Alyssa and Jerome Fried married in July 2025 at The Inn at Mattei’s Tavern, a former stagecoach stop in the Santa Ynez Valley that has been in the hospitality business since 1886. Alyssa walked into her beauty trial with three reference images and left the rest to Nicole Iyer of Samara Beauty, who built a face and a hairline that held from a July morning through a full day outdoors and a dress change after dinner. That skin finish is what Samara Beauty has built a reputation on across Santa Barbara and the Central Coast, and it is far harder to execute than it looks. All of it came together in six months, for 120 guests, in the middle of a July heat.
Location: Santa Ynez Valley, California, USA
Style: Classic, Chic, Unfussy
Time of planning: 6 months
Number of guests: 120
Setting: Garden
Season: Summer
Alyssa Anderson won a gold medal in the 4x200m freestyle relay at the 2012 Olympics, which makes it fitting that she and Jerome met at a pool party. Their mutual friend Cassidy Horn hosts one at the end of every summer, arrived at a hunch that the pairing would work, and turned out to be entirely right about it. The couple fell for each other quickly and hard, and Cassidy has been collecting credit for the introduction ever since.
Jerome proposed in December 2024 at the Rosewood in Santa Barbara, a choice that bought the two of them several days on that stretch of coast to sit with the news before anybody else was told. Alyssa and Jerome both describe that weekend as the beginning of their favorite love story rather than the closing of the dating chapter.
Bride's Morning & Fashion
The only jewelry Alyssa wore was a pearl bracelet that her mother handed over that morning, built out of her grandmother’s pearl necklace after the family took the original piece apart so all three daughters could carry something from it. Baccarat Rouge 540 by Maison Francis Kurkdjian did the fragrance work. Kellie Robyn of K Designs in handled the day of paper, working as an illustrator first and a stationer second.
For the face, Alyssa brought Nicole Iyer of Samara Beauty exactly three references: Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Hailey Bieber, and Elsa Hosk. Those three women share a single reference point, which is a face that looks barely worked on, and Nicole Iyer built to that brief before closing the look with a low knot pulled flat and given no movement at all.
The gown came from KYHA with the scarf attached as part of the design rather than added afterwards as a styling decision, and that distinction is what makes the whole look land, because the drama was engineered at the throat from the pattern stage: strapless through the body, covered at the neck, with a trailing length long enough to function as a train that begins where a necklace would usually sit.
KYHA has been making this same argument since 2011, when founder Kyha Scott started the label on the grounds that tulle and ball gowns were the only options available to her at the time. Stuart Weitzman open toed heels went underneath the column, which counts as a practical call on grass as much as a fashion one. Nicole Chapman Design built the bouquet from calla lilies and nothing else, a decision that turns the flowers into a single graphic line.
Groom’s Fashion
Jerome went custom in dark navy instead of black, which is the harder call to pull off. TOD’s black suede loafers replaced the formal oxford that the rest of the tuxedo. A Rolex accounted for the only other thing Jerome wore. The groom describes his wedding day as running on excitement and joy rather than nerves, alongside a strong sense of standing exactly where he was supposed to be standing.
First Look
Alyssa and Jerome did a first look before anybody else had seen either of them dressed, and both point to that moment as the one that took the nerves out of the ceremony. The first look also bought the couple the only stretch of the entire day that belonged to nobody except the two of them.
Ceremony
For the ceremony guests faced the garden at the center of The Inn at Mattei’s Tavern, with the greenhouse standing behind the couple and the property’s landmark water tower anchoring the view off to one side. The estate has occupied that ground since 1886, when a Swiss immigrant named Felix Mattei built a tavern with lodging directly across from the end of the Los Olivos rail line.
Dr. Jeanne Conry, the bride’s aunt, served as officiant, which meant the ceremony was run by somebody who had known one half of the couple for her entire life. Dr. Conry walked the room through the journey that brought Alyssa and Jerome to that point, and the couple then read vows they had written themselves. Jewish and Catholic traditions were both folded into the structure, so the ceremony ended up carrying two families.
Moments Together
Cocktail hour moved to Gin’s Tap Bar at The Inn at Mattei’s Tavern, a room named for Gin Lung Gin, the chef who ran the kitchen here from 1910 and whose Chinese heritage the space still carries through its carved wooden horses. Two signature cocktails and a run of passed bites covered the gap while the valley light dropped.
Meru of Poem of Us shot both the photography and the film for this wedding, which is the reason the stills and the moving footage share a single visual grammar rather than two competing ones.
Reception
Dinner ran on the lawn at Mattei’s under open sky. Dina Clapinski of On the Bride’s Side handled the planning and design, and the sequencing of the evening is the part worth studying, because the spaces sit close enough together that guests simply walked between every stage of the night, leaving no need for a shuttle or a staged transition.
Nicole Chapman Design handled the florals, and the single choice carrying the room is hydrangea. Olive and lavender carried the scent work through the evening, a restaurant terrace instinct applied to a wedding dinner. Los Olivos translates from Spanish as the olive trees, so an olive sprig sitting on a place setting puts the name of the town directly on the plate.
BBJ La Tavola supplied the linen across the whole floor plan, which is the layer that quietly sets the temperature of a room before anybody sits down. The Solvang Bakery made the cake, arriving from the Danish village fifteen minutes down the valley.
DJ TOON ran the music through every part of the evening, the wedding party delivered the toasts, and Alyssa and Jerome describe floating through the rest of the night after walking into the reception as Mr and Mrs Fried for the first time. Santa Barbara Airbus moved all 120 guests in and out of the property, which remains the least celebrated and most load bearing job on any rural estate.
Alyssa then changed into a beaded short dress by Nadine Merabi, and the room shifted register along with her. Dina Clapinski’s own read on that moment is that both the energy and the playfulness climbed a level the second the bride came back out wearing it.
Advice from the couple:
• We wouldn’t change a thing about our special day at Mattei’s Tavern. It was perfect from start to finish. Choose your team wisely – we couldn’t have done it without them!
MAKEUP & HAIR Samara Beauty | PLANNING & DESIGN On the Bride’s Side | PHOTOGRAPHY & VIDEOGRAPHY Poem of Us | VENUE The Inn at Mattei’s Tavern | FLORALS Nicole Chapman Design | STATIONERY K Designs | BRIDAL GOWN KYHA | CAKE The Solvang Bakery | LINEN BBJ La Tavola | TRANSPORTATION Santa Barbara Airbus | DJ TOON
