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This summer, you might have been fixating on the wrong wedding. It may be flying under the radar but that doesn’t mean it’s quiet. This is the one that might be really over the top, the one worthy of all its Instagram posts and outfit recaps. Yes, it’s another one that we hear will get the Vogue treatment. And no, It’s not the Lauren Sanchez-Jeff Bezos Venice event. It’s in Paris, and it’s happening in a month and there are two grooms: Charles Porch and Robert Denning, plusieurs events, and at least 400 of their closest friends.
If you don’t know who either of these socially prominent men are, you aren’t spending enough time on Instagram or watching the Met Ball arrivals. Literally. Porch is the vice president of global partnerships at Instagram, where he has worked since 2012, recruiting famous personalities to join the app. Denning is the youngest member of the Board of Trustees at the Met.
What you need to know is these guys are prominent, ambitious, and omnivorous in their social lives in New York, Los Angeles, and internationally. They go to a lot of fundraisers–the Met, obviously, but also flying to L.A. for Baby2Baby–and have a deep bench of photos chronicling them on BFA. Denning is frequently seen out with Jamie Singer Soros and takes selfies with Christy Turlington. He’s been spotted with fashion types like Irene Neuwirth, Lisa Love, and Aurora James CFDA benefits, and filmmaker-philanthropist Catherine Gund on the Met’s rooftop. Porch is of course frequently seen with his coworker Eva Chen, but also with Karlie Kloss at a dinner hosted by Anna Wintour; alongside W editor Sara Moonves at the Chateau Marmont; with Chrissy Teigen at Neue House; and smiling with Barbara Bush in the Hamptons.
Porch got the Met to participate in a surprise proposal in October 2023, on one knee in view of Classical statues. He said yes–luckily as there was another surprise, a dinner in the PDR of the Polo Bar. “It was truly so beyond. Ahhh!!!” Denning described on Facebook.
Porch, who once told the NY Times, “DM is like a celebrity phone book,” sold his Los Angeles home last year. Many of his closest friends are L.A. girls. According to one mutual friend, he met Erin Foster decades ago when they were both low-rung assistants. “I met them through Erin Foster. Charles is her best friend and he is basically part of their family,” says Sophia Rossi, a cofounder of the site Hello Giggles, who is a wedding invitee. Porch’s best girlfriends, including three Foster sisters, Jen Meyer, Amy Griffin, and Naomi Gleit threw him a Charlie’s Angels-themed bachelor party last spring at Amangiri. It was all chronicled, from his “Groom to Be” sash to yoga sessions to pool time to commemorative tees, on Instagram. Posting is perhaps something of a professional obligation for him, and his girls are the type who love to share on main, but aside from his job, it’s a lot of personal details for public consumption.
Denning, on the other hand, seemed to celebrate in Puerto Vallarta with a gaggle of guys, commemorated in a single group photo post from a friend, Ian Furguson, that read cheekily, “Congratulations to the bride to be”. Denning is the son of Steven Denning, the Chairman Emeritus of the investment firm General Atlantic. He grew up in Greenwich and went to Greenwich High School. “He always had the air of a male socialite,” said someone who has known him since they were teens. He attended Stanford and founded an optical company called Westward Leaning but is leaning much harder into prominent philanthropic roles–besides the Met he joined the National Council of National Park Service and posted photos at the White House over Christmas 2023.
That drive to do good does not mean the wedding will be a pared down affair. Instead, Porch, who is part French, has been posting teasers of Hermès fittings and film still from Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette. The vibe seems to be unabashed celebrity luxury, not trying to play it cool. You could say the unofficial theme may just be “Let them eat cake.”
They have supposedly rented out rooms for 400 guests at Le Bristol–a rep for the storied Parisian hotel says they never comment on guests–and Jamie Mizrahi is styling the couple and some of the attendees. Parties will be at Musée Rodin, Château de Villette, and Hôtel de la Marine, all rumored to be planned by Lanza & Baucina, the Italian aristocrat-owned company that was behind the Bezos nuptials. Charlie’s Angels will of course be there, but what of Wendi Murdoch, Gucci Westman, Mariska Hargitay, Wes Gordon, Jenna Lyons, or Oprah, all of whom have made cameos in photos with the couple?
“Robert and Charles are the funniest, warmest, smartest couple! Robert is a legit genius and Charles is low key incredible,” says Rossi. “The events are fancy but fun and I’m most excited for the speeches. I know they will be hysterical”
If you need to send a gift, Porch contributed a dream registry for the site overthemoon.com. He’d like a Royal Copenhagen dinner plate for $41, but he’d probably rather have someone get the night at Wildflower Farms, an Auberge Resort in the Hudson Valley, where one night is $1979. After a wedding like that, they will probably need a rest.
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