An Opulent Verona Wedding With Persian Rituals and Baroque Frescoes

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Helia and Baabak gathered their families in Verona, Italy, for a celebration that ran three full days: a welcome dinner at Caffè Dante Bistrot on Piazza dei Signori, the wedding at Villa Arvedi, and a relaxed poolside brunch at Byblos Art Hotel to close the weekend. The wedding day paired a full Persian ceremony, Sofreh Aghd included, with dinner under Ludovico Dorigny’s frescoed giants and a finale of cold sparks around a champagne coupe tower. Sixty guests flew in from across the globe, and the Palazzo Eventi team turned a five month timeline into a weekend that ran with such ease that the couple got to be fully present at their own wedding. The floral palette of blue, green, pink and white started at the Sofreh Aghd and spread through the entire villa.

Location: Verona, Italy
Style: Persian, Opulent, Vibrant
Time of planning: 5 months
Number of guests: 60
Setting: Villa
Season: Summer

Helia and Baabak both have Persian roots and live in Los Angeles, and they planned the wedding as a family event first, with loved ones flying in from across the globe to witness it. Their relationship runs on tenderness and mutual respect, and the brief behind the wedding followed the same instinct: honor every Persian tradition in full, then set it in the Italian countryside outside Verona.

Bride's Morning & Fashion

Helia started with an off the rack dress and worked with a seamstress to rebuild it into a fully custom gown, which is the smartest route to a one of one silhouette inside a five month timeline. The final dress has a strapless sweetheart bodice, a long train and a slit that runs high up the thigh. Paired with a cathedral length veil, it has two settings: church appropriate from the back, red carpet from the front.

Her shoes are pointed white satin pumps with oversized crystal sunburst buckles, and the buckle carries a sly bit of history: jeweled shoe buckles were court fashion in the second half of the 1600s, the same decades the Allegri family was expanding Villa Arvedi into the Baroque house it is today. The fragrance in her flat lay is Le Labo Thé Noir 29, built on fig, bergamot and black tea, a fitting pick for a Persian bride, since black tea sits at the center of Iranian hospitality.

Anastasia Fogileva kept the makeup soft and natural, and the hair stayed down in relaxed waves under the veil. With a bodice this structured, loose hair is the counterweight that keeps the whole look moving. The bouquet mixes peach roses, blue delphinium, yellow ranunculus and lilac blooms, finished with long periwinkle ribbon streamers, a Victorian bouquet detail that suits a bride who likes her references with some age on them.

Groom’s Fashion

Baabak wore a white dinner jacket with a black bow tie and black trousers for the ceremony and portraits. A white boutonniere kept the lapel quiet and let the jacket do the talking.

Ceremony

The ceremony took place in the Valpantena valley outside Verona, a villa the Allegri family had architect Giovanni Battista Bianchi expand in 1656 and the Arvedi family, silk producers, have owned since 1824.

Its formal garden is enclosed by walls, a neat coincidence for a Persian ceremony: the ancient Iranian word for a walled garden passed through Greek as paradeisos and landed in English as paradise. Rom com fans may also recognize the grounds from Letters to Juliet.

The Sofreh Aghd was set at the foot of the double staircase, with the stone ramps rising toward the loggia behind it like a proscenium. The spread covered everything tradition asks for: the mirror, candles in crystal candelabras, dried fruit, fresh grapes, bundles of walnuts tied with ribbon, handmade sweets, sparkling sugar lollipops and a swan made entirely of nabaat, the crystallized rock sugar used to sweeten tea across Iran.

Fiore all’Occhiello placed florals on the balustrade posts and let them cascade down the ramps into two full banks at the base, so the arrangements trace the architecture line by line. Green and lilac hydrangea, blue delphinium, peach roses and soft pink fillers deliver the couple’s palette of blue, green, pink and white, with the blues doing most of the talking.

The bride’s cousin led the ceremony, which kept the most sacred part of the day inside the family. For the kaleh ghand, women held a white cloth over the couple while sugar cones were rubbed together above it, a blessing of sweetness passed on to the newlyweds.

Each woman wore a different saturated color, red, yellow, green and hot pink, a lineup that pulls the vermilion, orpiment yellow and malachite green straight off a Persian miniature painter’s palette. The couple names the moment Helia appeared, with the music playing, as the most unforgettable of the day, and Baabak was visibly moved.

Moments Together

Galya Rudenko photographed the couple across the grounds, and the strongest frames use the garden’s geometry like a film set. The drive at villa is lined with old box hedges clipped into hard geometric shapes, and the wide shot of the two of them walking between them toward the fountain and the stone statues lands squarely in Last Year at Marienbad territory: clipped topiary, gravel, two small figures and total symmetry.

Helia and Baabak describe the whole day as flowing on its own, with both of them present for every second, and these portraits carry that ease. Oshepkov Films captured the day on video.

Reception

Dinner moved indoors to the villa’s grand hall, where guests were greeted by live strings from Joy Entertainment. Ludovico Dorigny frescoed the room around 1720 with zodiac allegories, the Battle of the Giants, centaurs fighting Lapiths and Perseus with Medusa, all under an illusionistic vault attributed to Francesco Galli Bibiena.

Imperial tables run the length of the room with gilded chairs, crystal candelabras and tall white tapers, while the florals stay low so guests can see each other across the table.

Amber uplighting pulls the gilt, the candle flames and the ochre of the frescoes into one warm band, a setup with real Visconti energy, straight from the ballroom in The Leopard, a story that got a fresh series adaptation in 2025. The violinist and cellist wore tiered champagne tulle, which put the musicians in the same color family as the chairs and the frescoes.

The Palazzo Eventi team moved the night from the frescoed hall to the terrace and out to the cake table in the garden so smoothly that the party never lost its pace. Burro Salvia Banqueting handled the menu, and the terrace, with its view over the villa’s park, became the spot for photos and mingling. Guests went home with olive oil from La Macontè Olio, a fitting souvenir from an estate that still produces grapes and oil today.

After dark Helia changed into a strapless mini with tiered, textured ruffles and silver heels, and the skirt rhymes with the four tier cake beside her, white, stacked and finished with pastel flowers and a gold monogram topper on a table banked in hydrangea and delphinium.

Advice from the couple:

• When it comes to love, trust your instincts—when you know, you know. The same goes for planning your big day. Choosing the right wedding planners makes all the difference. Surrounding yourself with a team who understands your vision and brings it to life allows you to be fully present and enjoy every moment. It truly takes the stress out of planning and turns your dream into reality.