen fabric gave it a shimmer.
“This was the first dress I tried on and it fit like a glove,” Dana recalls. “To this day, maybe with the exception of my wedding dress, I loved my dress more than anything I had ever worn. I was able to dance, move, and feel right at home in this dress. It was soft and elegant and I felt so pretty in it.”
Bonus: Taylor found the Rene Ruiz designer gown on sale at Saks Off Fifth. “Taylor just happened upon it when out one Saturday, and it was perfect,” Dana says. “I felt very spoiled—it isn’t always that easy to find the perfect dress!” (Here's one of our current faves from Rene Ruiz.)
A jewelry designer who founded Hazen & Co.when she was just 9 years old, Taylor created a custom wedding collection for her mom and bridesmaids. Dana wore a chunky necklace made of South Seas pearls with a matching bracelet and coordinating earrings. She completed the look with silver metallic chunky heels.
The bride also selected famed Dallas hair and makeup artist L. B. Rosser, whose work has appeared in Vogue and on designer runways. He convinced Dana to try a new hairstyle for the wedding.
To know the bride is to know that of course she would orchestrate every detail of her mom's red carpet-worthy wedding look.
“Taylor began planning her wedding when she was 13, literally,” Dana says, By the time she got engaged to Alex, she had a notebook with all the details of her perfect day, including the wedding planner, Sara Faye Egan Events, and nationally acclaimed wedding photographer Liz Banfield. “Taylor had met Liz at a wedding in Houston when she was about 13.” Twelve years later, she was one of the bride’s first calls.
The ceremony took place at Park Cities Presbyterian Church in Dallas. Taylor sang in a church choir as a child and wanted one at her wedding (it was in the notes!), so she chose the Texas Boys Choir.
Music was an important element at the reception at the new Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek hotel as well, starting with a New Orleans style jazz and segueing to a DJ spinning Latin music at the Cuban-themed dance party—a nod one of Taylor and Alex’s favorite trips together (complete with cigar rolling and mojitos). The grand finale: fireworks on the front lawn of the hotel.
Says Dana, “It was a dream come true for Taylor, and all of us.”
| Photography by Liz Banfield