As a lifelong vintage and secondhand enthusiast, when Sophie Madorsky was planning her wedding to Benjamin Rubin, the “something old” adage was bound to set the tone. In fact, it served as the entire framework. With the exception of Ben’s tuxedo shirt, “every article of clothing and jewellery worn by the both of us from Friday to Sunday was vintage or secondhand,” she tells Vogue. The couple married at the Highlands Mansion and Gardens in Philadelphia in September, a Georgian-era estate that echoes the nostalgic spirit that was threaded through their entire wedding weekend.
In addition to her work as an actor, Sophie is the owner of a vintage bridal salon in Manhattan, and Ben is the co-founder and CEO of a climate tech startup centered around energy efficiency. In other words, their careers find common ground in sustainability; a value that naturally lends itself to a pre-loved wedding wardrobe.
Sophie’s knack for curating impeccable vintage is no secret – from Christian Dior skirt suits for the courthouse, to exquisite gowns spanning several design decades. (Do yourself a favour and watch her restore this 1940s curtain skirt dress.) But for her cocktail hour look, Sophie didn’t have to search far for source material.
“When I was 16, my grandmother Reneé decided it was time to show me the satin wedding coat she wore when she married my grandfather in 1949,” Sophie says. Despite never being someone who fantasised about what she’d wear on her wedding day, when Sophie tried on the coat that day, she knew it wouldn’t be the last time. “It was preserved with some sort of chemical that made the silk very rigid, and there was a lot of oxidation, so I made the risky choice to hand wash it in my bathtub in an attempt to regain its original lustre and feel.” Luckily, it worked. She used a seam ripper to remove the sleeves and took them to Pinpoint Bridal on the Upper East Side, to repurpose the fabric to make a bowtie for Ben. “My grandmother passed away in 2021, but I know that she would have gotten a kick out of this ‘whole ordeal’, as she would have called it.”
Beyond the bowtie, Ben wore a handmade double-breasted tuxedo sourced from Ebreo Vintage in Williamsburg, and paired it with Bally silk woven tuxedo shoes from Gentleman’s Resale on the Upper East Side. “Ben has always loved accenting formalwear with jewellery, so I found a pearl and gold chain bracelet that I sewed onto the back of his collar,” says the bride, noting it was the perfect touch of bling. Forgoing a traditional boutonnière, Ben wore an heirloom diamond brooch that belonged to his great-grandmother.
When Sophie and Ben exchanged vows beneath a chuppah (built by her father and adorned with a lace covering made by her mother), she was wearing a dress that had been nine months in the making. For her ceremony and reception looks, Sophie collaborated with emerging designer and FIT student, Elza Khalife. “We worked for nine months, had nine fittings, and ended up with a custom bodice, custom skirt and a veil,” she says.
Earlier in her journey to find a wedding dress, Sophie had purchased two vintage skirts from Shareen Mitchell, a well-known vintage collector and bridal designer known for dressing industry cool girls, including Alison Roman. Mitchell had made the decision to close her business, but – upon Sophie’s request – brought Sophie in to run the shop until the doors officially closed. “It was a transformative time for me. I met so many women who, like me, felt disconnected from their wedding dress shopping experience and yearned for something more personal and holistic,” Sophie explains. In June 2025, she opened Sophie’s Vintage Bridal.
Elza used the fabric from the vintage Shareen skirts as the base of the corset, and kept enough fabric from one of the skirts to make another skirt with pearl-embellished rosettes for Sophie to wear while dancing. “Each of my wedding looks tells a story and has a history,” she says.