My work: Cathy and Pao

I enjoy working with brides with a clear theme or concept in their minds. I treat it like my former job in advertising, you start with a creative brief. This way, everything is conceptualized and realized with one vision in mind, so the message is sent out clearly and the result is easily appreciated.

Meet Cathy. She is a stage actress who married Pao, one of the most loved TV commercial directors in advertising now. Cathy shared with me a musical called 'A Light in the Piazza' and this became the starting point of her wedding.  The musical was set in Florence and we both imagined the 'light' as street lights being lit in a piazza while the sun sets. So we decided to go with shades of gold, wine red and burnt orange for the entourage colors. I suggested details of flowing ribbons to give the dresses a Tuscan countryside feel as well as subtle beadwork that would be made to look like antique Florentine jewelry.

Her off-white lace gown featured gold crystals and beadwork circling her waist like a belt. Silk chiffon crossed her shoulders and framed the deep V back detail. 

During the wedding, the voices of Mass Appeal filled the huge St. James the Great Cathedral

with beautiful songs carefully selected by Cathy and her theater friends. 

From start to finish, Cathy and Pao's wedding fulfilled the creative brief that we started with. At the reception, lamp posts were set up at the cocktail area where you padlock your wishes for the newly weds, much like the love padlocks on Ponte Vecchio in Florence.