The Bride Wore a One-of-a-Kind Molly Goddard Dress for Her Vibrant Bay Area Wedding
When Madeline Moore and Nick Forland decided to get married after eight years and two children together, the couple already knew that a traditional wedding wasn’t on the cards. “We went into the planning process very comfortable with ourselves, giving ourselves permission to have fun,” Madeline says. “We weren’t trying to check all the boxes or accommodate our family’s desires. We were putting this on for ourselves, and we got to be really playful with it.”
Photo: Lynn Bagley
The pair’s unorthodox approach was informed by Madeline’s past experiences as a bride-to-be. “I actually planned a wedding when I was 20 and then canceled it three weeks prior,” she says. “I look back on it and it was so basic. I didn’t know who I was. I was just trying to check all the boxes.” Now, in her mid-30s, Madeline knew that she wanted to show up as her most authentic self. “I just wanted to get married in something that was not going to be performative.”
But Madeline, a stylist and creative director who runs the Bay Area-based consultancy, Choice Studio, struggled to find a dress that fit her vision—partially given her self-described eclectic tastes. “I’m a Gemini and that every single day I’m a brand new personality,” she jokes. One night, though, an idea struck. “I had a vision when I was going to bed one night,” she recalls. “I actually just want to get married barefoot in the woods in a nightgown.”
Photo: Lynn Bagley
Photo: Lynn Bagley
Madeline purchased a cotton ready-to-wear dress from Molly Goddard’s bridal line. “It’s quite sheer despite how voluminous the fabric is. I loved the interplay of my nude body showing underneath all of this cotton fabric,” she says. “This dress felt really vulnerable and really tender.” But mere days after she purchased the dress, Goddard dropped her spring 2025 collection. “My heart fell in my stomach,” she says. “I was like, oh, no. That’s what I’m supposed to wear.” (But more on that later…)
She decided to pivot, wearing the original sheer cotton dress to procure their marriage license at San Francisco City Hall, styled with white Dries Van Noten pumps that featured a blue jewel heel, which she had originally sourced for a friend’s sister. “She needed a size up, so when I got married, she mailed them to me and she was like, ‘These can be our sister shoes,’” she says. “The something blue is so beautiful on the heel.”
Photo: Lynn Bagley
Photo: Lynn Bagley
Madeline’s Simone Rocha bag was a recurring piece throughout her wedding festivities. “When it arrived at my house, I was really overwhelmed by the scale, so I bought the miniature one,” she says. But when her three-year-old daughter, Melba, discovered the purses, she decided she wanted one for herself. “She was like, ‘One’s for you and one’s for me,’” Madeline says. “So we carried matching Simone Roche bags at the actual wedding.” Her four-year-old son, Ludo, got in on the action, too: “He put our rings inside of it, so when we had to get them out, he popped it open. It was very cute.”