By day, Joey Wölffer can be seen tooling around Manhattan and the Hamptons in her Styleliner, a refurbished 20-foot potato-chip truck that is Merry Pranksters-meets-global bazaar, offering a creatively curated selection of clothes and accessories for sale. She and her husband, marketing analytics consultant Max Rohn, got engaged in the middle of the Sahara Desert after trekking through the Merzouga dunes on camelback. Growing up, she spent the summers riding horses across her family’s vineyard, Wölffer Estate in Sagaponack. It should, therefore, come as no surprise that when it came time to head down the aisle, simply walking would not do.
“After the wedding party had all entered, there was quite a pause,” recalls Shamin Abas, a friend of the couple who describes Wölffer as a “rare bird.” “Everyone was waiting and wondering where the bride was. Then you suddenly heard this little twinkle of bells, and a horse and carriage came out from over yonder—the most magnificent horses carrying the most magnificent bride.” With this unconventional arrival began a 400-guest wedding that was a mixture of Hamptons tradition and whimsy, every element a perfectly balanced teeter between elegance and Wölffer’s unique sense of style.
A Wölffer-Style Wedding
After their Moroccan engagement last October (Rohn proposed with a plain platinum band so that Wölffer, a jewelry designer, could help create the ring), the couple fast-tracked wedding planning to hold the affair at Wölffer Estate Vineyards on June 18. “It’s where I grew up, and there’s so much there,” she says. “My youth, the horses, my dad. You couldn’t do it anywhere better.” Gill Hockett, who served as a flower designer and organizer, and Naomi Marks helped in planning the event, which opened with the bride entering to a bluegrass band’s rendition of “At Last.” Wölffer’s brothers, Jake and Mark, accompanied her down the aisle, and her stepfather, Vernon Taylor III, served as officiant. While the bride’s father, Christian Wölffer, tragically passed in 2008, “everyone felt Joey’s dad’s presence there that day because the love of his life was this amazing vineyard,” says Abas.
After the ceremony, guests picked their seating assignments off clotheslines and headed to the cocktail hour. Men, some in silver tuxedos, and women in beautiful summer gowns lounged on lush daybeds scattered across the grass. Bridesmaids dressed in “romantic Grecian bohemian,” and Rohn wore acustom tuxedo. “It was a very fashionable event,” says Wölffer, who chose a layered Vera Wang strapless gown with a lace overlay, paired with a necklace that her father gave her mother on the day she was born. An angelic floral headpiece completed the look. To commemorate the occasion, Wölffer’s brother designed special labels for the magnum Wölffer rosé bottles that adorned the tables; he presented one to his sister right before she entered the ceremony. “Of course, I was in tears,” she says.
