Brenna and Diego are the kind of couple who spend two years planning a wedding and make it look like something that happened effortlessly. Their September weekend at a private villa on Lake Como, in Mandello del Lario, Italy, involved a roaming band circling dinner tables, a champagne tower assembled at the water’s edge, a Reem Acra gown constructed from three separate dresses, and a firework show launched from the villa’s own pier directly over the lake.
Location: Mandello del Lario, Lake Como, Italy
Style: Opulent, Sophisticated, Playful
Time of planning: 2 years
Number of guests: 70
Setting: Private villa
Season: Fall
Brenna and Diego technically attended the same university, DePaul in Chicago, but a four-year age gap meant their paths never crossed on campus. The actual meeting happened on St. Patrick’s Day, in a downtown bar, on one of the most chaotic days of the year in the city. Diego had just moved back from New York. Brenna was out with her older sister Cara, who happened to be close friends with him from freshman year. A mutual friend, Ryan, suggested a Wine Wednesday club as an excuse to keep the four of them hanging out. One Wednesday after the next, Brenna and Diego started dating. Ryan gave a reading at their ceremony.
The proposal happened in May of 2023 in Wadi Rum, Jordan, during a group trip that was originally supposed to end with the proposal in Egypt. The Jordanian desert changed Diego’s mind fast. At golden hour, with miles of red sand in every direction, he opened a ring box on their balcony and asked. Their friends had been secretly watching and came running out immediately after. Diego then came down with a fever and spent the engagement night being nursed back to health. They still laugh about it.
The Vision
Brenna knew early on that she wanted two completely different atmospheres across the two nights, since the villa was serving as the location for everything. The welcome dinner and the wedding had to feel like separate experiences for the same group of people.
For the wedding day itself, she was working from a photo she had saved years earlier. That single reference image became the design language for the whole reception. The brief she brought to her planners at Benevent was tradition with an edge, garden-style florals, linen in warm neutrals, silver flatware, and a tablescape that let the lake do most of the work. What came back exceeded what she had imagined in almost every category.
The Night Before: La Notte Prima
The welcome dinner was called La Notte Prima on the invitations, and the concept was deliberate: a celebration of Italian food culture without any of the cliches. The tables overflowed with bread, fruit, and vegetables arranged as centerpieces, and Il Profumo dei Fiori turned that brief into something operatic.
Brussels sprouts strung together like a garland, pears and grapes set in silver coupes, cabbage leaves, cascading green Amaranthus, bread-shaped candle holders, and green candles throughout. The tablecloths and napkins were custom-printed in soft lavender and green tones, designed in collaboration with a graphic designer and produced through Tablecloth Rental. Green plates and lavender menus completed the table. Brenna and Diego kept the linens as a keepsake.
A live chef made fresh carbonara in front of guests at the table, alongside pizzas served throughout the evening. Before dinner, everyone gathered around the pool for cocktails while the Knights Club performed in the background. The band, which Brenna and Diego booked first of all their vendors, is a roaming group of musicians from across Europe, and the couple specifically wanted singers who could move between Italian, English, Spanish, and French to reflect the mix of their guests. With Diego coming from a Peruvian background and Brenna from Chicago, it mattered that the music could hold the whole room. The Knights Club delivered.
For La Notte Prima, Brenna wore a Douglas Hannant gown she had inherited from her sister Caitlin, who had originally bought it at a sample sale at Loho Bride in Los Angeles for her own wedding and never used it as one of her looks. Brenna took it, had the bodice rewired by a tailor, cut the train off entirely, and repurposed it as a scarf draped across her shoulders. The conversion shifted the dress from bridal to something closer to old Hollywood.
Bride's Morning & Fashion
The morning started upstairs at the villa, with Brenna getting ready alongside her three sisters and sister-in-law. Makeup and hair for the entire weekend was done by her sister Caitlin, who is not a professional makeup artist but who Brenna trusted more than anyone else for exactly that reason. The look she went for was clean and close to herself: simple makeup, hair in a classic bun, nothing that competed with the dress.
The dress itself is the result of pulling from three separate Reem Acra gowns. It started when Caitlin spotted a ballerina-esque bodice on a Reem Acra piece on Instagram and told Brenna she needed to try it. Brenna called Chic Parisien, a bridal boutique in Miami, and requested the gown for an upcoming trunk show. When she tried it on, the bodice was exactly right, but the full A-line skirt wasn’t. She scrapped the skirt, replaced it with a fitted silhouette from a second gown, added an overskirt from a third for drama, and matched the fabric throughout to the bodice’s material.
Groom’s Fashion
Diego’s look had been decided long before any of the planning started. A Tom Ford peak lapel black tuxedo, with the wider satin stripe on the trouser leg and satin cuffs on the sleeves, was always the plan, essentially regardless of who he was marrying or where.
For shoes, he went slightly more traditional than his usual loafer-no-sock approach and chose a Christian Louboutin patent loafer with silk socks and a longer hem. His accessories included a bow tie, onyx shirt studs, a calla lily boutonniere to match the floral theme, and custom Cartier cufflinks engraved with the wedding date, which Brenna had given him as a gift.
Ceremony
The floral installation for the ceremony came from Il Profumo dei Fiori: broken arches flanking both sides of the couple, dense with greenery and white florals, deliberately uncontained and garden-style. The chairs were English garden style, delicate and light against the lawn. The lake sat directly behind all of it, and the couple never tried to compete with that view.
The ceremony took place on the villa’s lawn terrace at 5pm, during golden hour, when the sun was hitting the water and the whole space was still and warm. Every guest had a pouch of flower petals on their seat to throw as the couple walked back down the aisle. Brenna and Diego had decided early on to write their own vows, because having an officiant read a generic ceremony in front of their families was never going to be enough.
Their officiant Michael, who had a history with Diego’s father, opened with personal stories, a tribute to Diego’s late mother Lucy, and the right amount of humor. Their mutual friend Ryan, the same person who had organized the very first Wine Wednesday that brought them together, did a reading. From there came the vows, the rings, and a lot of tears from both the couple and the entire wedding party.
The music was chosen for each specific moment. Diego walked out to an instrumental version of Ocean Eyes. The wedding party walked to To Build a Home by The Cinematic Orchestra, with Diego already crying at the altar by the time it finished. Brenna walked out with her father to the instrumental version of Stand by Me. After the kiss, they walked back down the aisle to Sweet Disposition by The Temper Trap.
The feeling after, by Brenna’s description, was euphoric. They had written their own words, said them in front of the lake, and made it back down the aisle without either of them losing it completely. The ceremony was, by the time they rewatched the footage months later, the moment they keep returning to most.
Moments Together
Following the ceremony, the couple had a stretch of time alone with photographer Stas Moiseev while guests moved to cocktails by the water. That window, just the two of them on the property after everything that had just happened, became one of the quieter highlights of the day.
Meanwhile, guests gathered along the lake with a full bar of named signature drinks: the Baby B, built with prosecco, elderflower, fresh mint, soda, and lime, named for Brenna’s nickname; the Hair of the Diego, a martini variation named for the groom’s notably good hair; and the Jagger Tini, an espresso martini riff named for their two-year-old red Doberman. The Pisco Sour was a nod to Diego’s Peruvian background. Alongside those, an Aperol Spritz, a Negroni, a Gin and Tonic, a Moscow Mule, and a Picante rounded out the bar.
Reception
Dinner was set on a single long table at the top of the hill, closest to the villa, with golden hour light behind the guests and the lake below. The tablescape came directly from a reference image Brenna had saved years earlier: earth-toned fabric twisted and wrapped around full candelabras, calla lilies resting in open exposed bowls, silk linen draped over others. The centerpieces played with height, candles in varying shades of brown chosen to complement the white dinner plates designed with subtle brown lines. By the time dinner was in full swing, the candles had begun to drip. All tablecloth and dinnerware pieces came from Tablecloth Rental, with furniture through SOFI Design.
The florals from Il Profumo dei Fiori had started in Brenna’s vision as a supporting detail and ended up as the dominant force on the table. The calla lilies she had imagined as a smaller element were scaled into something architectural, tall and overflowing, pulling the entire tablescape around them. It was, by Brenna’s account, one of the highest points of the whole weekend and the vendor she talks about most.
"The florist overdelivered and exceeded my expectations. When I first pictured the florals, I imagined them as a smaller element of the tablescape, but instead they became larger than life."
The Art Society played throughout dinner, the lead singer’s voice pitched somewhere between a jazz club and a different era. Speeches started with Brenna’s father, moved to Diego’s father, then to all three of bride’s sisters, who leaned hard into the roast format exactly as she had expected. Diego’s brother-in-law and best man, then his younger brother, closed it out.
After dinner, the group moved down to the water for cake cutting. The cake was a 40-inch millefoglie, an Italian layered cream pastry covered in raspberries, red berries throughout because red is Brenna’s favorite color.
From there, the couple moved straight to the champagne tower as an eight-minute firework show launched from the villa’s private pier directly over the lake. Because the property owns its own beach, the fireworks went up right in front of the guests rather than from a dock in the middle of the water, which made the excellent show.
Vagabundo by Sebastian Yatra and Heaven is a Place on Earth by Belinda Carlisle played behind the show. Photographer Stas Moiseev and videographer Paramonova Movies captured the whole sequence, with additional Super 8 film coverage by Ashley Moore running throughout the entire weekend. Once the show ended, Brenna removed her overskirt, Taste N Sax opened the dancing on saxophone, and the rest of the night ran entirely on its own momentum.
Advice from the couple:
• If you’re okay with waiting, a long engagement allowed us to book our favorite vendors without fear of scheduling conflicts.
We visited our venue two years before our wedding date, so we had our pick when it came to the date. We used social media to find the exact musicians, photographers, and videographers we wanted, and because we booked so far in advance, we had full availability.
Beyond vendor availability, it also allowed us to really think about what we wanted. We spent two years coordinating our dream and with time on our side, we were able to be thoughtful of every single detail versus forced to make quick decisions. Not to mention, it took some of the stress out of the planning and made it a truly fun experience.
PHOTOGRAPHER Stas Moiseev | VIDEOGRAPHER Paramonova Movies | CONTENT & SUPER 8 FILM Ashley Moore | PLANNING Benevent | FLORALS Il Profumo dei Fiori | DRESS Reem Acra | BRIDAL SHOES Amina Muaddi | NIGHT BEFORE SHOES Black Suede Studio | GROOM TUX Tom Ford | GROOM SHOES Christian Louboutin | GROOM NIGHT BEFORE Brunello Cucinelli | TABLECLOTHS & DINNERWARE Tablecloth Rental | FURNITURE SOFI Design | PRODUCTION Blunotte Eventi | INVITATIONS Amber LeBlanc Studio | STATIONERY Alispi Studio | WELCOME PARTY BAND Knights Club | WEDDING DAY BAND The Art Society | DJ & PARTY Taste N Sax
