Anna, Russian, looked like she’d stepped out of a fashion shoot rather than gotten ready for her own wedding. Marco, German, was the calm, quietly good-looking counterpart to her energy. She got ready inside a beautiful room at Regina Palace Hotel in Stresa, the historic Belle Époque hotel right on Lake Maggiore before the day took an unexpected detour: a drive out to a Russian Orthodox church near Domodossola, where the ceremony itself would take place, and then back again to the lake for the celebration.

This was my first Orthodox wedding, and I’ll admit Marco looked just as unfamiliar with the ritual as I felt behind the camera his first real exposure to his soon-to-be wife’s tradition. There’s something genuinely nice about watching two cultures meet like that, both of them a little out of their depth together. The ceremony itself was brief, with quiet, warm exchanges among the guests once it wrapped, before everyone made the drive back to Stresa.

Back at Regina Palace, the celebration took over one of the hotel’s grand function halls, and it did not let up. Game after game after game I genuinely lost count, and lost track of time along with it. I was on my feet from morning until well into the night; it’s one of the longer wedding days I’ve had, and one I remember fondly for exactly that reason.

This one also came to me in an unusual way: Anna found me through Junebug Weddings, an international wedding blog I was listed on at the time proof that this kind of thing does actually work, even from the other side of Europe.

Vendor Credits

• Preparations & Reception — Regina Palace Hotel, Stresa
• Ceremony — Russian Orthodox Church, Domodossola
• Videography — Alex Sofo Wedding Films