Eighteen years before Stephanie and Domenic exchanged vows in the Tuscan countryside, they met in a photography class. Life pulled them in separate directions, then brought them back together, and this time the relationship held. The proposal came in a winter wonderland in Finland, all snow and cold. The wedding, when it finally happened in October, traded that ice for the rolling hills of Tuscany, where the couple gathered just 30 of their closest family members and friends at Castello di Celsa for an intimate Italian celebration.
But they did not limit the experience to a single day. With help from planner Alessa B Weddings, Stephanie and Domenic turned the event into a full destination weekend, starting with a colorful take on "La Dolce Vita" and easing into a softer, more romantic wedding day built around pink and white flowers, Italian food, and live music.
The welcome dinner was never going to be the standard destination wedding pizza party. The couple leaned fully into the "La Dolce Vita" concept, and the result, photographed by Barbarossa Studio, leaned on custom artwork from stationery artists By Chloe Louise Art and Papira Designs to carry the Italian-inspired theme through the evening. Florist Flowers Living went with a much brighter palette than the one planned for the wedding day, filling the castle grounds with pink garden roses, dahlias, peach tulips, and hot pink hydrangeas. The saturated color did the heavy lifting against the historic stone. Brindapino handled the food, serving pizza and two kinds of pasta, while gelato trucks parked across the lawn outside the castle. Stephanie matched the evening's energy in the Aviva Stretch Sequin Strapless Maxi Dress by Helsi, a sparkly choice that set up the more romantic bridal fashion she had planned for the next day.
Finding the ceremony dress, though, was a marathon. Stephanie visited 11 bridal boutiques and tried on more than 100 gowns before she found the Alexandra by Monique Lhuillier at Chic Parisien in Miami. After that long a search, the decision came fast. "The moment I put it on, I knew it was the one," she said. Her bridal party leaned into the romance with soft pink. The Maid of Honor wore the Misty Rose Sheer Sleeve Maxi Tulle Dress from ItsMilla, and the flower girls wore coordinating dresses custom-made by an Etsy vendor to match. Later, Stephanie changed into a second look, the Groundsel gown by Lee Petra Grebenau, giving the reception its own fashion moment.
The floral design shifted dramatically for the wedding day itself. After the loud pinks and peaches of the welcome party, Flowers Living moved into a quieter register. Garden roses, white hydrangeas, white larkspur, white stock, light pink lisianthus, pink peonies, white ranunculus, and pink spray roses layered delicate color and texture throughout the celebration. Pale pink stayed present, but white dominated, giving the ceremony a more refined atmosphere against the architecture of Castello di Celsa and the Tuscan landscape. The two events felt connected without repeating each other.
Music gave the ceremony a personal soundtrack. Chiara Trallori's string quartet played an unexpected mix of contemporary songs, starting with Domenic's entrance to "Nothing Else Matters" by Metallica. The bridesmaids and flower girls walked to Billie Eilish's "Birds of a Feather." Stephanie chose "Golden Hour" by JVKE for her walk down the aisle, and "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" carried the newlyweds back up. The quartet kept playing through cocktail hour, so the live music moved seamlessly from the ceremony into the first part of the reception.
Guests were welcomed after the ceremony with a spritz corner, passed hors d'oeuvres, and a generous charcuterie station before sitting down to a three-course dinner by Guidi Lenci. The menu opened with caprese salad served with aubergine cream, moved to seven-layer lasagna with black truffle, and finished with beef filet and baked potato mille-feuille. For Stephanie and Domenic, the service stood out as much as the food. Courses flowed without long waits or interruptions, letting the small group enjoy the meal at their own pace.
Sugacups Cake Design built the three-tier wedding cake, pairing classic vanilla with a tiramisu filling, another distinctly Italian flavor to close out a weekend already packed with pizza, pasta, gelato, spritzes, and a full Italian dinner. Food, clearly, was central to the whole destination experience.
After dinner, the night shifted from ceremony elegance to dancing. Stephanie and Domenic chose Haley Reinhart's rendition of "Can't Help Falling in Love" for their first dance, and the celebration carried on from there. The weekend, built around a photography class meeting from 18 years earlier, ended up being less about the single ceremony and more about the full arc of it: the bright, loud welcome night, the softer wedding day, and a small group of 30 people who got to experience all of it together in the Tuscan countryside.
According to Wedding Chicks.
