A Vintage Italian Summer Handed Down in Lace and Lemons

A Closer Look

This wedding editorial at Casa Privata in Praiano set out to look collected rather than curated, as though every piece had belonged to the villa for generations. Mart Mari Bridal House and Lments by Luca Minelli took their colors from the Amalfi Coast itself, with buttery lemon, espresso brown, warm gold, weathered ivory and the soft blue-grey of the sea. Then they filled it with handwork.

The stationery introduced the idea. Ananya Cards printed the suite on deckled handmade paper and tied it with hand-frayed espresso silk ribbon, giving every invitation, menu and place card the feel of old-world correspondence. Guest names, addresses and small references to the people behind the project made each one a keepsake.

For the ceremony, the design went down to the water. Round woven rugs sat on a stone ledge above the waves, and crocheted covers turned stools into soft poufs. Vintage lace tablecloths from Dolly's Vintage Tea Party spilled over the boulders like linens left out to dry. A sheer openwork panel hung between wooden poles strung with dried lemon slices. Alberto Menegardi Flower Design planted yellow roses and small white daisies in the crevices so they looked sprung from the rock. The cliffs and open sea did the rest, and the fabric simply framed them.

The fashion was chosen to belong to this place, not to a trend. Stylist Joanna Southwell put the bride in a vintage Dries Van Noten runway gown, a fluid ivory slip sourced through Reracked Vintage. Rebecca Anne Designs embroidered her cathedral veil with hand-illustrated lemons and olive branches. It fell over an oversized woven sun hat by Virna Pasquinelli instead of beneath it, and draped from the brim, it caught the wind like a sail and took the landscape with it. A delicate choker, gloves by C'est Jeanne and yellow satin Manolo Blahnik pumps with jeweled buckles carried the yellow all the way to her feet. The groom's olive check suit was vintage too, and a lace jabot at his collar tied him to the needlework by the water.

Up on the terrace, the palette went sunny and striped. A yellow-and-white cabana bar with a scalloped awning stood against the railing, hung with fishing nets that cradled lemons and scallop shells. A yellow pagoda umbrella shaded deck chairs nearby. It was the most cheerful corner of the shoot, but the nets and real fruit kept it rooted in the working shoreline below.

Dinner moved beneath a vine-covered pergola, where the editorial's most painstaking detail hung overhead. Hundreds of Amalfi lemons had been individually sliced, hand dried and threaded into strands that rained down through the greenery, echoing the citrus groves around the property. Below, lace layered over golden linens. Gen Maison Events supplied cane-back bistro chairs and gilded chargers, and amber glassware, dusky tapers and globe lamps lit every place setting. Alberto Menegardi ran a low hedge of olive branches, yellow and white gerberas, lemons and small orange fruit down the center. Every surface was soft and a little worn, so the table read like a family's best things brought out for a summer feast.

Penelope Darcy Graham's cakes came last, set on one more drape of lace. Shaped into retro domes and finished in beaded piping, they arrived in lemon yellow and pale blue-grey. The sea had been the backdrop all day. At the very end, it became dessert.