Benjamin and Caroline flew 75 of their favorite people from the US to a seventeenth century villa in the Veronese hills. Ortica Wedding shot the whole day on grain and flash, sliding between color and black and white. Caroline kept the brief romantic and simple, green plants and white florals against rooms already painted floor to ceiling, and the photographs honor this. This is a Verona wedding that took the Romeo and Juliet of it all and turned it into a modern summer party.
Location: Tuscany, Italy
Style: Classic, Chic, Historic
Time of planning: 1 year
Number of guests: 75
Setting: Historic Villa
Season: Summer
Benjamin and Caroline both swam varsity at Georgia Tech, which is where the two of them first crossed paths. Years later Ben took the proposal to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and the choice came with a backstory. Caroline’s parents had gotten engaged on a replica Eiffel Tower back in the US, so proposing on the real one turned a family story into something the next generation could carry forward.
Once the villa was booked, the rest of the wedding organized itself around those walls. Caroline wanted the day to feel romantic and kept the direction deliberately pared back, leaning on green plants and white florals so the painted rooms could carry the weight. Planning the whole thing from across the Atlantic took a year and a planner who spoke the language, Italy Wedding Guide, who Caroline now calls the single smartest decision of the entire process.
Bride's Morning & Fashion
Caroline got ready in the Rebecca Schoneveld Lennox, a silk blend Italian Mikado ballgown built on a Basque waist corset bodice with a full skirt that holds its own shape. An Italian fabric for an Italian wedding is the kind of quiet alignment that pays off in the photos, and the corset construction puts the dress in conversation with the structured gowns bridal keeps leaning into.
Her jewelry stayed sharp and modern, a diamond tennis choker sitting high on the neck with matching diamond drops at the ears. The tennis setting has jumped from wrists to throats over the past couple of seasons, and Caroline wore the trend at full strength. The hair went up into a messy knot rather than anything lacquered, the undone version of a wedding updo that lets a few pieces fall where they want. Roberta Cacciola handled makeup, keeping the skin lit and the attention on Caroline instead of on products.
Groom’s Fashion
Caroline picked Ben’s look herself and went with a light grey suit cut for summer and a pale blue tie. The groomsmen fell in line in the same grey with matching blue ties, and the bridesmaids carried the color across in powder blue satin slip dresses.
Ceremony
The ceremony happened outdoors, with the guests seated on the lawn in front of the villa’s baroque facade and a string ensemble playing off to the side. Caroline had wanted artwork and statues and a setting that delivered Italy, and the garden gave the vows a backdrop of clipped box hedges and stone before anyone even stepped inside.
The bride has said she hates being the center of attention and was nervous on the walk up, and that the nerves dropped the second she saw Ben, everyone else going quiet around him. The couple kept the ceremony modern rather than traditional, which tracks with how pared back the rest of the day stayed.
Moments Together
After the vows the couple slipped into the parterre on their own, and the box maze turned the two of them into small figures inside a green pattern whenever the camera pulled back. Ortica Wedding leaned hard into black and white and grain here, including one frame that keeps the film border in the edit so the negative shows its seams.
Cocktail hour spread out into the courtyard, with guests clustered under umbrellas. The candid energy of this stretch, the laughing and the sunglasses and the champagne, is where the day loosened up and let itself be a party.
Reception
Dinner moved inside to the ballroom, where the walls and ceiling are painted end to end with a baroque scene of battling giants, so the room came already decorated and the florals only had to answer it. Fiore all’Occhiello kept the flowers green forward exactly as Caroline asked, with white calla lilies and anthuriums threaded through ferns and trailing greenery, and the largest piece built low on the floor at the foot of the head table instead of stacked up in vases.
Long tables ran under the frescoes in draped white linen with tapered candles and white chiavari chairs, and Cardinali Banqueting ran the food and the service. Once the plates cleared the room turned loud, with the dance floor catching bodies mid dip and mid shout under the painted ceiling, the formal hall and the unhinged party landing in the same frame.
Advice from the couple:
• 100% get a wedding planner if you are doing a destination wedding and do not speak their language. Our wedding planner was a life saver!
PHOTOGRAPHER Ortica Wedding | PLANNING & DESIGN Italy Wedding Guide | VENUE Villa Arvedi | FLOWERS Fiore all’Occhiello | CATERING Cardinali Banqueting | MAKEUP Roberta Cacciola
