To say I had to pick my jaw up off the ground when reading the details of today’s insanely, beautiful wedding was not an exaggeration! Meg and Jason’s three day Italy getaway was nothing short of amazing! Starting with the stunning invitation suite by Kara Anne Paper, which included original watercolor artwork and intricate gold details to the GORGEOUS gowns, designed by the bride herself through her own fashion line, Deià. I have to say, I wish I was a fly on the wall during this Italian affair, so keep that mouse a moving, and become enchanted by the ever-so-amazing Greg Finck Photography! Read about all of the personal, intimate details the bride and groom put together check out the full gallery for even more!
From the Bride…
Please tell us about your love story! How and where did you meet one another?
We met the old-fashioned way, literally bumping into each other at a private film screening five years ago in New York City. It was the day after Meg had moved to the city upon graduating from Princeton’s engineering program, and the day before Jason was about to leave for Asia on business for a month!
Jason was so intrigued that he postponed his travel plans just so he could spend more time with Meg. After the most magical 10-hour first date the next day, the rest was history. We bonded over everything from our love for global travel (Jason’s at 40 countries and counting; Meg has lived in Kenya, Peru, and India) to our shared passion for building mission-driven businesses that have a positive social impact. We’ve been inseparable ever since, as true partners in both life and love! Ever since that first date, we’ve been partners in starting and growing multiple companies together across finance, consumer, and technology. We are so excited for a lifetime of building and dreaming together.
Please describe your wedding gown and jewelry.
Meg’s wedding gowns, veil, and jewelry were so special, as they were designed and made by her, via her sustainable fashion line Deià! Meg’s main wedding gown took nearly 2,000 hours to create. Meg designed the gown with a nod to her East-meets-West heritage: sculptural origami-inspired folds blended seamlessly into a ballgown silhouette with a six-foot-long train. The gown incorporated 38 meters of white silk satin handwoven by master artisans in Varanasi, India, and constructed using traditional couture techniques. We also sewed in a portion of Meg’s mother’s wedding gown as an inner layer for an extra personal touch! Finally, her veil featured custom hand embroidery inspired by the Renaissance fresco artwork in Villa Cimbrone’s Camellia Suite, where we stayed the night of our wedding.
For Meg’s welcome cocktail dress (also her own design), we used pale green eco-friendly silk. This gown also took over 1,000 hours to create given the complexity of the drape. Meg paired the gowns with Deià fine jewelry from her ‘Eos’ collection – made of sterling silver by female Balinese artisans, and using Deià’s signature technique of hand sculpting waxes which give pieces a three dimensional and free-flowing effect.
Meg’s mother, Lily, wore a lilac silk chiffon couture gown designed by Meg for Deià, hand-embroidered with 3-D butterflies and lily of the valley flowers in keeping with the wedding’s enchanted garden theme. She also wore hand-sculpted fine jewelry, from the ‘Gaia’ collection by Deià!
How many guests attended your destination wedding? We were fortunate to be joined by 60 of our closest family and friends, who came as far as Hong Kong and California to join us in Ravello for three days. It was the perfect size for us, as we got to spend quality time with everyone over the course of the festivities!
How and why did you choose your wedding venue and location? Ravello is one of our favorite places in the world. It’s the type of place that makes your heart skip a beat – an ancient coastal village perched on a hilltop more than 1200 feet above the Mediterranean Sea, with the most breathtaking views of the Amalfi Coast. When it was time to choose a destination for our wedding, Ravello was our top pick!
Please describe your invitation suite and other paper goods. How did it set the tone for your wedding events?
Our invitation suite was an incredibly important part of our wedding as it set the tone for the experience in store! We worked with talented calligrapher and artist, Kara Anne (of Kara Anne Paper), to design a gold laser-cut cover for our invitation suite that had the effect of opening a gate to an enchanted realm. Our invitations incorporated original floral watercolor artwork by Kara Anne in our pastel lilac and pink color scheme, as well as delicate details like gold beveled edges and gold, engraved butterflies evocative of our ceremony’s enchanted garden theme. A custom illustrated map of Ravello’s iconic landmarks (including our event locations) and Italian language phrases sprinkled throughout hinted at the local flavor of our celebrations. A pale lilac envelope with watercolor artwork on the inner flap addressed with hand calligraphy, and custom stamps completed the package to make an impactful first impression.
We also worked with Kara Anne to design a special gold M&J wedding crest with a nod to the iconic Villa Cimbrone fountains. We used it throughout both our invitation suite and during the event itself – embossed on custom cocktail napkins, embroidered on custom dinner napkins and, placed on top of menus. Hand calligraphy on personalized dinner menus, as well as a hand-illustrated welcome booklet included in our gift bags, imbued a bespoke sensibility throughout our wedding. Finally, our experience working with Kara Anne set the tone for just how much fun planning our wedding would be! Collaborating with her on our stationery designs was a delightful experience and really started our wedding planning off on a joyful note.
Tell us about your wedding week and the timeline of events.
Our wedding was a magical three-day event (July 24-27, 2018) based in Ravello, Italy. We started with an intimate Welcome Dinner for 25 people (our immediate families, wedding party, and their partners) at the Belmond Hotel Caruso on Tuesday, July 24th.
This was followed by a “Canapés & Cocktails” welcome event on July 25th for all of our guests at the Belmond Caruso’s iconic infinity pool. We set the mood with soft jazz music, white lights in the gardens, and lanterns surrounding the pool’s edge, and brought out freshly made pizza for our guests to enjoy as the evening progressed. For the occasion, Meg wore a green Deià couture gown and sterling silver jewelry – all of her own design.
Thursday, July 26th, was the day of our wedding ceremony. The weather was an absolute dream! Our guests gathered in the gardens of Villa Cimbrone sipping on lemonade and champagne while we had our First Look and took wedding photos. We began our Wedding Ceremony at the Garden of Two O’s at 6 pm, timing things so that we could enjoy Sunset Cocktails immediately after with our guests at Villa Cimbrone’s beautiful terrazza dell’infinito while the sun descended over the coastline. Meg wore a Deià wedding gown and veil of her own creation with Ralph & Russo shoes; Jason wore a midnight blue tux by Pal Zileri and velvet Salvatore Ferragamo shoes.
Our Reception (dinner and dancing) took place at Villa Cimbrone’s Garden of Two Fountains, where we set up multiple seating areas, a separate dance floor, a fully stocked open bar, and two long tables where our guests could enjoy a four-course meal artfully prepared by the talented team at Il Flauto di Pan.
On the menu: octopus salad with roasted potatoes, mussels, and clams; risotto carnaroli with lemon cream, pumpkin, and roasted squid; bread-crusted veal stuffed with endive pine nuts and raisings; and two types of cake – a white sponge cake with strawberry and chantilly cream, and a dark chocolate fudge cake.
We entered the Reception dancing to “We’ve Got Love” by Babyface. After dinner, we performed the cake cutting and enjoyed several toasts before a series of special dances including our first dance (to “Exceptional” by Babyface), Meg’s father-daughter dance, and a surprise performance of Meg’s original song “Our Story.” We kicked off the party with “Dancing in the Moonlight” by Toploader, and danced the night away!
The next day, we hosted a Farewell Sendoff at the Garden of the Soul in Villa Rufolo, the stunning cliffside garden that inspired Wagner’s Parsifal.
What was your overall design concept and style for your wedding weekend? Did you plan the look of your wedding around a specific theme or color scheme? If so, please explain how this idea was carried out.
When we decided to get married in Ravello, we had a vision for an enchanted, otherworldly experience that would reflect the joy and purity of our love, as well as our shared taste for elegant simplicity. Our starting point was a 60-page inspiration book that Meg put together with mood boards, color palettes, musical soundtracks, and design inspirations for each of the events during our wedding week. From the beginning, we set out to design a cohesive narrative arch across events that would transport guests to an “Enchanted Realm” amidst Ravello’s naturally romantic scenery, medieval architecture, and iconic cliffside gardens.
To create this ethereal mood, we focused on the details. Lighting played an important role. During our reception at Villa Cimbrone’s Garden of Two Fountains, white Moroccan-style lanterns illuminated the paths and fairy lights were hung in the trees, suspended like stardust. We used tall white lanterns of varying heights to frame the Belmond Caruso’s infinity pool during our welcome cocktails the night before, creating the illusion of floating above the clouds with dramatic views of the coastline below. White lights were strategically placed around each event area at night to envelop guests in a soft, romantic glow.
Similarly, we knew we wanted loose florals and vines draped organically over the reception tables, lining the ceremony aisle, and winding around the cocktail tables to evoke a lush, overgrown, “Enchanted Garden” feel without seeming overdone. Throughout, our main color scheme consisted of romantic watercolor pastels: shades of pale lilac, blush pink, white, and green that seamlessly tied into the natural environment.
In keeping with the concept of elegant simplicity, we chose décor that felt both polished and relaxed. For instance, limewash Chiavari chairs at the reception tables were elegant without being overly formal. Glamorous crystal vases, custom embroidered napkins with our wedding crest, and personalized dinner menus with gold calligraphy were counterbalanced by non-fussy place settings and glassware with simple, classic curvature. We set up multiple clusters of cozy, antique furniture around the reception area so guests could rest their feet while engaging in intimate, candle-lit conversation. Villa Cimbrone is such a naturally stunning location, that we never wanted to compete with it – only enhance.
Live music also played a crucial role in setting the tone. A string quartet during the ceremony was buoyant and cinematically romantic; a bossa nova band at sunset on the infinity terrace provided the perfect relaxed yet sophisticated backdrop against cocktail hour chatter; a Michael Bublé-style live jazz band with a grand piano set a timeless and celebratory mood during dinner.
Finally, in addition to the aesthetic and atmospheric elements, we cared very much about showing our welcoming hospitality amidst it all. To that end, we invested in custom gift bags for each guest to help them feel at home in Ravello upon arrival: straw beach bags handwoven by local Italian artisans containing a hand-painted ceramic bottle of Ravello’s famous limoncello, boxes of assorted candies and snacks from local purveyors, chilled bottles of Pellegrino, pre-paid gelato vouchers, tubes of sunscreen, and a welcome card with a map of the town and schedule of events. We also decided to forego a traditional seating chart in exchange for a personable escort bringing each guest to his / her seat with a fresh glass of prosecco, as if at an intimate dinner party.
What was your overall vision for the floral and table arrangements? Please describe them.
Villa Cimbrone is known for its sprawling cliffside gardens and unparalleled views of the Amalfi Coast, so our concept was to enhance the setting’s botanical allure. We were inspired by the concept of an enchanted garden, with organic florals that blended in with the naturally stunning landscaping of Villa Cimbrone’s world-renowned gardens. Meg’s romantic bridal bouquet came perfectly unstructured and organic in natural shades of blush pink and pale lilac, incorporating café–au-lait dahlias, light white and pink astilbe, light green hydrangea, clematis, and delicate greens, while the bridesmaids carried beautiful pink astilbe bouquets. For our ceremony, we framed the aisle with flowers and designed a floral arch to look as if they were growing naturally out of the ground, filling out the already lush garden with an added romantic touch. This theme carried through to the reception, where we incorporated loose florals and draped vines organically over the reception tables. We used real flowers on our cake as well, to round out the enchanted garden theme.
How does your wedding day reflect your personal style and personality?
For us, the theme of equal partnership has been so core to our relationship and the way we live and work together. We chose to highlight this throughout our wedding in several ways, most notably in our ceremony itself where we performed a reading of the poem “I carry your heart with me” by E. E. Cummings together prior to our vows, alternating lines of the poem to symbolize our interwoven partnership.
What was your favorite part about the wedding day? What was Jason’s?
Meg:
Just seeing everything come together so beautifully was such a dream. The journey of making my own wedding gowns, and my mother’s gown as well, was so incredibly special. Every piece has a story woven into it. The silk satin we used in my wedding gown was handwoven by master artisans in Varanasi, India – friends, and partners who taught me so much over the years about how artistry can be a means for fostering peace, spreading hope, and promoting economic development. I also designed the sterling silver jewelry for myself and my mom, which was hand-sculpted by our Deià artisan partners in Bali. The gown construction and hand-embroidery (for my veil) were done in New York with my dear friend and Deià collaborator Geri Gerard, who was formally trained in the Dior couture ateliers and is just so talented at her craft. Showing my mom how we incorporated a piece of her wedding gown into mine moved us all to tears!
Jason:
Meg’s mom planned a surprise performance of “Our Story” – a song that Meg wrote and recorded when she was in 7th grade that miraculously predicted our love story and to me has always represented how kind and pure her love is. I started bawling uncontrollably, I was so touched!
Was there anything unique or personal (or a tradition) to you and Jason that was incorporated into your wedding festivities? So many things! Some of the highlights:
Original Music by the Bride and her Brother:
Meg and her brother, Brenton, had grown up writing music together, and they collaborated on several original compositions that were performed by a live string quartet during our ceremony in the gardens of Villa Cimbrone. The songs were: “(Floating In) On Silken Butterfly Wings” (Seating of the Families), “The Enchanted Garden” (Processional), “Her Heart, Full of Song” (Entrance of the Bride), “And The Light: It’s Eternal” (Recessional). We are in the process of professionally recording of the songs for posterity!
Special Personal Touches during the Ceremony:
During the ceremony, writing our own vows was another personal and deeply meaningful touch, as was our “Love Letter Unity Ceremony” in which we wrote letters to each other about our hopes and dreams for our future, and had our parents write letters as well, to be opened and read for the first time on our 1 year anniversary.
Custom Cocktails:
At our cocktail reception following the ceremony, we each worked with a mixologist to create custom cocktails. Meg’s “Tigerlily” cocktail with St Germain elderflower liqueur, champagne brut, rose water, and edible flowers was named after her Princeton a cappella group (several members of whom were in attendance). Jason’s “Hemingway” cocktail made with Knob Creek bourbon whiskey, Amaro, and lemon was inspired by a drink we share on our weekly date nights at a local watering hole in New York City.
Overall, the planning process was a joy and brought us even closer together. We had so much fun dreaming about the little details together and coming up with event themes that we hoped would make our guests’ trip worthwhile while embodying the spirit of our love!
What is the best advice you can give other brides as they plan for their big day?
Enjoy the journey! The wedding planning process is a wonderful opportunity to collaborate with your loved ones to create a beautiful and personal experience. When you view it as a way to deepen bonds of love and friendship while creating wonderful memories together, your wedding becomes that much more special!
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Photography: Greg Finck Photography | Cinematography: Matteo Castelluccia Videomaker | Event Planning: Exclusive Italy Weddings | Floral Design: Armando Malafronte | Ceremony Venue: Inn at Perry Cabin by Belmond | Bridesmaids Dresses: Amsale | Hair & Makeup: Alessandro Mancino & Marco Carpentieri | Bride’s Wedding Gown, Veil & Jewelry: Deià | Bride’s Wedding Shoes: Ralph & Russo | Flat Lay Photography : Kara Anne Paper | Food / Catering: Il Flauto Di Pan | Groom's Shoes: Salvatore Ferragamo | Groom’s Tux: Pal Zileri | Invitations + Wedding Logo: Kara Anne Paper | Mother-of-the-Bride Gown & Jewelry: Deià | Welcome Reception Venue: Inn at Perry Cabin by Belmond
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