The Ultimate Mexico City Dream Wedding — UT Sweethearts Embrace the Magic of a Historical Setting

Growing up in Houston, Dagney Pruner had always imagined that when she wed it would be at her family’s ranch in Wimberley. Reality intervened when she and Carlos Gómez del Campo Neme of Mexico City became engaged.

“I absolutely fell in love with the city,” she says of her future husband’s home.

The wedding bells for the couple, who now call Austin home, rang out from the chapel in Mexico City’s Colegio de San Ignacio de Loyola Vizcaínas in October. The mid-18th-century Baroque building set the stage for an equally grand wedding celebration that went from dusk to dawn.

The splendid festivities, orchestrated by event planner Diego del Rigo Zepeda of Mexico City, spread over three days, beginning with an evening of dinner and dancing for close friends at Blanco Castelar in the affluent neighborhood of Polanco. The couple wed on a Friday evening in a civil ceremony that was held on the rooftop of Cipriani Masaryk in Polanco, where out-of-town guests joined in the revelry.

“I told Diego I wanted something incredibly romantic, lush, and like a black-tie midsummer night’s dream,” Dagney says of the wedding celebration. “Lots of rich pinks and burgundy, candles everywhere, ornate gold flatware, open fruit displays on every table looking like a royal feast, ivy dripping from the arches, and chandeliers hanging everywhere.”

He delivered beyond expectation. Following the ceremony in the cathedral, where the bride wore a magnificent Monique Lhuillier gown, the 700 guests moved to the central domed courtyard of the historic building along a pathway of sparklers that spewed fiery crystals throughout the night.

Crews worked for 24 hours transforming the reception space into a magical wonderland where Zepeda created a shimmering tableau across the vast interior with dramatically lighted navy velvet draping; hundreds of candles; the Baroque arches drenched in ivy and flowers; banks of roses, orchids, and other flowers; and tables magnificently set with gleaming crystal glasses and golden flatware.

Throughout the five-course dinner, which was catered by Les Croissants,  Paco de María (think Michael Bublé) and his swing band performed American classics. As the night moved on, DJ Julio spun both Mexican and American hits. The dancing frolic was interrupted at 2 am by a shower of metallic confetti that drenched the dance floor, where the partying continued until 6 am.

Two bars on the dance floor allowed guests to devise their own gin and tequila drinks with mint, berries and the like that were mixed by speakeasy-costumed bartenders. The drinks were served in the couple’s custom sippy cups printed with their wedding logo.

“It absolutely saved the dance floor from broken glass and my dress hem from the usual dance floor sludge,” Dagney says.

The dance floor design was custom made for the wedding and that design was used to tie everything together: the menus, the table numbers, the design on the cigarette boxes were placed on each table.

The couple met in graduate school at the University of Texas, where Dagney earned her master’s degree in journalism and Carlos received his MBA. She serves as a marketing director in venture capital. He’s in marketing at oil and gas tech company Enverus.

The bride is the daughter of Alexandra and David Pruner of Houston. The groom is the son of Celia Neme de Gómez and Carlos Gómez del Campo Diaz Barreiro of Mexico City.