A Pugian Wedding at a 16th Century Masseria

Beneath billowing white fabric at a 16th century masseria, Dani and Kevin were wed in a poetic ceremony evocative of Italy’s effortless romance. Delicate white florals and green foliage lined the all-white aisle, whilst giant succulents framed the altar.

Set under a luminous marquee of glittering string lights, the couple’s al fresco reception was held in the farmhouse’s courtyard. Overhanging flowers danced in the warm winds above the white linen, draped tables and were contrasted by olive branches that unfolded as the sun set.

Photographer by Muir Weddings beautifully captured the Puglia destination wedding.

Our Story

Names / Danielle Stone and Kevin Sinnott

Location / Puglia, Italy

Wedding Date / July 17th, 2023

Guest Numbers / 90

Budget / $150,000

How We Met

Kev and I were hired by a law firm to work on one of Australia’s biggest litigious matters. Kev had started a couple of days before me and on my first day, I was brought into a room where 10 other lawyers (including Kev) were already working on the case. I remember looking around the room and thinking everyone looked like a student (like I was at the time) except for Kev who looked very mature and professional, dressed in a full suit (little did I know that he was an Irish party animal on the weekends and 2 years younger than me). Seated next Kev and after reading over some of the material, I asked him a question about the case… and when he opened his mouth and answered me with his then very thick Irish accent, it was honestly love at first sound. I was completely his.

Our Engagement Story

My whole life, I had always dreamt about going to New York and for my 29th birthday, Kev bought me a ticket.

On our first morning in NYC, it started to snow and we spent the day shopping. All that day, he had been getting down on one knee pretending to propose to me (something he had been doing all year long in Sydney to throw me off haha). That night, Kev took me to the Ritz for some cocktails before asking me if I wanted to take a horse and carriage through Central Park. I said no, thinking it would be too expensive and already feeling so spoilt, not knowing he had already planned for one to pick us up.

Halfway through our magical ride through a snow-covered Central Park, Kev asked me if we could stop to take a photo by a “famous” fountain. It was pitch black and Kev had no idea where he was going. After a few wrong turns, he stopped and turned to me and said “Dan, you’re my best friend, I love you so much…”, to which I hurriedly replied, “Kev, I love you too, now keep walking, it’s freezing!!”. He then got down on one knee and a photographer (who apparently had been following us on a skateboard the whole time) jumped out of the bushes with a flashlight strapped to his head and started taking photos as Kev proposed. We then went back to the horse and carriage, where there was a bouquet of roses and chocolate covered strawberries and rode to Tavern on the Green for dinner.

What we love most about each other…

That we are truly each other’s best friend. There is no one I love, respect or trust more than Kev and I know he feels the same way about me. Kev always says that even if he hadn’t travelled to Sydney for what he had planned to be a quick 1-year trip with some friends, he really believes that we would have found each other some other way. I’m his soul mate and he is mine.

“We came across and were enraptured by Masseria Potenti, a 16th-century farmhouse nestled on a private estate in the countryside of Manduria, next to the Ionian sea and surrounded by olive groves and vineyards.”

The Setting

Wedding Location

We had originally planned to get married in Sorrento on the Amalfi Coast in 2020 but after having to postpone our wedding twice due to Covid and two pregnancies, we decided to change it up and get married in Puglia – somewhere we had never been but had always wanted to go. In search of the perfect venue that could host and gather all of the people we love, we came across Masseria Potenti, a 16th-century masseria nestled on a private estate in the countryside of Manduria, next to the Ionian sea and surrounded by olive groves and vineyards.

Aesthetic

Masseria Potenti is truly one of the most beautiful places we have ever visited. I remember having goosebumps all over my body (despite Puglia experiencing a heatwave that week) as we entered the venue under a large white archway and saw it in person for the first time (one day before our wedding). Picture iron gates, large limestone and brick structures, white muslin hanging from wooden beams, a large sun-baked courtyard, antique objects and vintage fabrics, a beautiful blue serene pool and a garden overflowing with olive trees, lavender, jasmine, orange and pomegranate trees.

With already so much character and charm, we wanted to preserve the authenticity of an Italian masseria whilst complimenting it with (mostly) seasonal and local flowers and greenery.

Preparation

Kev and I decided to keep it traditional the day of our wedding and not see each other before the ceremony so we took it in turns to eat the delicious buffet breakfast with our guests, which included homegrown cereals, yoghurts, homemade jams, freshly baked Puglian cakes and eggs straight from the farmhouse. Kev then spent the rest of the day getting ready with the groomsmen and our two nephews (Brandon, 7 and Oskar, 5), while I spent the rest of the day with my bridesmaids (my sister and best friend), my mother, mother-in-law, niece (Leia, 4) and our two daughters (Cleo, 2 and Maja, 1), getting our hair and makeup done whilst eating a light lunch and drinking some champagne!

Photography

We were introduced to our photographer, the amazing Nick McMurray from Muir Weddings through Harley Woolven, the founder and designer of Black De Ville who designed and made Kev’s wedding ring.

Nick’s photography is absolutely stunning. He has this innate ability to capture the personality, emotions and essence of a moment, while making you feel so beautiful, comfortable and at ease in his presence. His photographs feel effortlessly natural yet beautifully editorial and we feel so lucky that we got to have him as our photographer!

Videography

Like our photographer Nick, we couldn’t speak more highly of our amazing videographer Mireille from Moon and Back!! What a dream team those two made! Mireille intimately captured our three-day wedding event while making us all feel so comfortable and at ease in her presence. We had so much fun throughout the whole process and feel so lucky to have the most beautiful, emotive and visual storytelling of what was the best three best days of our lives!

Style Notes

Ceremony Décor

Our ceremony took place beside Masseria Potenti’s beautiful orangery under festooned white muslin – the location was breathtaking! We didn’t want to take away from the natural beauty of the space so kept it simple, elegant, and timeless with white flowers and greenery running down either side of the aisle and two urns at both ends of the aisle with floral displays using the same white flowers and greenery.

Reception Décor

The reception took place in an open-air courtyard lit by overhead string lights that added to the romantic ambiance of the night. Our guests were seated at two long tables that ran parallel to each other and then we sat at another table with our bridal party that topped both of those tables (almost like a horseshoe formation). White wisteria mixed with olive branches hung down from above the tables and candles, olive branches and various white floral arrangements ran down the center of the tables.

The owners of the venue also created the most beautiful handwritten and illustrated menus that made the whole setting feel so much more special.

Wedding Planner & Stylist

Masseria Potenti is run by the incredibly talented mother-daughter due Maria Grazie di Lauro and Chiara Tommasino and they helped organise almost everything and helped bring our vision to life! They made our dream wedding come true and I couldn’t have asked for a better team to work with.

Flowers

In November 2018, the year we first started planning our original wedding that was supposed to take place in Sorrento, Kev and I lost our first baby to stillbirth. I was 34 weeks pregnant when we lost Leo and when we buried him, we planted some lily of the valley at his grave to celebrate him.

Since then, not a day has gone by that we haven’t thought of him and it was really important to the both of us that we included him in some kind of way on our wedding day. So while Kev spoke about Leo in his speech, I had the most beautiful bridal bouquet of lily of the valley in honour of our baby boy. My bridesmaids had a smaller arrangement of white peonies.

Stationery

We chose not to have hardcopy stationery and instead, I made soft-copy save the dates and invitations using Canva. As most (if not all) of our guests had never been to Puglia before, we included information about the area on the invites, as well as information about each of the three days (the welcome dinner, the wedding and the pool party the next day).

Paper Tie Affair designed our wedding program, seating chart, place cards, table numbers and a speciality drinks menu.

Favors

At the welcome dinner, we gave each of our guests a canvas bag with the words ‘Puglia’ and “The Sinnotts 18.07.23’ written on the front. Inside, we included a white baseball cap with a the letters ‘DK’ embroidered on the front in white, as well as a cute little ‘recovery kit’ which a lip balm, eye masks, Advil, mints, gum, makeup remover wipes, electrolyte and vitamin c sachets, band aids, floss and hand sanitiser in it. Then on the wedding day, we gifted our guests a bottle of limoncello with a custom tag that said “Let’s get drunk in love” (because I’m obsessed with Beyonce) and a little thank you note.

Cake

We had the most delicious five tier cake / wedding cake that I have ever had and that was made by the all female-kitchen team at Masseria Potenti. Each layer of the cake consisted of a light, fluffy vanilla sponge with the most delicious hazelnut chocolate filling, while the outside was covered in a cream cheese frosting and decorated with white flowers and greenery. It was so delicious that my mouth is drooling just thinking about it!

Food & Beverages

After the ceremony, we all moved out to a large sunlit courtyard for apertivo where we had a cheese station (with live cheese making), a cold cuts station, and a baked station. All of the food served was unbelievably delicious and authentic farm-to-fork produce. We then had a beautiful Puglian dinner which consisted of cavatelli with clams, followed by Italian braciola veal in a tomato sauce and then an assortment of traditional Italian desserts to finish. All of the delicious wine that we drank also came from Masseria Potenti’s vineyards.

Fashion & Beauty Notes

Bride’s Dress & Shoes

I had had my wedding dress picked out since 2018 (a really beautiful and airy dress made of white lace, mesh and sequins) and 6 months before our wedding, I had it custom made. However, I stupidly did not try it on until 2 weeks before we were due to leave (because I had had a baby 12 months before and wanted to feel completely like myself before I saw myself in the dress) and when I did, I realised that it was completely sheer in all the wrong places!!

So in a complete panic, I searched the internet far and wide and finally found. It was an elegant strapless dress with a front slit, intricate floral appliques at the bodice and a mesh-lined notch in the middle of the chest. I also wore a floating cathedral veil by Debra Moreland and heels by Amina Muaddi.

For the after party, I changed into a mini satin ivory dress and Dior sandals to dance the night away!

Bridesmaid Dresses & Shoes

I always wanted the girls to feel really comfortable, yet beautiful and sexy on the day and together we found the perfect oyster coloured slip dress with a high front side slit from Lioness. As for shoes, I knew that the girls had different taste when it came to heels, so we agreed on the colour white and then each girl picked their own style and design that they wanted to wear.

Flowergirl/Pageboy Outfits

Our niece and eldest daughter wore the most beautiful ‘Princess Puff Sleeve Tulle” dresses by Monbebe and white ballet flats, while our youngest daughter wore the ‘Frankie ruffle back grow’ by Bardot. Our two nephews wore a white linen shirt, beige linen shorts and navy blue suede loafers all from Zara.

Wedding Rings, Jewelry & Accessories

My engagement ring is an asscher cut diamond with a halo and my wedding band is a princess cut eternity band. Kev’s wedding band is a 22 carat gold custom band designed and made by Black De Ville.

On the day of our wedding, I also wore some diamond stud earrings that Kev gave me as a wedding gift, as well as two pairs of the ‘jumbo prong set diamond mini huggie earrings’ from EF Collection.

During apertivo, I wore some white dior sunglasses and kept my lip gloss and phone in my Mini Jodie bag by Bottega Veneta.

Kev also wore a mini 22 carat gold signet ring that I had given him as a wedding gift the morning of our wedding with the engraving ‘KDLCM’ inside which is the first letter of our names, as well as our children’s.

Hair & Makeup

I wore my hair up in a loose messy bun with a few strands hanging out at the front, whereas my bridesmaids chose to have their hair out. I rarely wear makeup (only if I’m going out for dinner or to an event) so I wanted to keep my makeup very simple and asked for a natural, glowy, dewy look!

Groom’s Attire

Kev wore a bespoke green linen suit with my name embroidered inside the suit jacket and a white shirt all by BELANCĒ. He also wore brown suede loafers by Gucci. The groomsmen also wore bespoke beige linen suits and white shirts from BELANCĒ. As a little surprise, Kev had their nicknames embroidered on the inside of their suit jackets and their initials on the cuffs of their shirts. They also wore brown suede loafers from Suit Supply.

The Details

Transport

Kev and I stayed at Masseria Potenti for the three nights and four days that we were there with our bridal party, family and relatives so we didn’t need transport on the day! The rest of our guests stayed in villas nearby so we had two shuttle buses take them to and from Masseria Potenti each day.

Honeymoon

We arrived in Rome two weeks before our wedding and slowly made our way down to Puglia, stopping off in different towns to explore with our families and bridal party. After the wedding, we stayed in Ostuni for a few nights before flying to Croatia where we spent two weeks in Hvar and Debrovnik, eating the most delicious and freshly caught seafood, as well as swimming in the ocean every day. Croatia is so beautiful and a must visit destination if you haven’t been! However, we had our two little girls with us the whole time so I don’t know if I would call our trip a “honeymoon” haha.

Gift Registry

We chose not to ask our guests for gifts as we felt that our gift (and the greatest gift they could have given us) was their attendance at our international wedding!

“White wisteria mixed with olive branches hung down from above the tables and candles, while olive branches and white floral arrangements ran down the center of the tables.”

Wedding Songs

Picking the right songs for those major moments throughout the day was very important to us and we really wanted the songs to feel like us / reflect our relationship.

I walked down the aisle to a cover of “1+1” by Beyonce which was performed by the extremely talented husband and wife duo, Tobi Tobi.

We walked out of the ceremony to ‘Dreams’ by Gabrielle – a song that Kev and I love to blast and sing loudly to whenever we go on our road trips or are dancing around, being silly together.

We entered the ceremony to ‘We Found Love’ by Calvin Harris, along with our bridal party.

For our first dance, we wanted something upbeat and sexy that we could really dance to and have fun with, so we picked ‘For my hand’ by Burna Boy ft Ed Sheeran. The only part of the dance that we had rehearsed (because we had no idea how to do it) was Kev dipping me at the end, which I wasn’t sure if we were going to do until Kev went for it at the end of the song!

My dad and I then danced to ‘Have I told you lately that I love you’ by Rod Stewart – one of my dad’s favourite songs and a song that takes me back to my childhood and always reminds me of him when I hear it.

Entertainment

After the ceremony, we surprised our guests by entering the aperitivo part of the evening with Zagor Street Band – an Apulian band that uses brass instruments mixed with saxophones, trumpets, and trombones to create the most fun and upbeat music. Tobi Tobi continued to play during the aperitifs and then the dance floor was kicked off by the amazingly talented DJ Claire Elliot who had everyone dancing until three in the morning! Claire was also joined by Harry Cooper (an unbelievable saxophonist) who played all night long among our dancing bodies. One of Kev’s best friends, Sean Gavin, also surprised us by playing his electric violin that he had brought with him all the way from Dubai!

We also surprised our guests with the most spectacular display of fireworks just as we finished cutting our wedding cake and right before we hit the dance floor!

Celebrant

We asked one of our best friends, Billy Quist, who we met the same day we met each other at the law firm in Sydney, to be our celebrant. Billy was amazing and made the ceremony feel so special and personal, taking our guests through the story of how we first met and our journey since then. We could not recommend Billy enough for anyone looking for a celebrant!

Readings

Kev and I wrote our own vows on cards that we gave each other to keep after the ceremony. We also asked Kev’s grandmother, Fiona, to say a few words during the ceremony and she gave a beautiful speech about her special bond with Kev, and her love for both of us. We also asked my mother, Git, to also do a reading and she absolutely blew me away with this beautiful written poem about mine and Kev’s relationship.

Our Advice

A memorable moment…

When we surprised our guests with the most amazing fireworks display as DJ Claire Elliot played ‘Sun goes Down’ by Robin Schulz. Surrounded by all of the people we love the most in this world – our family and best friends. Thinking back to that moment puts the biggest smile on my face and makes me wish that we could go back and relive that moment just one more time!

One thing I wish I knew before I started my wedding plans…

Oh gosh… there is honestly nothing I would change about the wedding because Kev and I both had the best three days of our lives!! Every single moment was so special and beautiful… and don’t even get me started on the dancefloor… Kev and I have dissected and relived every moment spent on that dancefloor because it was that good!! BUT… if I had to change one thing… it would be hiring a wedding coordinator to do all of the organising with Masseria Potenti because there was so much going back and forward to fine tune all of the details and with two little children consuming the majority of my days (and nights)… it was a lot of work.

If I could give other couples one piece of advice…

Write your vows, letters to your parents, partner and bridal party before your actual wedding day (I am yet to write my letters to my bridesmaids but plan on having it done before I return to Sydney from, NYC where we are currently living). I spent a large chunk of my morning frantically writing my vows and meaningful letters to my parents and to Kev.

Steal little moments with your partner throughout the day and night to just step away, look around you and to take everything in. Soak it all up because your wedding day goes by so quickly!

Don’t be afraid to allocate a large portion of your budget on entertainment, food and drinks. While I will definitely always remember all of the delicious food that we ate and Kev always remembers all of the beautiful wines that we consumed, I know that our guests will always remember the incredible dance floor and atmosphere that DJ Claire Elliot, Harry Cooper and Sean Gavin helped us create! A moment that will live on forever in our memories.

Sources of inspiration…

I spent a lot of time looking through photographs of Italian weddings on Instagram and Pinterest by running searches using key words. Discovering different profiles dedicated to weddings and brides, I would find myself getting lost by clicking on all of the tags of each photograph. I also loved scrolling through The Lane’s Instagram account and visiting the profiles of all of the brides that they tagged and looking through those brides’ wedding photographs. And I absolutely loved reading all of the real wedding stories featured on The Lane!

Our Contacts

Wedding Venue, Stylist & Planner, Flowers, Catering, Cake & Transport / Masseria Potenti

Photography / Muir Weddings

Videography / Moon&back

Dress / Florence Dress in White by Sau Lee

Shoes / Holli Glass Sculpted Pump by Amina Muaddi

Bridesmaid Dresses / Lioness Official

Flowergirls & Pageboys / Monbebe BonBon Tulle Dress from Greenberry Kids & Zara

Wedding Rings / Kevin’s wedding band is by Black De Ville & Danielle’s wedding band is by Cara Jewellers

Jewelry & Accessories / Prong Set Diamonds by EF Collection & handbag by Bottega Veneta

Hair & Makeup / BLBS Management

Stationery / Paper Tie Affair

Celebrant / Billy Quist

Entertainment /  Tobi Tobi

Fovors / Swag Bags Co, Unlimited Favour Bags, Spring Of Sage Creations & ModParty