Bob Mackie Came Out of Retirement to Design This Bride’s Bespoke Wedding Gown

Jenelle Hamilton has been the PR rep for fashion and costume legend Bob Mackie for over 15 years. As she describes it: “He’s family at this point.” So when it came time for her to decide on a wedding dress for her August nuptials, “It had to be Bob. I just couldn’t envision myself wearing anyone else. If I did choose someone else, I know he would have critiqued it or tried to redesign it for me,” she jokes. While Mackie has officially gone into retirement and wasn’t designing any new pieces—instead, he’s been lending archive looks to celebrities like Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus—he made an exception for Jenelle.

Having Mackie design a gown for Jenelle’s wedding made perfect sense since he knew the couple from their beginnings. The England-born PR pro first met L.A. native lawyer Bart Williams in 2021 through a dating app when they both were living in Beverly Hills. “He was eight minutes down the street,” she says. “But we run in different circles. If it wasn’t for technology, I don’t think we would ever have met.” The pair eventually connected over a phone call date that lasted two-and-a-half hours. “We had a lot of chemistry and just started dating from there,” shares Jenelle. Two years later, the couple were already integrated within each other’s lives and blended families, and began discussing engagement rings. Bart surprised Jenelle with a proposal at home in their kitchen. “I love to cook, and we were having a very casual dinner,” says Jenelle. “After the meal, he asked me if I would cook for him forever. I thought it must have been a really great meal. Then, I saw the ring.” Jenelle adds she wouldn’t have it any other way: “It was just us being our natural selves.”

The couple wanted their wedding to reflect their backgrounds and history, incorporating both classically Los Angeles and English aesthetics. They kicked off the festivities with a speakeasy-style welcome party at the Hollywood Roosevelt, a hotel from the golden age of Los Angeles rumored to be haunted by stars like Marilyn Monroe and Montgomery Clift. The next day, they would harken to Jenelle’s upbringing with an English countryside-inspired ceremony in the backyard garden of their Beverly Hills home, followed by an Art Deco-themed reception at the Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills.

Jenelle had long loved a two-piece look Mackie designed for The Cher Show that the singer actually wore again for her own wedding dress. “It was designed it the ‘70s, but still looks so relevant now,” says Jenelle. The bride asked him to create something based on the look and “do Bob Mackie.” So the designer pulled out the original sketches from his archive and found a bronze fabric he thought would pair with the look and her complexion for the outdoor ceremony. When she first saw his sketch for her gown, Jenelle said: “Bob, you nailed it.”