Emily & Nana’s love story started in a New York minute – and a new chapter began when they exchanged “I do’s” during an ultra-modern Italian affair at Masseria Traetta! Isole Weddings planned a dreamy destination wedding for this love-at-first-sight couple, infusing contemporary flair to the villa with a minimalist-chic color palette of white and lush greens. Every detail from the fashion statements to the refined tablescapes would make any “clean girl” swoon! Fall in amore at the full gallery, captured by the talented Le Velo Fotografia featuring blooms by Flower Addicted.
From Le Velo Fotografia… It was April of 2018, Emily was working as a travel nurse in the pediatric emergency room in NYC and Nana was finishing his second year of orthopedic surgery residency at Columbia. Nana was called to the emergency room for a pediatric consult, and this is where the two had their first encounter. The two locked eyes and as they say, it was love at first sight! With her bright personality and stunning blue eyes, Nana thought Emily was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Little did Nana know, Emily had also taken note of his unique name (and his bright and kind smile!) and had asked a mutual friend about him.
After very few text messages, the two had their first date in the hospital while Emily was on lunch break and Nana was between emergency room consultations. This was followed by several in-hospital dates and a week later they decided to step up their game and go on a formal date.
Two weeks after their first date, Nana took Emily as his date to his biennial Orthopedic gala and asked Emily “what do I have to do to get you to be my girlfriend?” Four years, and multiple moves together throughout Manhattan the couple was ready to say their vows with their closest family and friends in the most romantic location in the world– Italy.
Nana, the true romantic he is, planned the most perfect proposal amidst a global pandemic. It was a Saturday in December 2020, and the plan was to have Nana’s family over for an early Christmas celebration as they were going to spend Christmas with Emily’s family in Wisconsin. Nana’s sister asked Emily to hang out before everyone else came over for some “girl time”, manicures, and pedicures. When the girls returned, Nana met them in the lobby at their apartment and asked Emily if she wanted to check out the wine tasting their building was holding for their tenants in the new roof deck space. Of course, Emily is always interested in a nice glass of wine!
As they exited the elevators to the roof deck, Emily saw rose petals lining the floor into the shape of a heart and a violinist serenading the couple with one of their favorite songs “All of Me” by John Legend. Nana got on his knee and asked, “what do I have to do to make you, my wife?”, akin to what he had asked 3 years prior when asking her to be his girlfriend. One of the many highlights of the proposal weekend was Nana orchestrating a surprise celebration with Emily’s family flying in from Wisconsin for the night. It was an absolute dream!
Throughout our years together, Nana and I have traveled to many places but we especially loved traveling to Europe. My idea of a dream wedding always included a beautiful intimate venue, romantic, incredible food and limitless wine, which in my mind was always Italy. With the pandemic still very much going on, Nana and I thought carefully about how feasible and safe it would be for our family and friends to travel abroad. As time went on, and thanks to the availability of COVID19 vaccines we felt comfortable enough to have everyone travel for our big day.
The first step for us in our wedding planning journey was to find an experienced, bilingual, talented wedding planner. We were fortunate enough to find Francesca Caddeo and her team at Isole Weddings. From our first meeting we knew Francesca would help us navigate us through this process and she even proposed that we have our wedding in Puglia, an unknown region to Nana and I at the time. She came highly recommended with over 15 years of experience and her portfolio of previous weddings she has orchestrated is absolutely breathtaking.
Our wedding weekend was truly one of the most incredible weekends of our lives! Our vision we had planned for a year had come to fruition. Hosting a destination wedding abroad, we wanted to make sure that our guests knew how much we appreciated all of their efforts and wanted to make sure they were taken care of with delicious food, drink, and an incredibly fun time. We envisioned our wedding to be timeless, elegant and chic. After many virtual tours we fell in love with Masseria Traetta, a beautiful villa with incredible history. After securing this iconic venue, we knew that with its amazing architecture it would be incredibly easy to have it fit our vision of being classic. It would only take us adding our white and green themed decor and floral.
The dress I chose was the Ryder dress from Made with Love, an Australian brand. Like the venue search, I had tried on several gowns but did not envision marrying the love of my life in most of them. Then I tried on the Ryder dress. The look I wanted was timeless, classic, fitted, just like the wedding, but I wanted to add something different that was unique. I loved this gown because it entailed everything I wanted and it had the most incredible beading which added to its uniqueness. When I added my Stuart Weitzman shoes, I felt like a real bride! I knew I wanted a dress change for the reception so I could really let loose and discovered this amazing gown from Michel Lo Sordo, a perfect combination of simple and classic, and allowed me to move and party the evening away under the Italian sun and stars!
Madeline Eleanor is an incredibly talented hair and makeup artist from NYC and after my trial with her at home in New York, I knew I needed her to travel to Puglia with me. I wanted to look natural, clean and like myself, only elevated for my wedding day and Madeline made that look possible! There was a severe thunderstorm in the afternoon on our wedding day and not only did Madeline focus on making me beautiful, she kept a bright and positive attitude which helped me get through the stormy weather (quite literally)!
When choosing our photographer and videographer, we were searching for strong talent and we wanted our pictures to have a high focus on natural beauty, and lighting. We wanted a modern editorial take on wedding photos. Le Velo and 2become1 have an incredible and unparalleled portfolio and we knew we had to book them for our wedding. We fell in love with them after a single zoom session. They are so passionate about their work and they captured every aspect of our wedding. Their work is so incredible, lively, and really captured our special day in photos and videos. When we showed our friends and family that were unable to travel to Italy for the wedding, they said they felt like they were there in person!
We are incredibly grateful and could not have dreamed up a better wedding venue and more talented team of vendors. The professionalism and combined vast experience of the entire time made our wedding as enjoyable and stress-free (as far as weddings go!). Our wedding felt like an absolute fairytale that came into reality. A simple “thank you” is not enough to express our gratitude for making our day so perfect!
Photography: Le Velo Fotografia | Videographer: 2Become1 | Event Planning: ISOLE WEDDINGS | Floral Design: Flower Addicted | Wedding Dress: Made With Love Bridal | Wedding Dress: Michael Lo Sordo | Invitations: Blue Boho | DJ: Site art events | Accomodations: masseria Filomena | Beauty: Madeline Eleanor | Bride shoes: Stuart Weitzman | Masseria Traetta: Masseria Traetta | Singer: Will Diamond