On the afternoon before her wedding day, Mariela Alexandra Osorio’s apartment was buzzing, round millinery boxes all over her living room, while family and friends tried on the custom hats she’d spent weeks working on for them to wear to the event.
It was among hats that Ms. Osorio, 31, and David Gochicoa, 35, met for the first time in April 2021. Ms. Osorio had invited Mr. Gochicoa’s cousin, a friend of hers, to her pop-up shop in Monterrey, Mexico. “We thought we were going there for half an hour,” said Mr. Gochicoa, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in general management from the EBS Business School in Oestrich-Winkel, Germany, and is the owner of Americas Machinery, a company specializing in industrial relocation and crane sales and rental.
Mr. Gochicoa had absolutely no interest in fashion. Or hats. “And you never thought you would fall in love,” Ms. Osorio added.
After talking for more than half an hour, Mr. Gochicoa asked Ms. Osorio on a date. It would be two months later, but they did end up having dinner at Café Belmonte Bar, a cozy restaurant in the old quarter of Monterrey, just a day before Ms. Osorio had to fly to New York for a summer internship with Fred Castleberry, a fashion designer.
“My mind was already in New York,” Ms. Osorio said. As a result, “I wasn’t trying hard for him to like me.” But they closed down the restaurant, “and after that night we never looked back,” Mr. Gochicoa said.
The two continued to talk over text and phone the entire month Ms. Osorio was in New York. Once she landed back in Monterrey, they officially became a couple.
In November 2022, Ms. Osorio decided to relocate to Manhattan to expand her millinery brand, Mains De Vapeur.
“You go to New York and I’ll do my best to come and go,” Mr. Gochicoa recalled telling her.
Ms. Osorio added, “I’ve always felt celebrated, encouraged and pushed by David.”
Over the next few years, the couple tried to see each other every month — either going to the beach in Ms. Osorio’s hometown Tampico, Mexico, spending time in Mr. Gochicoa’s family ranch in Monterrey, or meeting in New York.
The New York visits always felt different, they said. The city “is where we could be by ourselves and start our own traditions,” she said, like the morning cafecito, cooking at home while listening to music or toasting with sake every time they bought a new piece of furniture for their apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, where Ms. Osorio continues to live while Mr. Gochicoa is, for the time being, based in Mexico.
Mr. Gochicoa knew he wanted to propose during one of those everyday moments. He had spent months creating a ring with Josefina Baillères, a Mexican jewelry designer and friend of Ms. Osorio. “Once you have the ring, it truly burns in your pocket,” Mr. Gochicoa said. “I couldn’t even sleep.”
Ms. Osorio will often roller skate as Mr. Gochicoa runs, so he planned to propose during one of those outings at sunrise along the Hudson River in April 2024. “When he woke me up at 5 a.m., I was like, let’s go in the evening, let me sleep!” she recalled. So they spent the day together, went out for dinner, and, when they returned home, Mr. Gochicoa led Ms. Osorio to their rooftop, where he read her a letter and handed her an emerald-cut diamond ring. The moment ended up being “quiet, sincere and very us,” Ms. Osorio said.
As they planned the wedding, one thing became clear: Ms. Osorio, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in fashion and textile design from the University of Monterrey, wanted to design custom hats for her female guests. “It was my way of honoring them and bringing a part of what I love to do into the celebration,” she said.
The couple also knew they wanted to have their wedding in New York. “We could’ve done a traditionally big wedding in Mexico,” Ms. Osorio said, “but we wanted to show our friends and family that we really have become a team here, New York City has shaped who we are as a couple.”
So they planned a small wedding, with 59 guests who flew mostly from Mexico for the occasion. The only request made by Ms. Osorio’s parents, Alma Eliz Ronquillo Villarreal and Luis Fernando Osorio Garza, was that they marry in a Catholic church.
On Aug. 23, the couple were married by the Rev. Jorge Obregón, a Catholic priest, in a traditional Catholic ceremony with a homily in Spanish at the Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral in the NoLIta neighborhood of Manhattan (with the occasional groups of tourists visiting the catacombs, walking through).
After offering a garden-style bouquet made by Mr. Gochicoa’s mother, María Eugenia Saro Ruiz, to the image of the Virgin Mary, the newlyweds climbed into a white vintage Rolls-Royce waiting outside. From there, the driver honked a wedding march all the way to Casino, an Italian and French restaurant on the Lower East Side.
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There, a jazz trio welcomed guests for cocktails while a surprise was unfolding in the basement: Lights, cameras, a makeup corner and a full studio backdrop were being prepared for a fashion shoot where wedding guests would become the models for Ms. Osorio’s next ad campaign. Her mother and aunts posed with confidence. Mr. Gochicoa’s mother felt shy at first, but ended up having fun with every “give me a smile!” or “give me another pose!”
Upstairs, a lighting set inspired by James Turrell’s Skyspaces, adapted through the night to create different atmospheres.
The dancing portion of the evening turned emotional when Mr. Gochicoa danced with his mother, and the rest of his family joined them in a big hug. Ms. Osorio also danced with her two brothers and her father, and the couple’s young nephews were lying on the floor, looking on as the newlyweds danced. The sound of Bad Bunny’s “NUEVAYoL” was the cue to get the party started.
Ms. Osorio’s friends and cousins surprised the bride by dressing up in bathrobes and sunglasses, dancing to Abba’s “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” and carrying cardboard banners with inside jokes. Mr. Gochicoa’s brother sourced aprons from Casino’s staff for all of his male friends and family. Trays were filled with tequila shots and served on the dance floor. One of the couple’s young nephews acted as a waiter for the rest of the party, dragging along a way-too-big Casino apron and writing down everyone’s orders in a notepad.
By the end of the night, the guests, along with the people working at Casino and the wedding vendors were laughing and sharing their good wishes for the couple. “We’ve traveled all the way here,” said Mr. Gochicoa’s mother, “and it was so worth it.”
On This Day
When Aug. 23, 2025
Where The Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral, Manhattan
Latino Creatives and an Editorial Vision Danielle Juliao, the founder of the curatorial studio Concordia, acted as a producer for the wedding and the photo shoot. The team included the makeup artist Laura Pantoja from Colombia and the videographer Bryan Berrios from Venezuela. They worked alongside Robbie Vicencio, a producer from Mexico, and Andrés Linares, a photographer and Sergio Avellaneda, a lighting director, both from Bogotá, Colombia. The Colombian florist Juliana Tristancho from Flower Therapy in Brooklyn Heights created a minimalist assortment of red anthuriums and alliums that covered the walls of Casino.
Dress Options Ms. Osorio had a few dresses in contention, including a Vivienne Westwood and an Oscar de la Renta piece from a sample sale. She vacillated on which to wear until the week before the wedding. In the end, she chose the Westwood paired with a pillbox hat and veil she created, and wore the de la Renta at their tornaboda, or smaller event, the day after the wedding.
Gloves Were On Ms. Osorio also collects gloves and wore a pair of tulle ones from Cornelia James at the church. She changed during the dance to a light blue suede pair she had bought with a friend at a 19th-century glove boutique in Madrid called Guantes Luque.
Lots of Hats and More Ms. Osorio designed hats for almost all the female guests according to their styles and personalities, but she wanted Mr. Gochicoa to have a little custom detail as well. She ended up making a subtle flower origami brooch for him. His suit was designed by Fred Castleberry, the fashion designer with whom Ms. Osorio did the internship in New York after the couple’s very first date.
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