Commitment Across Cultures: All the Details Behind This New Jersey Wedding

The Proposal

Jamie White is honest: she didn’t make it easy for Remy Lundy to propose. “I harassed him for like a year and a half about getting me a ring,” says White, a recruiter at Google. “I had been anticipating it and wanting it for so long. I would come home almost every day from work and be like, ‘Is it going to happen? Is it going to happen?’”

So Lundy, an investment banker, had to pull out the big guns to surprise her. “I basically created a fake work event in Central Park. I had someone from our H.R. team send us an email and make her think there was a work event there,” he says.

When the moment finally came, “I was hysterically crying,” she recalls, and she only got more emotional when she learned the extent of Lundy’s plans. He’d booked a room at the Pierre Hotel, where her two best friends were waiting, then whisked her away on a shopping trip to buy a new dress for dinner that night with their families.

The Ring

But if planning the proposal brought its challenges, the ring was a cinch. “She was very clear with what she wanted: an elongated radiant with trapezoid side stones,” Lundy says. “It’s still buried in my brain.” With a few other specifications in mind, like a thicker band and a lower basket for the stone, the future groom worked with a jeweler in Las Vegas to design the ring, while his mother assisted with the delivery.

The final product was a stunning success for the exacting bride. “I mean, he got me exactly what I asked for,” White says happily.

The Dress Code

The couple set a black-tie wedding for November 2019 at a familiar venue: the indoor sports facility owned by White’s father in New Jersey, where she grew up working and coaching. For her dress, White again had a very specific vision—the heavily appliqued Oscar de la Renta gown Carrie Bradshaw tried in the first Sex and the City movie—and tried on several modern versions before she settled on a body-hugging Marchesa gown covered in funky, three-dimensional florals with a deep V cut.

The jewelry she chose were vintage pieces gifted over the years by her paternal grandmother, who now suffers from Alzheimer’s. “For my 16th birthday, she gave me these stunning, drop-diamond, Art Deco earrings that I’m obsessed with. I’ve worn them to literally every single big event in my life that I’ve had thus far,” White says. She paired them with a diamond and pearl bracelet that her grandmother had once lent her for prom, and, upon seeing White’s delight, gifted her the following Hanukkah. As her grandmother was too ill to attend the wedding, it was especially meaningful to have the long-beloved items to complete her bridal look.

The Ceremony

Under a striking chuppah wrapped in fuschia orchids, sunset-hued roses, and wild greenery, the couple were married by Lundy’s childhood rabbi. “He did my bar mitzvah, my brother and my sister’s bar and bat mitzvahs, and my sister’s wedding—so, a long-time family friend,” Lundy says of the extra-special officiant.

The Tradition

Aside from the Jewish rites during the ceremony, the couple and their closest family and friends also signed the ketubah, or Jewish marriage contract. And in the midst of the dancing, guests hoisted White and Lundy high into the air on chairs for the folk dance of the horah.

The Highlight

Despite the revelry, both point to the quieter scenes of the day as the images pressed indelibly into their memories. “We had gotten this advice that we should take a moment and step away from the party. Look at the audience and just take a moment and realize that everyone that was there for you and everyone loves you,” White says. “And how fun is this?”