Afterwards, they held a 10-course Chinese banquet at the Golden Unicorn in Chinatown. The bride changed into a crimson quipao, which she found at Jinza Oriental in Los Angeles. She paired it with antique kingfisher blue and carnelian hair ornaments that date back to China’s Qing Dynasty. As a final touch, she wrapped herself in an antique silk Canton floral shawl.

The bride jokingly calls the whole affair—which included a performance by Columbia University’s Lion Dance team—“my big fat Chinese wedding.” The banquet began with servers parading in with whole roast suckling pigs for each table. “I probably should’ve followed my intuition to seat all the vegetarians at their own table to spare them the sight of so many animals served whole, but they insisted the experience was amusing,” Christine says. “As with so many Chinese traditions, there are layers of meaning and symbolism for each dish: whole suckling pig symbolizes the bride’s virtue intact, whole duck symbolizes complete fidelity, whole fish symbolizes abundance, to name a few,” she explains.

On Sunday, they held a Western-style wedding at the restaurant Manhatta in the Financial District. The bride admits she dressed “from the jewels down”. She sourced antique Art Deco Pagoda earrings as well as an antique Art Deco tiara. Instead of wearing it placed upon her head, she chose to style it as a headband. (This choice was a popular one for aristocratic women during that time period.) “I wore my hair down, to contrast with the previous evening’s updo and have a more romantic look. This provided the perfect canvas for the tiara worn as a headband, which felt less formal,” she says. To match his wife, the groom put on a pair of Art Deco cufflinks.

Alex actually found Christine’s dress for her. She knew she wanted a minimal design—however, bogged down by the logistics that come with planning a wedding in just three months, Christine didn’t actually have time to find it. So Alex scoured the internet on her behalf. He finally tracked down the perfect classic Vivienne Westwood corset dress. “The fact that we were able to find a stock sized Vivienne Westwood gown in the style that Christine wanted felt like a small miracle, but I had to order it from Germany via Mytheresa and it only arrived three days before the event,” he says. Alex, meanwhile, donned a midnight blue tuxedo (that he found well ahead of time).

The dress code for the evening was “black tie (and jewels) requested,” and guests returned in kind, wearing a colorful array of earrings, bracelets, brooches, and accessories.

“I didn’t think married life would feel so different, considering we’ve known each other for so long and had already moved in together. I was wrong. Marriage unlocked a new level of trust, love, everything,” Christine says of their wedding. ‘There’s a famous French jewelry motif featuring the +/- signs inspired by the 1889 poem by Rosemonde Gérard, ‘Les Vieux.’ Gérard declared “chaque jour je t’aime davantage, aujourd’hui plus qu’hier et bien moins que demain” meaning “I love you more (+) than yesterday, less (-) than tomorrow. This is a sentiment I understand, and feel, now.”