Meet one couple whose trip to the Italian Riviera inspired them to come back for more...

Meet one couple whose trip to the Italian Riviera inspired them to come back for more...

IN THE MONTH of August of 2004, Julia Petropoulos and Angus Coupland met at a beautiful wedding on the tiny island of Uto in Sweden. It was to prove an auspicious meeting, as almost immediately the two hit it off and felt the spark of attraction. ‘At that time,’ says Julia, ‘Angus was on his way from Hong Kong to begin working in London. Although I’m from Boston, I’ve lived in London since 1999, and soon after Angus arrived, we started dating seriously.’ And in September 2008, almost exactly four years after they’d met, Julia and Angus became husband and wife in the gorgeous town of Portofino on the Italian Riviera.

‘The way it happened was a real surprise,’ says Julia. ‘My birthday is on 4th July, and this year Angus surprised me with a trip to Portofino, which was just amazing.

Portofino is such a beautiful place. We stayed in the Hotel Splendido, and while we were there, Angus proposed to me. And looking around, we couldn’t imagine anywhere more beautiful, so we thought – why don’t we come back here to get married? Right away we knew we wanted a small, intimate wedding with few guests: something simple, elegant but relaxed, and this seemed the right place.’

PRECIOUS ASSISTANCE

However, organising a wedding in Italy between and American and an Australian was never going to be simple. ‘That’s where Joelle our wedding planner from Love and Lord was invaluable,’ confesses Julia. ‘Without her help in ploughing through all the multicultural bureaucracy, goodness knows how we would have managed it. She took care of all the legal paperwork, organised and negotiated on our behalf in Italy, telling us when we had to turn up to sign something or when we had to visit our embassies in Italy. And when she’d finished all that, she began arranging for my hair and makeup, the flowers, the villa where we had the ceremony, the yacht we were on the next day, and she managed the whole process with the Hotel Splendido, including minute details of the wedding menu and table setting.’

Deciding on the dates also presented a potential problem as both Julia’s sister and Angus’ sister-in-law were pregnant, and after taking everyone’s different needs into consideration, there was just one window of opportunity for everyone getting together.

And they grabbed it: the weekend of the 26th-29th September.

...something simple, elegant but relaxed... this seemed the right place...

RIVIERA REUNION

‘Everyone arrived on the Friday night,’ remembers Julia, ‘and we had dinner at a restaurant on the coast called Capo Nord.
The food was lovely and the view was exquisite. We had canapés followed by a five course meal with the Riviera right at our feet and stretching out as far as we could see. We were absolutely enchanted.
‘On Saturday, I went to have my hair and makeup done in a little place in Santa Margherita (I’d already done a practice run!), and got dressed. I’d chosen a dress by the Australian designer Collette Dinnigan, and my flowers matched the wreath carried by our flower girl, Angus’ niece of 18 months, and also the flowers of my matron of honour, my sister Angela.
We were actually married in Villa San Giacomo in Santa Margherita in the late afternoon. It was a beautiful ceremony made even more moving by the fact that, as a surprise, Joelle from Love and Lord had arranged for a flautist to be playing as I entered. It was very emotional.’ After the ceremony, Julia, Angus and their guests had drinks in the villa’s magnificent gardens before returning to Portofino for dinner in the Hotel Splendido. ‘We ate out on the terrace to enjoy the views until it became too chilly, then we moved indoors to a private dining room. However, the hotel insisted that Angus and I had the first dance in the hall after dinner, then the whole hall joined in! What a wonderful moment...’

...we wanted the theme of our special day to be the beauty of portofino and of italy

THE DAY AFTER

Now that the wedding day was over did that mean that there was no more fun? ‘Not at all,’ says Julia. ‘One of the best things we did was hire a wonderful 1950s yacht called The Viola for the next day. On the Sunday, we sailed up the coast to Genova, lounging on board and chatting about the night before, and swam and played around in the water.
Our wedding photographer Malou Burger from Turtle Dove Weddings came along – she was fantastic – and we have some of the most incredible shots of the coast. She really captured the fun we had and got some great shots of the Riviera.
‘You know, that’s really all we wished for.
Angus and I come from completely opposite parts of the world, our guests also arrived from various different places, and we wanted the theme of our special day to be the beauty of Portofino and of Italy. We wanted our celebration to be seasonal, local and intimate and that’s exactly the way it was. Next summer we’re planning to throw a wedding celebration party in Newport Rhode Island for friends and family who are spread all over the world – a black tie wedding ball to celebrate our marriage, which will be all the more unique as there will be another very special little person present...’