After a single Zoom meeting to discuss the bride’s vision, Dilara sent Allyson a sketch of a custom corset dress with black ribbon detailing. “It was just… perfect,” she says now. “A few months later we tried on the toile in her studio in London, while I drank wine from a Solo cup. I am extremely grateful to Dilara and her studio for making my wildest dreams come true.” Apart from a pair of white ballerinas from Miu Miu, ‘so I could dance all night’, the bride added little else to her fantasy dress. “The dress was so grand that I knew I wanted to stay low-key with everything else,” she says. “The only piece of jewelry I wanted to wear was my mother’s tennis bracelet. I was hoping she would forget to take it back afterward… but she didn’t.”
The bride enlisted her friend Sandra Wannerstedt to do her makeup (“All I told her was ‘glowy'”), while Stockholm’s eyebrow artist to the stars, Thomas McEntee, paid Allyson a visit a few days before the wedding and returned for a final touch-up on her big day (“He also laced my corset to within an inch of its life”). In charge of the bridal hair was Tony Lundström (“No one sets the mood like Tony”), whose brief was Allyson’s signature tight bun, “but fancier.” “He came up with a huge sideways lock of hair that Adam was happy to remove when we got home at 4am”
Allyson turned to another female talent, Mega Mikaela, for her “sexy and fun” after-party dress. “She’s a young Swedish designer who makes these crazy amazing chainmail-like pieces by hand from washers,” says Allyson. “I discovered her through Alpha, a talent breeding ground in the Scandinavian countries. She’s definitely having a moment and it’s so well deserved. Believe it or not, the dress weighed twice as much as my wedding dress. I can’t wait to wear it again.”
The celebrations themselves were as unique as Allyson’s look, and filled with personal touches. On the eve of the wedding, the bride and groom brought the out-of-towners to Pelikan restaurant in Stockholm for a classic Swedish meal of herring and meatballs, washed down with shots of schnapps. The bride’s friends, Josef Lazo and his brother Mikael, put together the traditional Jewish chuppah on the morning of the wedding — including saying it was a “game time decision,” Allyson says. Another close friend, Iranian-Swedish actor and singer Shima Niavarani, officiated the ceremony. “She was funny and sweet and warm and personable, but that didn’t come as a surprise.”
The bride remembers getting “chills all over” when the John Erik Eleby Chamber Choir sang Neil Young’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” and “Harvest Moon.” “I heard there wasn’t a dry eye in the house, but I tried not to look at anyone so I could keep my composure.” When Allyson and Adam were officially declared husband and wife, the choir’s rendition of Roy Orbison’s “You Got It” – with help from Shima – brought the congregation to their feet. “Everyone stood up and started dancing… I just exploded with happiness,” says the bride.
The dancing started early and didn’t stop after the reception, where some of the couple’s friends DJed and the Canadian contingent trained the Swedish guests in traditional horah. “Then we moved to an afterparty in a cavernous basement around the corner,” Allyson explains. “The dance floor was still full when the lights came on at 3am”
