When Victoria Aylett Clesi and Matthew Brian Mazzarell where sitting in their Geographic Information Systems Class as undergraduates at the College of Charleston, their minds may have been wandering a little. They both caught each other’s eye and interest.
So, when Aylett had her Kappa Delta Fall party, she invited Matt as her date. They immediately hit it off and after graduation Matt moved to New Orleans to be with Aylett.
Around four years after that party, Matt took Aylett to Laguna Beach, California. As soon as they arrived, Matt took Aylett for a cliff walk overlooking the ocean. He dropped to one knee, popped the question, she said yes and they were engaged.
The wedding celebrations began with a wonderful rehearsal dinner at Antoine’s Restaurant in the French Quarter.
On April 1, 2017, Aylett and Matt were married at The Most Holy Name of Jesus Church on St. Charles Avenue, where Aylett’s parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles were married. The celebrant was Father Randy Roux.
Aylett wore her mother’s wedding dress originally from Town & Country, adding her own touches with the help of her favorite dress designer and family friend, Ilaine Hartman. The bride also wore her aunt’s wedding veil held in place by the same comb of flowers worn by the bride’s mother on her wedding day.
The recessional song was “Coeur de Jesus” the hymn of the Academy of Sacred Heart of which Aylett and her mother are both alumnae.
After the ceremony, the wedding party moved to The New Orleans Country Club to celebrate, decorated exquisitely by Paul Norman of Thibodeaux’s Flowers. Aylett had chosen the club’s favorite turtle soup, and some Louisiana dishes for Matt’s South Carolina family and friends, such as crawfish etouffée and crabmeat beignets. She also included a cheese display from St. James Cheese
Company, one of the couple’s favorites!
Margaret Jones of Scriptura designed a beautiful cipher for the couple that it was incorporated throughout the wedding festivities on invitations, napkins, cups and bridesmaids’ gift boxes. Pierre McGraw, a family friend, carved a large gilded cipher as a wedding gift that was hung for decoration at the reception. A shrimp luge also included the cipher carved in ice.
Aylett included some sentimental touches both at her wedding and reception. She pinned Matt’s Beta Theta Pi pin and her Kappa Delta pin on the stem of her bouquet. They used her parents silver champagne goblets and silver cake sword. And a white rose, the Kappa Delta flower, was added to the bouquets of sorority sisters who served as bridesmaids.
The couple honeymooned in Athens, Santorini and Barcelona, and returned to their home on St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans where Aylett is a Geologist with ERM and Matt is a Data Scientist with Teradata.
Bride’s Wedding Ring: Her maternal grandmother’s
Bride’s Engagement Ring: Ken Bowers, The Quartersmith
Bridesmaids’ Dresses: Lula Kate, Wedding Belles
Flower Girls’ & Ring Bearer’s Outfits: Town & Country
Groom’s Wedding Band: Aylett’s paternal great-grandfather’s
Groom’s & Groomsmen’s Attire: Tuxedos, Perlis
Florist: Thibodeaux’s Flowers
Invitations: Crane invitations engraved by Fern Supply Co.
Wedding Cake: Pure Cake
Groom’s Cake: Sucré
Photographer: Rudy Bierhuizen of Mike Posey Photography
Hair: Dale McElwee of Salon Dante
Makeup: Cecile Covert
Music: BRW
The Bride and Groom
Wedding Party: Jenna Knoke, Taryn Mani, Jenn Grabowski, Katherine DiLeo, Ofir Caspi, Aline Adams, Jennifer Norby, Mary Catherine Sargeant, Margot Provensal, Katie DeGraef, Arielle Schwartz, the Bride and Groom, Matthew Thornton, Craig Mazzarell, Seth Hinder, Nolan Courvell, Ross Coll, Jake Pimental, Pat Landis and Andrew Breen.
