This bride's medieval Italian wedding venue was finalised even before she met her husband

9 March 2025

Rossini Photography

Co-founder of Resh&Co, Reshma Ramaiah tied the knot with Brendan Rice in a Ferragamo-owned Tuscan village with a 60-foot-long veil

Long before the wedding, even before the bride Reshma Ramaiah had met her husband Brendan Rice, her father proclaimed, ‘You’re getting married here’. “My family and I took a trip to Italy a few years ago, and we visited Il Borro—a quaint medieval village in Tuscany that had been restored by the Ferragamo family who now owns it. We were immediately drawn to its charming stone buildings with ivy clad walls, cobblestone streets, vineyard and olive groves, and courtyards and piazzas as well as its five-star villas and suites. So when the time came to have a destination wedding, we only had one venue in mind,” shares Ramaiah Rice. They rented out the entire village for the three-day wedding festivities to give their guests the complete Tuscan experience.

Based in Boston, the couple met in 2019 through mutual friends and instantly hit it off. Next year, Ramaiah moved to India to start her destination wedding company Resh&Co, but the pandemic restricted her from flying back. “We both kept in touch. It was so easy to talk to Brendan and soon he became my best friend and my biggest supporter. Falling in love with him was inevitable,” she adds. After getting approval from Ramaiah’s tight-knit family, including her parents and ten uncles and aunts, Rice planned the perfect proposal. “I walked on the beach lined with hundreds of white roses in the sand and our favourite song “Forever’s Gotta Start Somewhere” playing on the speaker. Brendan got down on one knee and froze. “I think this is when you ask me to marry you”, I whispered to him. In excitement, I tripped and hurt my ankle,” she reminisces.

After a lavish engagement ceremony in Bengaluru, the couple decided to have an intimate destination wedding that celebrated their cultures—Ramaiah’s Telugu, Hindu roots and Rice’s Catholic and Mormon ones. Her wedding planning experience came in handy to book vendors, create mood boards and draft timelines, but to avoid excess stress, the bride roped in her co-founders Sushma and Costanza to execute her vision.

The celebrations kicked off with an Aperol Spritz theme henna ceremony followed by a rustic pizza party welcome dinner, and a gelato cart from Vivoli, encouraging guests to embrace the Italian countryside. The couple changed into three outfits on day one, all in hues of whites, creams, pinks and reds. Ramaiah wore a white Varun Chakkilam sharara with dhoti pants initially, and later changed into a pink Mrunalini Rao silk organza lehenga with 3D flowers for the mehendi. Rice complemented her look by donning an outfit from Kalki. For dinner, she changed into a red Vivienne Westwood off-shoulder gown while he switched to a cream suit from SuitSupply with a red ascot tie. Silvia Gerzeli and her team took care of her hair and makeup, starting with a clean and natural look and a half-up, half-down hairstyle with soft curls.

On day two, the couple had a symbolic catholic wedding ceremony in the manor garden that was co-officiated by Rice’s sister and Ramaiah’s brother. “A string quartet from Kaleydo played “Can’t Help Falling in Love” as Brendan and the wedding party walked down the aisle. Alongside, one of my bridesmaids, Jordan, sang “Until I Found You” by Stephen Sanchez, as I walked down the aisle,” she shares.

The bride wore a corseted, basque waist ball gown from Galia Lahav. Made with French guipure lace, it had a cat-eye plunging neckline. For the ceremony, she added a matching bolero jacket and a 10-foot, lace-trimmed veil with ‘Forever’s gotta start somewhere’ text embroidered on it. “The day I met Brendan, I was wearing a blue polka dot dress. So my maid of honour Lauren cut a piece of it and stitched it into a little heart, pinning it to the bottom of my gown as my ‘something blue’,” she adds. She completed the look with a messy updo and natural makeup, along with a tennis bracelet from Ring Concierge that Rice gifted her right before the ceremony. The groom wore a white tuxedo with black trousers and a bowtie paired with a gold Ferragamo watch with their wedding date engraved on it that Ramaiah gave him.

A sangeet ceremony followed later, where the amphitheatre was decorated in pink and floral arrangements by Giardino Delle Fate Flower Design, which did all the decor for the wedding. LetterInk designed custom bar fronts and tablecloths and guests relished an Indian buffet spread by Haveli Restaurant as they danced to dhol beats by Elite Drummers and peppy tracks by DJ Aman from Kudos Music. The couple wore a Seema Gujral peach fishtail lehenga and a custom blue sherwani.

The final day of festivities began early morning with Telugu rituals including a mangala snanam and gouri pooja for the bride, and kashi yatra for the groom. “I deeply understand the significance Hindu culture holds for my family. From the very beginning, it was important for me to honour and preserve these traditions,” says Ramaiah. She walked to the mandap wearing a traditional gold sari from Kanchipuram paired with a blouse with pink flowers that was designed and stitched by Bhuvi Kilpady. The highlight was a 60-foot-long veil held together by her cousins.

She picked sentimental family heirloom pieces like ruby and diamond-encrusted bangles and antique temple jewellery in remembrance of her late grandmothers. Rice opted for a custom-stitched dhoti-kurta for the occasion. A pandit performed rituals like vadhu pravesham, muhurtham, maala maarpidi, kanyadana, mangalsutra dhara and more, followed by a traditional sit-down lunch or yele oota where guests ate with their hands.

A reception dinner and their first dance marked the end of the couple’s wedding celebrations, where guests received handwritten thank you notes, traditional bomboniera, and Italian wedding cake.