“The truth is, we met on Hinge,” Estelle Palandjian says of the first time she crossed paths with her now-husband Francesco Falcone. Intrigued by his bio—“born in France, grew up in Holland, but I’m Italian”—she liked him back, and within weeks, they were at a bar in the West Village. Several negronis later, Francesco walked Estelle back to her Tribeca apartment in the pouring rain. They bought a pack of cigarettes at a bodega, even though neither of them smoked.
In 2023, Francesco, who works in the financial technology sector, proposed at the family home of Estelle, the founder of private shopping app Cake, in Woodstock, Vermont. Estelle remembers the beginning of the day: coffee at Abracadabra, and then sandwiches from The Butcher Shop after hiking to a small lake. Yet, at the summit when he brought out the ring, “I blacked out,” she says, laughing. “All I remember is tears and saying yes.”
Over the Fourth of July weekend, they held a summer wedding in Estelle’s backyard. “We wanted to feel comfortable. At home. And share one of our favorite places in the world with people who might never actually get to Vermont,” says Estelle, adding that the aesthetic of their nuptials was “90% Vermont, 10% Italian.” A local wedding planner, Randi Nonni, assisted with the affair.
After an Independence Day barbecue, for which Estelle wore Ralph Lauren, the couple wed on Saturday, July 5, at Our Lady of the Snows church in Woodstock. Estelle wore a custom gown by Danielle Frankel.
While some brides have hyper-specific visions of their wedding day dress, Estelle, instead, decided to embrace Frankel’s natural artistry: “I immediately trusted her and just let her do her thing. I really didn’t interfere,” she says. The end result? A minimalist white gown with a billowing bubble hem. “It was perfect. Wrapped in this silk gauze material with sleeves and a veil to match,” she says, calling it a “cloud-like dream dress.” Francesco waited for her at the altar in a silk suit by Thom Sweeney.