Chelsea Keyes, a beauty industry publicist, and Evan McDuffie, a sneaker and collectibles portfolio manager, were originally planning on getting married in Edgartown, Massachusetts, in October. But in July, their venue conveyed that, due to the COVID-19 restrictions in the state, their indoor reception could only have 17 guests. “We took that month to reevaluate our priorities for the wedding and made the decision to cancel our original venue, change venues, keep our date, and downsize the guest list by almost 100 people,” Chelsea says. “We had a shorter engagement than I think most people deem traditional—10 months from the time Evan proposed—and we were so excited to get married and share the enjoyment with our loved ones. I think we realized the wedding is just a day, and a large wedding didn’t mean as much to us as being married to each other.” 

The thought of waiting and planning for another whole year felt daunting to Chelsea, who was acting as the primary event planner. So by August, they made the decision to keep their wedding on Martha’s Vineyard—the place where they met—but to scale it back. Some of their larger wedding funds would go toward purchasing their first home together, they decided. They found the perfect venue in Lambert’s Cove Inn, where the ceremony, cocktail hour, and wedding reception could all be outdoors, following CDC guidelines. Additionally, they provided masks at the ceremony entrance, and the venue had sanitization stations around the grounds, limited guests per table, and all passed food was pre-plated and served individually.

Once they had officially made the call to downsize, they got to work on pivoting their original plans, choosing whenever they could to work with small, local, and Black-owned businesses. A bulk of the planning had already been completed, but there were still a lot of conversations to be had with vendors, along with cancellations for things that at this later stage felt somewhat frivolous, like live entertainment and a photo booth. “It also meant spending an entire month going back to the drawing board—er, spreadsheet—and doing site visits all over again,” Chelsea says. “Overall, our vendors were a dream to work with; even when our budget decreased, they provided the same level of service and worked with us to create our vision. We also decided about a month and a half before our wedding date to bring on a day-of coordinator—our mutual friend Keisha Jette, who’s an islander and plans weddings as a side hustle—which was crucial to the event’s success.” 

A month after Evan proposed, Chelsea went to a Jenny Yoo trunk show in an attempt to research and identify what her preferred wedding dress style might be. “I honestly had no intentions of selecting a dress that day, and then I found one!” she says. “It had all the elements of what I love in wedding dresses and what I thought Evan would like.”

Chelsea’s jewelry selection was also total happenstance. “I was running to my final dress fitting, and it dawned on me that I needed to decide on earrings,” she says. “I grabbed these beautiful Art Deco drop earrings from my mother’s jewelry collection, just to use as a placeholder. They happened to be my late maternal grandmother’s, who was the ultimate fashion plate and my personal style icon, which made them even more special, and they quickly became my ‘something borrowed.’ When I tried them on with the dress, it was a done deal.”

As a beauty publicist, skin care and makeup have always been important to Chelsea. “They’re my jam,” she says. “So I took my skin-care routine very seriously in the lead up to the wedding. About a month before, I visited Dr. Rachel Nazarian for a chemical peel, and it made a big difference with my hyperpigmentation. I also met with my hometown hairstylist, Michelle Gaines, to do a hair test about two to three months ahead of the wedding, and we played with my natural hair while wearing the veil. Lastly, I stumbled upon local Martha’s Vineyard makeup artist and hairstylist’s Talita Destefani’s Instagram page and went in just a week before the wedding for my makeup test. Larissa Dirino delivered on every aspect I wanted: natural and glow-y with a touch of glam.”

Evan wore a Bonobos tux—he was actually in an advertising campaign for the brand last year—and completed the look with a Gucci bow tie and Christian Louboutin shoes. Meanwhile, the bridesmaids followed Chelsea’s lead, also wearing Jenny Yoo, but in velvet marigold. “I loved their dress from the moment I saw it,” the bride says. “They screamed fall, but in a very luxe way.” The groomsmen matched in black tuxes from The Black Tux. Custom masks with the couple’s wedding date and an outline of the island on them were available for everyone.

“I felt slight butterflies and my knees started to shake a little during the ceremony,” Chelsea remembers. “But by the time Ev read his vows and held my hands, all nerves and butterflies flew away. I felt so connected to him; I couldn’t take my eyes off his.” The couple’s officiant—a family friend who’s an attorney by day—put together a ceremony that was routed in scripture, an element that was very important to the couple. “We also incorporated personal, handwritten notes,” Chelsea says. “Ev’s brought down the house. It’s so funny how similar our themes were—we both talked about how we met, how special Martha’s Vineyard is to both of us, and how it helped foster our relationship.”

After the newlyweds jumped the broom, guests headed to the Alpaca Farm for cocktail hour, while the couple took family portraits. Personal items were incorporated throughout the reception, including vintage photos of Chelsea and Evan’s parents’ and grandparents’ weddings and formal portraits to highlight their foundation and legacy. “We always wanted to incorporate shells on our wedding day and originally thought we’d use oyster shells as place settings during the reception,” Chelsea says. “[But] in the true serendipitous spirit of Martha’s Vineyard, we stumbled upon an array of cleaned-out quahog shells on the beach in a perfect quantity of 40-plus.”

One of the most personal elements of the day for Chelsea was when they played a prerecorded video toast from her grandfather that her aunt and cousin helped him film. “He looked so handsome as he wore a suit in his formal living room and toasted us with a glass of Champagne.” Chelsea recalls.

Looking back now, the uncertainty Chelsea and Evan felt while trying to plan a wedding amid a pandemic is still fresh in their minds. “At one point during the summer, we weren’t sure what the fate of our wedding would become. But in the end, we had the beautiful and intimate wedding of our dreams, in Martha’s Vineyard, the most special place in the world to us. I want people to know that even during a pandemic, love prevails. We were nervous to cut down our guest list, and there were so many family members and friends who were missed, but the outcome was a personal and magical occasion we will never forget.”