A Timeless Wedding at a Historic House in Tuscany

In a maze-like garden setting in Tuscany, Kathleen and Måns held an Italian wedding beneath colossal cypress trees. Enveloped in geometric-shaped hedges at the 15th century residence, elegant white chairs were placed in symmetry creating a hypnotic ceremony. An ancient stone statue altar was softened with brightly-colored sculptural flowers and foliage.

The couple’s reception unfolded at another of La Foce’s magical spaces within grand gardens below the historic villa’s imposing facade. Towering trees engulfed the colorful cubed tablescape, while string lights and candles added to the romance.

The Italian destination wedding was artfully captured by photographer Brown Paper Parcel.

Kathleen & Måns Wedding

Our Story

Names / Kathleen & Måns

Location / Tuscany, Italy

Wedding Date / September 9th, 2023

Guest Numbers / 130

How We Met

We met in New York, August 2018. After successfully matching on Hinge (the dating app), we decided to meet up for after work drinks at the Soho Grand in the city.

Our Engagement Story

All throughout our relationship we have loved playing Backgammon. I (Kathleen) taught Måns how to play on our third date and we have been playing fun tournaments with each other ever since. Fast forward to May 2022, we were out in the Cotswolds, England, on a nice weekend break and Måns proposed by hiding the ring in our travel backgammon board, so when I (Kathleen) went to set it up, it was there waiting for me.

Kathleen & Måns Wedding

The Setting

Wedding Location

Italy has always been a dream of mine (Kathleen) to get married in. Since we both love to travel and are from two separate nationalities (Kathleen from the UK and Måns from Sweden) we thought having a destination wedding was a great way to bring both sides of our friends and family together to celebrate with delicious food, wine and perfect weather. We also thought, who doesn’t love Italy?

Friday night welcome drinks:
All of our guests flew in from overseas. We had guests fly in from the US, UK and Sweden, so we wanted to hold an event on the Friday night to welcome all our guests and bring everyone together to kick off the wedding weekend celebrations. On Friday night, we held a Welcome Festa on the grounds of a farmhouse, which we also rented for some of our guests to stay in. We organised for there to be live music, pizza, gelato, beer, wine and delicious cocktails.

Saturday wedding:
We had our wedding ceremony and reception at La Foce. The venue was so beautiful and the grounds had such a great flow to it which meant that every section of the wedding could be held in a different location of the grounds. The ceremony was outside in the shade of their Cyprus trees, the reception followed in the maze hedge gardens, the dinner was held in front of the main villa and the dancing ended the night in the Limonia.

Aesthetic

We knew we didn’t need much in order to create a beautiful atmosphere on the day since Italy itself is beyond magical and we were lucky enough to have our wedding at such a beautiful location. We wanted a lot of colour in the flowers and table decorations, and with sunflowers being my (Kathleen) favourite flower, we knew they had to be featured in some form or another.

Another must have was lots of bulb lights to brighten up the night sky when the sun set as we felt this creates the most romantic and dreamy setting to continue to celebrations into the night.

Preparation

We spent the morning together having breakfast with our close family who were all staying at the main villa of La Foce with us. We are not very traditional, so for us, staying apart the night before our wedding was not a must have. The morning of, we had our family time over breakfast to help calm the nerves and we even made sure to walk the beautiful grounds of La Foce together just us two, trying to soak it all in before the craziness of the day took over.

We had decided to exchange gifts with one another that morning in private, which was very special and ensured even more that we got to spend some time together just us two.

I (Kathleen) got ready in the bridal suite with my bridesmaids at the main villa. We got our hair and makeup done, enjoyed some Prosecco, had a light buffet lunch and made sure we had a fun ‘getting ready’ playlist played on repeat.

I (Måns) met up with my groomsmen at a local restaurant down the road. The setting was very casual and the sun was shining so it made for a perfect setting. We all got ready and met back up in the library of the main villa to have some chill time before all the guests arrived.

Kathleen & Måns Wedding

Photography

We had decided that we did not want a videographer on our wedding day as we didn’t want the feeling of a camera crew following us around the whole day, with the possibility of them getting in the way of the guests’ views and everyone’s memories of the day. Therefore, picking a photographer was even more important for us as we knew we needed to find someone who could capture all the moments and feelings via their photography.

I (Kathleen) spent a lot of time on Instagram and very quickly came across Jessica Tremp’s (Brown Paper Parcel) profile and website, in which I instantly knew I needed her to photograph our wedding. I saw that she did a few months in Europe every summer and had my fingers firmly crossed that she was still available for when our wedding was planned for. After hearing back from her, we were in luck!

She was everything we had hoped for and more. Firstly, she is such a kind person and made us feel like a million dollars from the first night we met. She was always there to capture the perfect moments, more often than not without us knowing, and never made us feel awkward or unnatural in any way.

When we received our wedding pictures back, we were blown away at every single one. Jess captured all the special moments over the weekend that we shared as a couple and with our guests. Every picture feels like its own mini movie and brings us both instantly back to that specific moment of when the picture was taken.

Style Notes

Ceremony Décor

Our ceremony was outside in the beautiful gardens of La Foce. We knew that we didn’t need much since the location and surroundings were beautiful enough. We decided to have white chairs and a beautiful flower arrangement at the altar intertwined with a garden statue.

Reception Décor

Similarly to the ceremony, the aperitivo and reception were outside in different locations of the La Foce grounds. We felt we didn’t we didn’t need much to make it magical as the setting spoke for itself. There were lots of flowers, colours candles and bulb lights within the trees and lighting up the sides of the buildings. I (Kathleen) made sure there was many disco balls to light up the dance floor once the dancing started in the Limonia.

Kathleen & Måns Wedding

Wedding Planner & Stylist

Weddings in Tuscany was our chosen wedding planner and it was great having a team on the ground in Tuscany to help us find vendors for all aspects of our wedding weekend when planning from London. They were a huge help on the actual day with logistics and making sure everything went smoothly and how we envisioned it.

Flowers

Lots of colour with touches of sunflowers throughout.

Stationery

We got engaged in the Cotswolds, so when we stumbled across Wildflowers Illustration Co. who are based in the Cotswolds, we thought it was mean to be. They are a small family run company and were very attentive to everything we envisaged from our Save the Dates, to our wedding invitations and to everything needed stationery-wise for the actual day (seating plan, cocktail menus, dinner menus etc.). We even sent them a few pictures of the La Foce venue and they were able to hand-paint an illustration that we used for our main wedding invitations.

Cake

We went for an Italian Wedding Cake which consists of delicious layers of cream, berries, wafer and topped with powdered sugar. It was made fresh on the night in front of all the guests, and it was extremely fun to have this at our wedding as it was something new and different to the normal traditional ‘western’ wedding cake style.

Food & Beverages

For the aperitivo we had a great selection of Italian cocktails, wine, beer, food stations and lots of yummy canapés served. For dinner we had a sit down dinner which consisted of 4 courses as we knew we could not turn down an opportunity to have a pasta course – when in Italy! When the dancing began, we know all to well that people get peckish again, so fresh pizza was served on the dance floor.

Kathleen & Måns Wedding

Fashion & Beauty Notes

Bride’s Dress & Shoes

The dress was very simple and elegant. It was made up of two layers, the first one being a simple slip dress with a square neckline and slit up the back by the legs. The second layer was a sheer overlay with a high neck, low back and a small train.

I knew I always wanted a look that had two layers to it, so when the party/dancing started on the wedding day, I could take off the top layer to reveal something more simple and it would look like I had an outfit change on the night

For my shoes, I wanted closed toe shoes as I think it helps create a classic wedding look. I am naturally very tall, so I only needed a slight heel and since the wedding was outside on grass, a block heel was necessary.

For the dancing part of the night, I change out of my heels and put on some white Nike Air Force Ones – this was probably one of the best decisions I made, as it allowed me to non-stop dance the night away

Bridesmaid Dresses & Shoes

I let my bridesmaids pick their own dresses and shoes. All I gave them was a pastel colour pallet to work with and they all looked beyond amazing. The designers they picked were: Ghost, Theia & Pretty Lavish.

Flower Girls/Pageboy Outfits

We let both our sisters choose whatever the kids would feel comfortable in on the day.

Wedding Rings, Jewelry & Accessories

Engagement Ring: the only wish that I (Kathleen) had for an engagement ring was for the band to be gold. Måns then picked the rest, and it was perfect. He designed it himself with a jeweller in New York.

Wedding Bands: We both went for gold thin bands and bought them from Mejuri in London.

Earrings: pearl and gold earrings from Annoushka London.

Bracelet: gold diamond bracelet that I got given to me for my 30th Birthday from my parents.

The wedding clutch was my grandmother’s from her wedding, and since then it has been passed down to her daughters (my mom and aunt) and then their daughters (the four girl cousins).

My mom handmade a daisy beaded hair comb/clip that I put in my hair once I took off my veil. I loved the daisies on the veil so we thought it would be fun to continue the daisy theme in a comb/clip that replaced the veil throughout the night.

Hair & Makeup

I wore my hair in a low bun as I knew I wanted my hair up on the day so that it stayed in one shape throughout the night and so that the details of the dress and earrings could really shine through.

Not wearing a lot of makeup normally, I prefer the natural look. So I made sure to do a trial with my makeup artist a few months prior so that I was confident with the look we were going to do on the wedding day.

Groom’s Attire

Mans got a navy linen suit made for him by Suit Supply.

“We used small bulb lights to brighten up the night sky when the sun set to create the most romantic and dreamy setting to continue the celebrations into the night.”

The Details

Transport

We had the wedding ceremony and reception at the main villa of La Foce which was where we were staying all weekend, so there was no need to organise transport for us. We did however organise transport for all guests for all wedding events over the weekend from various accommodation locations and from Montepulciano.

Honeymoon

beautiful town of Capalbio. We then flew to Israel where we continued our honeymoon. We chose Israel as it was a country neither of us had ever travelled to, we love Israeli food and had only ever heard fantastic things about Tel Aviv, and it did not disappoint. After 5 days In Tel Aviv, we travelled down to Mitzpe Ramon which is out in the Israeli desert where we did a lot of hiking and relaxing.

Gift Registry

We decided to do an Art Fund for our gift registry via The Wedding Present Company as we both love art and would love the opportunity to put money towards a dream piece of art for our new house one day.

Kathleen & Måns Wedding

“For florals we used color with touches of sunflowers throughout.”

Wedding Songs

Ceremony Entrance Song: Winter by Joshua Radin (Instrumental version)
Ceremony song: Ain’t No Mountain High by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell (Slow version)
Dinner Entrance Song: Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You by Frankie Valli
First Dance: Can’t Help Falling in Love by Elvis Presley

Entertainment

Friday Night Welcome Festa:
We had live music throughout the whole of the Friday Night Welcome Festa. We chose The Italian Wedding Band as they played lots of fun classic tunes and got people up and dancing by the end of the night

Wedding Ceremony and Cocktails:
We wanted a solo vocalist to perform during our ceremony, so we hired Florence Jazz Band to play for the ceremony and for after at the aperitivo.

Wedding Dinner:
The VIP Knights who are a roaming band and were absolutely amazing.They worked the dinner tables, had great interaction with all the guests and even got people up and dancing throughout dinner. They really knew how to work the room and get the party started.

Wedding Party:
We knew we wanted a DJ for the late night dancing. Once we had found DJ Zano, we created an inspiration playlist for him and then he and his team were able to take it from there. The type of music mostly included a good mix of golden oldies and up to 90s music as we wanted music that everyone of our guests could dance to. We also added a live trumpet and drum performer that played in turn to the music to add some extra fun ambiance to the party.

Celebrant

Since our wedding was a destination wedding and not religious, we asked my (Kathleen) godfather to officiate the wedding. It was really special to work together with him on how we wanted the format of the ceremony to be and to have someone so close up at the altar with us.

Readings

We decided to write our own vows to add a touch of ourselves to the ceremony and it was important for us to have this moment to tell each other and our guests how much each other means to the other. We also asked two close friends if they could do a reading of their choice in the ceremony.