Inside DJ Illenium and Lara McWhorter’s Music-Filled Aspen Wedding

As an artist and a DJ respectively, Lara McWhorter and Nick Miller wanted to incorporate their passions into their wedding weekend. The Denver-based couple decided to marry in Aspen, where the groom, an electronic musician who performs under the moniker Illenium, lived for two years. Because McWhorter’s mother is from France and Miller was born into a family of Francophiles, the two seriously considered marrying abroad, but eventually decided that Colorado would be more accessible for their domestic guests. “So many of my best friends are musicians and traveling all the time, getting who we wanted to get out would be [difficult],” says Miller, who was nominated for a Grammy in 2022. “When we saw the place in Aspen, we fell in love with the location. It’s the fall time, the color, the trees. The fact that everyone could make it was the selling point. It just felt so homey to us.”

The ceremony was met with inclement weather—a deluge of rain and tremendous wind that ultimately broke for a beautiful moment. “We had these giant silver balls in the pond right next to our ceremony. As I’m getting ready, I’m looking out the window and see these guys on kayaks chasing down the silver balls so that they don’t fly away. They were just moving all around,” McWhorter says. She stood with Miller as they waited to walk out to the ceremony. He was looking out a window, but she couldn’t see what was happening. “I’m like, ‘What’s going on?’ and he’s like, ‘Don’t look outside.’ So the ceremony begins, and I look at the windows, and there’s water sticking to the windows.” But it cleared at the perfect moment. “I felt like the wind stop right as we were saying our vows, which was really special. And the sunlight was just heavenly above us.”

The Venue

The wedding was held at a private estate in Aspen set on 82 acres of land.

The Welcome Party

The couple greeted their guests with a Thursday night party at Belly Up, a music venue that Miller has performed at multiple times. “We went with an elevated western theme, which prompted a lot of questions. Our friends were a bit confused, but it actually turned out to be so sick. People killed it,” McWhorter says. “I created a whole Pinterest board for everybody to get inspiration for their outfits.”

On Theme

The couple wanted music to influence many elements of the wedding. The save the dates were modeled after an all-access concert pass, the guestbook was printed on vinyl, and the escort cards featured a literal soundwave. They included a Spotify playlist of their favorite songs with their invitation, which resembled an old-school record album and included artwork by the bride.

The rehearsal dinner was inspired by van Gogh’s “Starry Night.” McWhorter wore an ethereal Vera Wang dress and carried an Olympia Le-Tan clutch that directly referenced the painting. The tables were topped with sunflowers. “We were all about the themes,” she says.

The Fashion

In addition to McWhorter’s wedding dress and the Vera Wang gown, she wore a Libertine dress customized by Paul Burgo to the welcome dinner, a vintage denim dress with a jean jacket from The Attico for a pre-rehearsal dinner picnic, Loewe to the reception, and dresses by The Attico for the after-party. Miller wore Zegna and Gucci to the welcome party, a Gucci suit to the rehearsal, and a Zegna suit to the wedding. For the after-party, he wore Alexander McQueen.

The Main Dress

McWhorter was overwhelmed by the intense timelines for ordering a gown, but managed to find help from stylist Carrie Goldberg of CLG Creative. “I was just totally flustered. Then I got connected with Carrie and she was like, ‘Oh my gosh, you’re so fine. Just come out to New York,’” she recalls.

She knew she had an affinity for Danielle Frankel’s work. “It just felt very artistic and unique and fresh,” she says. After she found the dress, Frankel made slight customizations, like changing the neckline and lowering the waist.

The Ceremony

The bride, whose father passed away when she was young, walked down the aisle with her mother. (She attached her father’s stopwatch to her bouquet to have it with her.) “[My mom] starts crying, and we hadn’t even walked two feet. I was like, ‘Mom, you can’t start crying now. We have like, 100 more feet to go.’ Then it just hit me, and I started crying. I was like, oh my gosh, this is happening,” she recalls. “It was just tunnel vision, and all I could see was Nick. Even though the wind was ripping through me—my veil was vertical on top of my head—all of that just didn’t matter.”

The Menu

When it came to the food, the couple was happy to cede control to their wedding planner Debra Doyle of Aspen Eventworks. “We went into so much detail with everything else that we just trusted her. We didn’t even do a tasting. And we were blown away by how good it was,” Miller says. The surf and turf menu by European Caterers included Colorado sea bass and steak.

Because the groom doesn’t drink alcohol, there was plenty of chocolate milk available. (Miller has openly spoken about his experiences with addiction and advocates for harm-reduction techniques, like increasing the use of Narcan.)

The Party

Evolution, a band and DJ hybrid, performed during the four-hour reception. For the after-party, held in the same tent, the DJ table was open for the couple and all their friends to come together. “It was a free-for-all DJ set, so all of our producer and DJ friends hopped on the decks and it was really a fun moment,” McWhorter says.

“It was very free and chill, no pressure, everyone was just enjoying each other,” Miller adds of the party. “ You don’t have that many moments where all of your friends are around and they don’t have jobs to do. My family and my community of friends, we’re all pretty emotional people and have been through a lot of ups and downs in life. It was really, for everyone I think, emotional. I think having that at the end of the night, that stuff hits harder.”