Leila Roker Wore Her Mother’s Diamond and Pearl Wedding Earrings for Her Transatlantic Celebration

Reported by Vogue.

Some love stories begin with a friend's failed pickup attempt. Leila Roker and Sylvain Gricourt met in January 2018 at a Paris bar — she was there for her roommate's last bartending shift, he for a colleague's going-away party — when a mutual friend's unsuccessful attempt to charm a group of American girls led to an introduction. Sylvain, six-foot-five with a thick French accent and a quiet gentleness Leila still talks about, stepped in. They talked, laughed, and discovered a shared love of writing. What started as small talk became, eventually, a transatlantic wedding spanning two continents and three gowns.

The proposal, according to Vogue, happened in Venice during Carnevale — Sylvain's deliberate choice for two self-described Scorpios drawn to "the strange and beautiful." Dinner at the Hotel Danieli, a terrace view, a Venetian mask on the table. When Leila asked for the dessert menu, the server returned with a small cake reading Veux-tu m'épouser? — "Will you marry me?" — and Sylvain was already on one knee. The whole restaurant applauded. The couple next to them revealed they were celebrating their anniversary from a proposal made in the same room two years prior. Even the setting had a sense of occasion.

Two Countries, Three Dresses

They married in Paris on May 9 and New Jersey on May 23, and Leila dressed accordingly. In France, she moved between a civil ceremony at the mairie in the 17th arrondissement and a church ceremony at Église Saint-Odile in an Amsale Mirai gown layered with a cropped white blazer — practical, polished, Parisian. The garden reception followed at Le Manoir de Gressy, where the first sunny day in over a week felt like its own kind of blessing. At the U.S. celebration at Pendry Natirar, Leila wore a princess gown customized by Mark Ingram — dropped waist, French lace bolero — with a second look in Amsale's Kismet, a liquid satin halter bias slip with a low back. The Kismet carried particular weight: Leila's family had a close relationship with the late Amsale Aberra, co-founder of the brand, whose daughter performed during cocktail hour.

The heirloom details were deliberate and layered. For "something borrowed," Leila wore her mother Deborah Roberts's pearl Cartier earrings — the exact pair Deborah wore on her own wedding day. A pearl bracelet, a gift from her father Al Roker to her mother at their wedding, served as "something old." Ingram hand-stitched blue fabric with Leila's initials into the gown for "something blue." The New Jersey ceremony was officiated by the reverend who christened Leila as a baby; mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves performed the Lord's Prayer; the couple's first dance was to Nat King Cole's "L.O.V.E." — a childhood favorite Leila traces back to The Parent Trap. Sylvain delivered his vows in both French and English, recalling the night they met: "We were born seven years and an ocean apart… and yet, that night, we found ourselves face to face, and it all felt completely natural."

When the fashion is this considered and the sentiment this earned, the wedding isn't just a celebration — it's an argument for taking your time.

Read the original at Vogue.