“Her zest for life, open-mindedness, curiosity, individuality, and appreciation for the work of the ateliers created a discussion that resulted in something completely hers: exuberant, bold, clever, and, above all, effortless! It was pure magic.”

“Leslie’s dress was the perfect mirror to her personality,” adds Giambattista. “She came to me with the idea of a silhouette inspired from my Spring 2017 Haute Couture collection, a short number with a long train that I customized around her wishes and the occasion.” That customization included a 17th-century French boiserie–inspired needle-and-thread embroidery design on silk organza, subsequently embroidered with a Swarovski crystal ramage de fleurs d’oranger motif on the bodice and accompanied by a 16.5-foot train draped in silk chiffon. In Leslie’s case, she didn’t need a shrink,” he says, laughing. You have to analyze the woman in front of you and make her dreams come true. “In my opinion, Giambattista is the best couturier, so there was no question about it.” She presented him with just one request: “He knows I’m a bit rock ’n’ roll and crazy, and I asked for something short because I hate long gowns.” Giambattista’s reply? “To make an haute couture wedding dress is like being a mix between a shrink and a magician. Through a fairly quick process of elimination, they were left with the fairest castle in all the land.Īnother major detail that Leslie knew well in advance was that she would ask her dear friend and fashion designer Giambattista Valli to create her dress. “We also considered a few other places and then thought, ‘Why don’t we do it in Paris? Why do we need to go elsewhere when we can stay home and do something amazing?’ ” But they needed to find a venue that would accommodate 450 people and the idea of a hotel felt impersonal.

Still, the couple staunchly held to that specific weekend because the timing mirrored her parents’ anniversary and conveniently coincided with Memorial Day and a bank holiday in both France and Switzerland, where the majority of guests were traveling from. It’s hard to believe that the illustrious grounds weren’t their initial venue of choice: “At first, we wanted to hold the celebrations at the Ancient Greek Theatre in Taormina, Italy, but our proposed date fell on the weekend of the G7 Summit and security restrictions were prohibitive,” Leslie says, laughing. “It’s where the culture of France was born, so it’s magical to us.” It’s a rare couple who can make the fairy tale dream of a Versailles wedding come true, but under-the-radar swimwear designer Leslie Cohen Amon and Ronen Chichportich, who are based in Paris and Geneva, threw a tour de force of a wedding at the heritage site this past May. “The idea for Versailles came to Ronen and me at the same time,” Leslie says. For the logo, I wanted to use Erté, so Stephanie created a fun collage with deco dancers surrounding the initials “L” and “R.” The invitations were meant to give guests the feeling that they were about to enter a different world. Outside of these general themes, I gave my calligrapher, Stephanie Fishwick, carte blanche. For the invitation, we were really inspired by a Louis XVI–meets–Garden of Eden–meets–L’Orangerie.

Palette sans and parents