Photo credit to Annabel of Belathee
When Elaine Welteroth, a former Teen Vogue editor and Project Runway judge, and her musician fiancé Jonathan Singletary realized that the carefully planned destination wedding they had dreamed about in the Dominican Republic was not going to take place this spring, the couple decided to keep the date and improvise.
The date 5/10/20 was important to the couple, who has met when they were 12 in church in Northern California and reunited as adults by their church-going mothers. “There was so much symbolism in this sequence of numbers [5-10-20] that only come together once in a lifetime,” Welteroth said. “Also, it fell on a Sunday—the day we met as kids and saw each other every week growing up. But it wasn’t just any Sunday, it would be Mother’s Day!” The couple felt that the date was as perfect as their history and didn’t want to change it.
But where do you find a place to get married during lockdown in the epicenter of worldwide pandemic? It’s not like New York housing has back yards…but they do have stoops.
“I woke up one morning with this whole vision of how we could do it—and the excitement of planning began,” Welteroth said. “In my mind, I saw the faces of people we love from afar surrounding us on iPhone screens and a small group of our local friends in white lining the sidewalk with gloves and masks on. I envisioned transforming our stoop into an altar glowing with pretty lighting and gorgeous florals. I had no idea if any of this was even possible in the middle of a pandemic, but I was excited about having a new wedding vision to work towards.”
Invitations to 200 friends and family were distributed via zoom, and neighbors were invited to watch. Everyone was requested to wear white.
The bride did her own make up and wore her mother’s veil. She wore a long white summer dress she had in her closet but her friend Aurora James of Brother Vellies insisted on making her a pair of custom shoes to wear on the day which just barely cleared customs in time. “They were the one fancy thing on my body when I walked down the aisle,” Welteroth said. Meanwhile, her husband wore a borrowed white vintage blazer with white linen pants and a pair of white sneakers.
For more photos from this amazing wedding, visit https://www.vogue.com/slideshow/elaine-welteroth-jonathan-singletary-brooklyn-stoop-wedding