Lucky editor Danielle Pergament and magazine writer Devin Friedman are one of the funniest and most charming couples I know. Today they live in Brooklyn with their daughter--and are expecting a baby boy!--but three years ago, on a sunny July evening, they got hitched in Tuscany. Let's take a look...xoxo
Where exactly did you get married?La Bandita, our friends' hotel in Pienza, Tuscany.
Did you walk down the aisle with Devin?Yes, I grew up between New York and Sweden, so we did that the Swedish way.
Where did you find your beautiful wedding dress? (I'm obsessed with the tiny straps!)This charming little Italian grandmother who lived outside Rome was going to make my dress. I chose everything—the fabric, all the details. But eight days before my wedding, I finally saw the dress and it was a total disaster. All this tulle, it looked like it belonged on the top of a wedding cake.
I was determined not to be That Girl, so I thought, 'It's OK, all my friends are coming, it will be fun, don’t worry.' I called my sister in New York. She was leaving for Italy the next morning. She works in fashion, and she said, ‘You know, I have this dress in my closet from the Ralph Lauren runway show. He sent it down the runway on Gisele, but they never manufactured it. Gisele is the only one who ever wore it. It’s literally one of a kind.’ So she brought it in her suitcase.
I loved that dress. I loved wearing it.
Your hair also looked incredible.When I worked at Allure, I met Chris McMillan, Jennifer Aniston's hair stylist. We became friends over the years, and he came to our wedding. About six hours before the ceremony, we were sitting around the pool--I had sunscreen in my hair--and he said, 'What should we do with your hair tonight?' He put it up really quickly, just playing around, and I said, "Don't touch it, it's perfect!" So I sat around in my bathing suit all afternoon and then got married without changing a thing.
Where were the daisies from?To this day, I have no idea. Chris looked at my hair and said, 'Hang on, it needs something.' He reappeared with these daisies. There were no daisies on the property. He's a miracle worker.
What’s the deal with the amazing accordion player?We wanted to add a cheesy, red-sauce Italian restaurant element to our wedding. So we hired a local musician to play all the Italian folk songs that Americans want to hear when they come to Italy. We hung out around the pool having cocktails and hors devours.
You had so many guests! Did everyone fly over from the States?We had 120 people. Everyone came a week before the wedding. By the time the wedding day came, there had already been hookups and breakups and everyone was friends. Everyone rented houses, instead of staying in hotels, so it was like a flashback to college. You'd recognize people in their cars on the road. It was so awesome.
Any tricky things about getting married in Italy?
The downside about getting married in Italy—especially when no one coming to the wedding speaks the language—is that you're pulled in a thousand directions. You’re dealing with the infrastructure of a tiny town thirty minutes from the airport, so every couple seconds, someone is calling you to say, "How do you say, ‘Can you please fill up my car?’"
What did you serve for dinner?Steak Fiorentina. And my favorite pasta, Cacio e Pepe. But Cacio e Pepe is a Roman dish and our caterers were from Florence, so they had an attitude about serving Roman food. We finally convinced them to serve it, but it wasn't as good as it was supposed to be!
What was one of your favorite memories of the day?You can’t tell from the photos, but there were fields on every side of us covered with sheep. I had always wanted a country wedding, and it really felt like that. We had a DJ playing loud music until nine in the morning, and we were in the middle of these huge fields.
Were the sheep staring at you?
I think the sheep had seen it all.
(Photos by Michael Edwards)