Location: Ravello, Amalfi Coast, Italy
Style: Colorful, Italian, Vintage
Time of planning: 1.5 year
Number of guests: 90
Setting: Private Villa
Season: Fall
Tatiana and Josh are the kind of couple who make perfect sense in this setting: both from the Tri-State area, both shaped by New York, and clearly very fluent in style without making it their whole personality. They met in college while studying in NYC, and that downtown polish definitely carried into the wedding.
From the fashion choices to the way the entire weekend balanced playful Italian excess with a cleaner, more edited point of view. Even in the most high-impact moments, their wedding never lost that personal core, especially during a ceremony built around vows they wrote themselves.
Welcome Day
The welcome dinner set the tone for the whole weekend by leaning into a louder, more playful version of Italy. Held at Villa Eva, it was designed as an eclectic vintage Italian scene inspired by Dolce & Gabbana’s campaign world, with red-and-white checks, multicolored ceramics from the Amalfi Coast and Sicily, and a full sense of abundance running through the setup.
The couple wanted it to feel less like a formal pre-wedding event and more like a small-town southern festival, which is exactly why the folkloric singers and dancers mattered so much here: they turned the evening from themed dinner into actual atmosphere.
The printed pieces by Potesta Designs helped push that same La Dolce Vita language across the weekend, but the welcome dinner was where it landed in full. The whole thing reads less polished-luxury and more intentional excess in the best way, with all the visual codes turned up just enough to make the wedding day’s cleaner shift feel even sharper.
Bride's Morning & Fashion
Tatiana’s Vera Wang gown, purchased at Mark Ingram Atelier, started with a clean satin strapless bodice and then got more interesting the closer you looked: a twist of tulle at the hips, an “I Do” embroidered train, and just enough construction to keep the whole thing feeling sharp. That choice made total sense.
Her beauty look stayed in that same register: hair pulled back into a sleek low bun, clean skin, softly defined eyes, and makeup that read polished and elegant. Сalla lily bouquet kept the whole look crisp, cool, and a little more fashion than fairytale.
Groom’s Fashion
Josh kept his look classic, but in a way that still felt fully in step with the setting and the overall fashion direction of the weekend. For the wedding day, he wore a Tom Ford tuxedo with Christian Louboutin shoes. This gave him that very specific kind of polished, city-coded sharpness.
First Look
The first look felt less like a quiet in-between moment and more like a full cinematic beat. Set on a tiny terrace suspended over the Amalfi Coast, it had that rare kind of scale that instantly changes the energy of the scene: all cliffside drama, pale stone, open sky, and the sea dropping away behind them.
According to Brenda, the planner, it was one of the most spectacular first looks she saw, and the photos back that up completely. It was captured by Bottega 53, whose framing made the moment feel both intimate and impossibly grand at once.
Ceremony
Set in the gardens of Villa La Rondinaia, with the Amalfi Coast and surrounding mountains falling away behind it, the ceremony did not rely on heavy structure or oversized statements because the landscape was already doing the work. Instead, the floral design by Malafronte Fiori stayed low, soft, and garden-like.
“It rained up until the minute the ceremony was to begin and so it was such a relief when the rain stopped, the sun came out and we were able to celebrate the ceremony in the garden as planned.”
The team’s intention was to create something delicate and romantic in whites and greens with touches of pastel and beige, more refined rather than fresh, and in a mood of a classical garden appropriate to Italian villa. The result read exactly that way: elegant. lush but still controlled, with the ceremony feeling shaped by the site.
The symbolic ceremony was personally crafted by Tatiana and Josh, and their vows were so moving that there was not a dry eye to be found. After rain right up until the last minute, the sun coming out just in time only made the whole scene land harder. It was, as the planner put it, the most memorable part of the day.
Reception
The reception brought Tatiana and Josh’s wedding day into its richest and most fully realized form. Planner also notes that Ancient Roman busts were added to the tables as a reference to the formal gardens of Ravello, giving the whole setup a clearer sense of place and a more art-directed point of view. Long tables, candlelight in glass cylinders, crystal, fruit, suspended greenery, and chandeliers under the tent gave the dinner a layered look.
Later in the night, it got a lot more fun. Tatiana changed into a shorter second dress that felt much more made for the dance floor. She still looked very bridal, but now in a cooler, less formal way, more ready to move, party, and fully get into the night.
The cake moment felt completely part of the party. The white heart-shaped cake kept things in line with the cleaner wedding-day look, but everything around it, the lights, the crowd, the energy, made it feel way more fun and alive.
PLANNING, PRODUCTION, DESIGN Brenda Babcock Celebrations | PHOTOGRAPHER Bottega 53 | VIDEOGRAPHER Lumos Produzioni | WEDDING DAY VENUE Villa La Rondinaia | WELCOME DINNER VENUE Villa Eva Ravello | FLOWERS Malafronte Fiori | BRIDE’S DRESS Vera Wang Bride | BRIDAL STORE Mark Ingram Atelier | GROOM’S TUXEDO Tom Ford | GROOM’S SHOES Christian Louboutin | INVITATION & SAVE THE DATE Potesta Designs | RENTALS Brenda Babcock Celebrations, Preludio Divisione Noleggio, GEG Party Service
