Anna and Igor knew from the start they wanted to get married in the country where they had taken their very first trip together. Italy wasn’t an aesthetic choice; it was a memory. “We imagined a place that felt like Italy for us,” Anna shares, “a historic villa surrounded by cypresses, large windows, sun-faded paint, and ivy-covered walls.” They found it in Tuscany and realized it didn’t need much decor, only precise accents.
With planner Kate of Weds in May, they worked with what was already there: countless shades of green: deep ivy, soft garden foliage, grey-green plaster, cypress silhouettes. White stepped in quietly with its own range: matte tulle, crisp Asiatic lilies, rice grains, prosecco foam, clear glass. Call it Fifty Shades of Ivy and Ivory, and leave it at that.
Location: Tuscany, Italy
Style: Classic, Black Tie, Natural
Time of planning: 10 months
Number of guests: 22
Setting: Historic Villa
Season: Summer
The couple met through mutual friends and, for years, barely spoke more than a handful of sentences to each other. Until a food festival near Istra brought them back into the same frame. Igor began courting Anna with a kind of clarity and openness that caught her off guard. Within a month they were living together, two months later they were in Italy, and from that point on, their relationship unfolded through travel, spontaneity, and deliberate gestures.
Just before their first anniversary, a trip to Catalonia turned into the moment that defined everything. During a walk through a seaside town, they wandered into a rotunda in the middle of a square. Anna stepped inside expecting a photo opportunity. Instead, Igor dropped to one knee. Strangers applauded, Anna cried, and the proposal became a cinematic scene.
Vision
Anna and Igor began planning almost immediately after returning from the proposal trip. The first booking wasn’t a venue or even a date; it was a videographer from Kuznetsova Films. They knew they wanted Daria from the start, and through her, they were introduced to planner Kate of Weds in May. With that team in place, the vision took shape around one central idea: let Tuscany speak.
The celebration unfolded over three days: a pizza party to open, the wedding on day two, and a slow poolside reset to close. Guests arrived later in the afternoon to avoid the heat, and Anna and Igor kept their own morning unhurried. “Honestly, that shoot ended up being my favourite,” Anna says of their spontaneous pool session. “We played around, splashed each other, ran across the lawn in soaking wet clothes, and kissed endlessly.”
Bride's Fashion
The bride chose a fitted lace gown with a corseted structure and a dramatic train. The lace read more lingerie-inspired couture than fairytale: graphic, body-skimming, deliberate. The soft off-shoulder draping added a subtle old-glam reference without tipping into costume. And then came the Juliet veil: light, embroidered, framing the face rather than overpowering it, bringing in that almost Renaissance silhouette but in the most restrained way.
Pearl accessories Anna found at a market in Qatar completed the look with a personal, travel-coded detail. Her beauty direction stayed intentionally minimal. “No-makeup” makeup and a low bun kept the balance intact, letting the dress and veil carry the weight. The bouquet, a cascading composition of sculptural white calla lilies, felt more like a wearable installation.
Groom’s Fashion
Igor leaned into the language of classic summer black tie, and did it properly. A white dinner jacket paired with a black bow tie is the old-school code for warm-weather formality, and lately it’s back in full force, especially at outdoor villas where black can feel too heavy.
His suit was custom-made for a precise fit and tailored to withstand the 30-degree Tuscan heat without sacrificing structure. The white jacket felt sharper and more celebratory than traditional black, while the bow tie anchored the look in tradition.
Ceremony
The ceremony unfolded against the villa’s grand wooden doors, framed by a voluminous arch of asparagus fern and baby’s breath. The ivy-covered faсade, shuttered windows, arched openings, and sun-worn plaster already carried that unmistakable European villa code, the kind that feels like it has hosted a hundred summers before this one.
The lovebirds’ best friend led the ceremony, keeping it intimate and personal. Anna walked down the aisle to the soundtrack of Igor’s favorite film, a detail he only realized the next day while watching friends’ videos. “In the moment, all he could hear was his own heartbeat,” she laughs. After exchanging vows, they stepped through a shower of rice and moved straight toward the prosecco tower.
Around them, citrus-filled glass dispensers acted less like a cocktail bar and more like a refined summer hydration station. And the lace parasol Anna carried wasn’t just charming, it echoed Edwardian garden parties and vintage bridal portraits, reintroduced here as a deliberate fashion prop.
Moments Together
After the ceremony, Anna and Igor stepped away with photographer Artem Politsuk to wander through the villa’s grounds, turning the entire estate into their own moving set. Stone paths, ivy-covered walls, shuttered windows, blooming hydrangeas, distant Tuscan hills, each corner became part of a deliberate visual sequence
Artem framed them inside the architecture rather than simply in front of it, through doorways, within window frames, between shutters. The photos reads closer to an editorial layout than a traditional wedding reportage.
Color highlights texture, the density of green, the variations of white, the grain of plaster, the movement of lace. Black and white does something different: it strips everything back and turns them into pure graphic form, lines and contrast.
Reception
For dinner, the white story continued with Asiatic lilies lining a single long table set directly on the gravel: black chairs, crisp white linens, a narrow runner of candles and florals. It was minimalist dinner-party styling, tightened and intentional. The black-and-white dress code pulled the guests into the composition, eliminating visual noise and turning the entire reception into one clean, controlled frame.
Alongside the aperitif, guests received cards with random facts about each other and had to match them correctly, with small prizes waiting for the fastest three. The bar poured Negronis and Aperol Spritzes all night, while dinner followed true Italian tradition: three pasta courses and regional dishes served individually.
A second round of playful “bride or groom” voting cards kept the energy interactive without ever tipping into chaos. And then there was the fan stamped “VACANZA.” A word as merch, a subtle wink to the week they had built around the wedding.
The finale replaced a traditional tiered cake with a millefoglie-style layered pastry dusted in powdered sugar and finished with fresh berries, which Anna and Igor assembled in front of their guests. It felt distinctly European, almost effortless, and very now.
Sunset dances blurred into fireworks, and the entire evening unfolded with the kind of precision that, as Anna puts it, felt “balanced between professional precision and heartfelt sincerity.” She credits planner Kate of Weds in May for that calm. “We did not have to worry for even a second and simply enjoyed every moment knowing everything was under Kate’s attentive care.”
PLANNER Weds in May | PHOTOGRAPHER Artem Politsuk | VIDEOGRAPHER Daria Kuznetsova Films | FLOWERS & LINENS Cveti Wedding Studio | MUAH Visage and Other Stories | DRESS Mary Trufel | DJ DJ Eva Fiesta | CATERING Olio su Tavola | VENUE Fattoria Mansi Bernardini
