Italian Inspired Wedding at The Ringling in Sarasota, Florida

Emma-Lee and Griffin met in Rome and would have loved to have returned to Italy for their wedding however with the uncertainty of Covid and wanting to include family and friends in their special day, Italy was just not possible so they had to pivot. They knew they wanted a venue that felt like we they back where we met and THE RINGLING with its breathtaking architecture, beautiful tropical grounds and stunning views of Sarasota Bay, offered the complete package. One of Emma-Lee’s favorite hobbies in New York City is visiting museums and art exhibits, so having the ability to open the Italian art gallery during their cocktail hour was definitely an added bonus. "We wanted our guests to feel transported to another time and place and without a doubt – our experience was perfect. Whilst we wanted the event to be elegant, it was also a priority for people to feel comfortable and relaxed in the space. We hoped our guests felt like they were attending an elevated family dinner party where they would mingle, drink, dance, and share in our combined traditions" she tells us. Northern California wedding photographers THE GANEYS captured their beautiful celebration.

TELL US ABOUT HOW YOU MET? Griffin and I met in 2013 in Rome, Italy while we were both studying abroad. Back in the States, Griffin attended the University of Maryland and was from New York and I attended Rollins College and am from Florida. One afternoon in 2013, I just happened to board the Express 871 bus with a classmate from the American University of Rome. My classmate noticed Griffin, another American college student, and introduced us. At my stop, I said goodbye to Griffin and the mutual friend, turned my back to exit, but was stunned when I soon heard "Scusi, Scusi" in a thick New York (but wanna-be Italian) accent. Griffin quickly hopped off the bus behind me. By the stroke of fate, it turned out we were neighbours; our Italian apartment buildings next door, our individual units on the same floor, and balconies facing each other. We talked the whole walk home and reminisced about our mutually favourite night of the week, Tuesday's at Scholar's Irish Pub. The very next Tuesday, just like every Tuesday before, we both went to karaoke night at Scholars. Griffin signed me up to duet Mariah Carey's, “All I Want for Christmas Is You”, and the rest is history. Our first date was a stroll to the Trevi Fountain at midnight; the perfect time to see the landmark all lit up with no tourist (other than us) in sight!

HOW AND WHEN DID YOU GET ENGAGED? We got engaged in April 2020. Griffin had planned this beautiful and elaborate engagement for us in New York City on March 20, 2020. My parents were flying up to New York for a weekend visit and we were going to go to my favourite restaurant, Lilia. Little did I know, after dinner he had a proposal planned outside of Lincoln Center with string instrumentalists playing our favourite song. He also planned a surprise brunch with our families and friends (I am very close to my three sisters, who had secretly booked flights) for the next day. BUT that week before was when everything shut down. The mayor of NYC and governor of NY put a stay-at-home order in place, our favourite restaurants were closing, and my parents canceled their flights. Needless to say, the proposal didn’t happen as planned and we joined most of our friends and fled the City. Despite only packing for two weeks, we stayed in Florida for three months. Luckily, Griff had the ring sent to my parents. After he realised we were staying for the long-haul, Griff planned another proposal in Florida. On April 4, 2020, Griffin and I walked to watch the sunset at a park on the water that is very special to me. [You can see it from the backyard of my grandmother's (now my parent’s) home and my grandmother and my sister, Katie, and I spent countless evenings “counting” the sunset there.] This was in the height of the lockdown and my family tricked me into taking off my tie-dye sweatsuit and getting dressed up for my little sister’s pretend sorority formal that we were throwing her, since she was a college freshman and missing her first one (or so I was told). At the park, we watched the sunset and Griffin got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. I immediately heard screaming in the background and my family was watching from the backyard. We walked back to my parent’s house and his family was on zoom, my mom had decorated the house, and we had a fancy 'Covid-style' dinner at home.

WHAT WAS YOUR FAVOURITE PART OF WEDDING PLANNING? My favourite part of planning was seeing the vision of the design come to life through design decks and the in-person design meeting. I was most excited about the style and design of the event, so those details were highly anticipated and it was so fun to see them come together. 

HOW DID YOU PERSONALISE YOUR WEDDING DAY TO REFLECT WHO YOU ARE AS A COUPLE? One of the things that makes Griffin and I so compatible is our common priority of family and tradition. Religious and cultural traditions were intertwined throughout the ceremony and reception. Griffin comes from a Jewish family. His grandparents actually survived the Holocaust, so it was very important for us to honour that part of his cultural background. I am Roman Catholic. My parents and grandparents are also religious, so it was important to honour those traditions, as well. 

Griffin and I love to entertain and come from families who both love to host. That being said, we are also both pretty approachable and casual. We wanted to capitalise on this to cultivate the “vibe” of the wedding. We knew from the beginning we wanted lounges with comfortable furniture, more eclectic design, and spaces for people to engage with others as little or as much as they’d like; kind of like they were in a home at a cocktail party. Jennifer took this idea and ran with it! She brought this warm, welcoming cocktail party vision to life from a corner “lemon lounge” complete with real lemon trees and couches to a dance-floor lounge with custom leopard print pillows and armchairs.&nbsp
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As mentioned below, food was also an important part of our vision. One of our favourite parts of living in NYC is having a new restaurant to try each weekend or date night. I am known to friends as a curator for restaurant recommendations whenever friends have an event or out of town guests visit. I knew our food had to be fun, approachable, and GOOD.  Our guests enjoyed everything from an interactive cheese wheel with pasta, BBQ, Paella and even Zaxby’s chicken sandwiches (my mom is a Zaxby’s owner, so it is a family owned restaurant)  and truffle fries for late night food. For desserts we also made a decision to have what we love rather than the traditional wedding cake. We chose a gelato cart with a variety of flavours, macarons, assorted favourite cookies, and several other bite sized personal favourites. People are still talking about how delicious our food was, and that is a complete success!

WHAT WERE YOUR PAPER GOODS LIKE? Throughout the planning, we worked with EMILY BAIRD DESIGN to include nods from the couple’s courtship in Italy. We wanted to recreate that moment in time for them for their wedding here in the states. Emily used an Italian tile, repeated, which mimicked the Italian tile we came across when researching some of their favourite locations and hidden gems along the Amalfi Coast. Adding in brighter colours, paired with fruits and floral really gave the invitation life and brought all of the pieces together as we incorporated them into the bigger picture for their wedding. 

TELL US ABOUT YOUR ACCESSORIES: All of my jewellery was either gifted or borrowed from my family’s collection. My earrings were my maternal grandmother’s that now belong to my older sister, Katie. My mom had my necklace made out of diamonds from my grandmother’s older jewellery and the shape mimicked the pair of earrings my mom wore on the day, also from my grandmother. My tennis bracelet was gifted to me from my parents on my law school graduation. Our family’s jewellery was designed by a local (to Fort Myers) jewellery designer who knew my grandmother well, Marc Loren. 

A crazy story was that our wedding rings went missing right before the wedding weekend. We had the rings shipped to my mom, in Florida, to hold for safekeeping. She had been holding lots of our wedding things at their house for the last two years and was then starting to gather loads of baby things and supplies. With my sister's baby coming a week before our wedding, and my mom having so much on her plate, she lost the wedding rings! My parents searched high and low and even called the local sanitation department, but they were gone. Luckily, the jeweller who designed and produced our rings was a family friend of Griffin’s. We immediately texted her, letting her know what happened, and she miraculously created two new rings for us that were shipped and arrived the day before the wedding! 

HOW DID YOU FEEL JUST BEFORE YOUR FIRST LOOK? Both Griffin and I were SO nervous. After our first look we compared notes and we both had been sweating all morning, hadn’t eaten our lunches or drank any alcohol with our bridal party, and had anxious stomach aches :). Seeing each other was incredibly emotional. We both were overcome with love, comfort, and a wave of relief. We had been dating for so long so neither of us expected there to be as much anticipation as there was. We joke that because we are each other’s best friend, having the first look allowed us to enjoy the moments leading up to the ceremony together fully. We both felt immense calm once we were able to be together, chat together, and hold hands (as well as get most of the crying out of the way). 

TELL US ABOUT YOUR FLORALS: The bride’s bouquet we wanted to keep small, yet filled with colour from the bright pinks to the ivory and more muted peach tones of the wedding. The florist used a variety of different ranunculus, garden roses, sweet peas, tulips, bougainvillea, jasmine, anenomes, cosmos, hellebores, stock, Jeanie spray roses, and sahara spray roses. 

WHAT WAS ON THE MENU? Food was very important to us. We both come from families and cultures where food is central to celebrations and bringing people together. From the start, I communicated with Jennifer about how I wanted the food experience to be a priority. I wanted to incorporate the foods we actually liked and would choose to eat at our home or when we go out for date night. Jennifer had the amazing idea to have a cocktail-style reception, where we could incorporate food stations and open seating. This would create a more casual and intimate vibe for the evening while also catering (pun intended) to our more approachable food choices. 

FIRST DANCE SONG: "Beyond-Leon Bridges" This has been our song together since it came out and when it came time to pick a first dance song, it was a no brainer. The song came out the same year we moved into our apartment together and when we really started talking about getting serious. We love Leon and feel like the lyrics of the song could not be more perfect for our love story. 

FATHER-DAUGHTER DANCE SONG: Growing up, I was definitely a Disney-loving little girl. When it came time to choose a father-daughter dance, my dad took the task very seriously! He wanted it to incorporate the aspects of our relationship and my childhood that we hold dear, including this love of Disney. Another tender memory from my childhood is driving around in my dad’s truck jamming out to Phil Collins and other 80s and 90s rock/pop songs. Whenever “In the Air Tonight” came on, we would stop the car to have the drum solo on his center console, steering wheel, and dashboard! The lyrics also  perfectly describe our relationship. My dad is my ultimate protector and guide. 

Halfway through You’ll Be in My Heart we had the band remix into Hoedown Throwdown by Miley Cyrus. Keeping with the Disney theme, my sisters and I LOVED Hannah Montana and performed this dance in our living room all the time! My dad and my relationship is built on fun and not taking things too seriously, so it only made sense to incorporate this song (and corresponding dance!) into our moment. There isn’t really a special meaning behind this song, but it made Griffin’s mother cry every time we listened to it, so we thought it was a good choice.

WHAT WERE YOUR FAVOURITE MEMORIES FROM THE WEDDING? 1) It’s been touched upon, above, but our first look and the couple’s portraits taken after that moment was such an important and impactful part of our day. It gave us a few hours to really be together and relish in the commitment we were about to make to each other and the love we shared. I think we both needed those moments to spend quality time with each other to be relaxed and centered for the ceremony and reception to come. We spent much of this time up in the tower of the Ca d’Zan at the Ringling and the breeze and water views were the picturesque backdrop for these sweet moments together. We attribute the creation of this environment to our wonderful vendor team of photographers and videographers. They cultivated this zen atmosphere for us to really just be calmly joyful with each other. I’m struggling to find the words for the feeling we both shared in these hours, but it was such a meaningful time we won’t forget. 

Having a first look also allowed us to get a quick glance at the decorated space before the event. Seeing all of the design elements come together took my breath away. I struggled throughout the planning process to form my vision into words and descriptions and it was like our planner, Jennifer, had seen inside my head and made my design dreams a reality: from the decadent florals down the aisle and adorning the chuppah, to the gorgeous head table, lined with beautiful linens, glassware, and such special menus. 

2) Our ceremony was our favourite part of the evening. We tried to be so intentional about centering our love, family, and values. Our vows were particularly emotional. (You can see in the photos that I was especially a crying mess). We have been together for so long and been through so much as a couple, that finally standing in front of our dearest friends and family, who supported us up until this point, to profess our love and commitment to each other was surreal.  We both felt like time stood still in that moment. It was like an out of body experience. 

3) One of Griffin’s main priorities of our wedding was for everyone to have a blast and dance the night away. So many of my visions and wishes had come true that night, I wanted to ensure his one request was fulfilled. Immediately after the formal dances, I ran to the bathroom and changed into my reception dress and sneakers. It felt like I had been transformed! I came running out of the bathroom, skipped down the stairs to the personalised dance floor with Griffin in hand, and pulled everyone I could see onto the floor to begin dancing. My best friend and I danced to “Proud Mary” and Griffin and his fraternity brothers scream-sung to their favourite early 2000s hits.

IF YOU COULD OFFER ONE PIECE OF ADVICE TO COUPLES PLANNING THEIR WEDDING WHAT WOULD IT BE? As best as you can, remember this is your day to celebrate your love and the event should be a reflection of you two as a couple. It’s okay to make choices that might be different from a “traditional wedding” that are more aligned to your priorities and your love story.

Thank you to Northern California wedding photographers THE GANEYS for sharing this gorgeous wedding with us today. As a husband and wife team, Emily & Thomas are driven by capturing real moments and documenting love stories in an organic way. "Some of the favourite aspects of our job are hearing unique stories, meeting amazing people and capturing love that can move mountains. We seek out couples whose weddings embody these ideas. We’re inspired by authenticity and adventure, and as your photographers we’ll rejoice in celebrated moments and tear up during emotional ones." You can see more of their work in the MAGNOLIA ROUGE VENDOR GUIDE and you might also want to check out this Intimate 15 person wedding at Chateau Lill.