Chloe and JT first met at a soccer party during their freshman year in Washington, D.C., when JT was attending Georgetown University and Chloe was at George Washington University. Life soon sent them in different directions. Chloe transferred to the University of Michigan, while JT signed with the San Jose Earthquakes as a professional goalkeeper during his junior year.
Distance didn’t diminish their connection. FaceTimes, phone calls, and endless texts built a friendship that became a constant in both of their lives. It wasn’t until COVID that they finally started dating—a development everyone around them apparently saw coming long before Chloe did.
Years later, they brought their friends and families together at Acre in Cabo, trading winter for sunshine and designing the entire celebration with Events by Bliss around the brilliant colors of a Cabo sunset. Vibrant pink, orange, and yellow met deep blue tile, natural wood, neutral stripes, and a few strategically scattered disco balls for a wedding photographed by Ximena Zermeno and videoed by Jorge Ibarra Weddings that felt colorful without losing its sophistication.
Making a destination wedding feel like a vacation
Chloe and JT deliberately married on a Friday. Instead of guests waking up Saturday morning and immediately heading to the airport, everyone still had another full day together. That decision turned the wedding into a true shared vacation rather than a single destination event.
The festivities had actually begun days earlier. Their families and wedding party arrived Tuesday, followed by separate bachelor and bachelorette celebrations on Wednesday. Chloe and her friends spent the day at Velero’s Beach Club before a “Seashells and Wedding Bells” dinner at Sage, while JT and the groomsmen golfed at Club Campestre San José before tequila tasting and dinner at La Lupita Taco & Mezcal.
By Thursday, most guests had arrived for pool time and a “Cabo Chic” welcome event at Vidanta Los Cabos.
By the time Friday’s ceremony began, guests weren’t just arriving at a wedding. They had already spent days becoming part of the same celebration.
Bridal style: Galia Lahav
Chloe knew her wedding dress was the one before most brides would have even begun seriously shopping.
She had spotted the gown while previewing Galia Lahav‘s upcoming collection on Instagram and walked into Boca Bridal asking whether they happened to have it. They did – barely. The gown had just arrived and was still wrapped in the back. Chloe became the first person to try it on.
Although she tried several more dresses for the experience, the decision had effectively already been made. With its sleeves and combination of modern styling and vintage influence, the gown felt timeless, distinctive, and unmistakably her. More than a year later, she hadn’t changed her mind.
Something old, something blue, and pieces of family history
Chloe’s accessories quietly incorporated family history into her bridal look. Her engagement ring and wedding bands were from Joe Escobar Diamonds, while Ring Concierge earrings completed the look. For something old, she carried her grandmother’s engagement ring, and a Real Fine Studio pinky ring became her something blue.
But her most sentimental fashion transformation would come later in the evening. Chloe wanted her second look to incorporate her mother’s wedding dress from 2000. The original corset top had unfortunately been lost during a move, but its long silk skirt remained.
Rather than leave it untouched, Chloe reimagined it. She shortened the train, removed the chiffon overlay to reveal pure ivory silk, and transformed excess fabric into a coordinating scarf. A vintage beaded bustier from Happy Isles Salon in Los Angeles completed the look.
It wasn’t a replica of her mother’s wedding dress. It was something new created from it—and that made wearing it even more meaningful.
Personal vows and five minutes alone
Amid all that activity, some of Chloe and JT’s favorite moments were also the quietest. They wrote personal vows for the ceremony, giving their guests a more intimate glimpse into the friendship and relationship they had spent years building.
Then, immediately before the reception, they took five minutes alone. No guests. No formal activity. Just the two of them sitting together and absorbing the fact that their wedding was actually happening. It was a small decision, but one that allowed them to remember the day as participants rather than simply moving from one scheduled moment to another.
Turning a Cabo sunset into a wedding palette
For their December wedding, Chloe and JT wanted to give guests escaping winter something bright, joyful, and unmistakably Cabo. The sunset became their starting point.
Vibrant pinks, oranges, and yellows played against Acre’s deep blue tile, creating a palette that was saturated and celebratory without becoming overwhelming. Striped neutral linens and light wood elements grounded the brighter tones, while a combination of round and rectangular tables created variation throughout the reception.
Disco balls scattered around the space introduced just enough sparkle and playfulness.
The bridesmaid fashion became another extension of the palette. Rather than putting everyone in identical dresses, Chloe asked her bridesmaids to select their own looks within the sunset-inspired colors.
The result felt cohesive without being overly coordinated, giving each bridesmaid the freedom to wear something she actually felt confident in.
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A poem from Washington Square Park
One of the reception’s most personal design details began far away from Cabo. Chloe and JT had once met The Park Poet, who writes poems on the spot in Washington Square Park after hearing people’s stories. After listening to theirs, he composed a poem specifically for the couple.
For the wedding, they reproduced that exact poem in his handwriting on a mirror decal. Against the colorful, energetic reception design, the poem offered a quieter piece of their history—a reminder of the relationship behind the party.
Generations of love
Nearby, another display looked even further back. Chloe and JT created a “Generations of Love” table filled with wedding photographs of their parents and grandparents. Positioned beside the guest book, it allowed friends and family to see the marriages and love stories that preceded their own.
The combination of old photographs, Chloe’s grandmother’s engagement ring, and her mother’s transformed wedding skirt brought family history into the celebration without making it feel overly nostalgic. Each heirloom became part of something distinctly Chloe and JT.
Custom hats that guests actually wanted to wear
For the welcome event, the couple collaborated with Designs by Chad & Jake on custom hats—but Chloe had one requirement: they couldn’t feel like wedding merch. She wanted something guests might genuinely wear again.
Each hat was distributed with a tag featuring the weekend itinerary, immediately turning a practical piece of information into part of the guest experience. By the following day, the hats were everywhere around the pool.
Even better, they became conversation starters between guests who hadn’t met before, helping establish the communal atmosphere Chloe and JT wanted for the entire weekend.
Family-style dinner and plenty of tequila
Food at Acre became another extension of how Chloe and JT naturally like to entertain. Instead of individually plated entrées, they chose family-style service so everyone could taste a little of everything. Dinner began with cheddar biscuits, kale salad, and shrimp ceviche before moving into wild mushroom risotto, catch of the day, and braised beef.
Dessert was deliberately excessive—in the best way. Mini cheesecakes, cream puffs, and chocolate cake joined a vanilla wedding cake filled with dulce de leche. That flavor carried a surprisingly personal connection: dulce de leche ice cream was the first real food Chloe ever ate as a baby.
The cocktails leaned decidedly Cabo. Guests chose between Acre’s mango margarita and the Green Agave, a pineapple mezcal cocktail. And yes, according to Chloe, there were “a lot of shots.”
A reception built around pure joy
Then they walked into the reception. Napkins spun overhead. Guests flooded the dance floor. The sunset colors that had inspired the design surrounded them, and the atmosphere Chloe and JT had imagined throughout planning finally became real.
Their wedding wasn’t designed simply to look colorful. Every choice—from the bridesmaids’ individual dresses to communal dining, custom hats, tequila cocktails, and a Friday wedding date—was intended to make people interact.
Even the late-night snack kept that philosophy going. Mini burritos were handed out on the buses en route to the after-party, giving everyone enough fuel to keep celebrating.
For Chloe and JT, that was ultimately the point. They had spent years maintaining their own connection across cities and distance. In Cabo, they finally had all of their favorite people together in one place—and created a wedding bright and joyful enough to match the occasion.
