When Genevieve Morano Campori , talent agent and founder of Strange Field Flowers , met her now-husband Giuseppe through friends, the couple realized they had both gone to the same school. “We didn’t know each other at all,” the bride tells us, but fate made them meet again and spend the first days of their relationship enjoying a long-distance romance, with Genevieve living in London and Giuseppe living in Milan.
Giuseppe moved to the UK just before covid hit, and the couple spent the two years of the pandemic living together in the New Forest, where Genevieve’s family is from: ” We’ve lived here for 250 years ,” explains Genevieve, who uses the plants and flowers that grow on her property in her flower sculpture business.
Deciding to take the plunge and get engaged was a “long conversation that lasted almost a year.” More than a great moment, the proposal grew out of an ongoing conversation during lockdown about the future and the prospect of starting a family together: “And one day, out of the blue, he woke me up in the morning and proposed to me while he was opening the eyes,” Genevieve recalls.
Although Genevieve had always imagined a traditional English wedding, Giuseppe’s roots meant that the romantic Italian touch could not be missing: “How could we pass up that opportunity?”, she confesses between laughs. Finally, on June 25, the couple exchanged their vows at Giuseppe’s family home, a small palace on the outskirts of Florence. The celebration, of course, needed a dress to match… “The only thing that was clear to me was that he was not going to wear white,” says Genevieve. The alternative? Gold, because “it made me feel powerful,” and would shimmer as the celebration dragged on into the evening.
“It had to be Vivienne Westwood ,” says the bride, who worked hand-in-hand with designers Marie and Galina to bring her baroque-inspired idea to life. The Westwood archive was a great help in finding the punk silhouette Genevieve was looking for, a voluminous asymmetrical draped skirt, corset with detachable sleeves and a three-meter train. To do this, the team created a special fabric, made from duchesse silk lamé and lurex organza. “Genevieve’s unique choice of color and style perfectly complemented the classic opulence of the wedding venue,” notes Vivienne Westwood’s Head of Couture, Brigitte Stepputtis, “which contrasted beautifully with the baroque architecture of the church”.
The dress was layered and easily transformed into a column skirt that Genevieve wore with a different corset for the after party. The look can be “used again and again after the wedding, whether it’s for a night out or casual events of all kinds,” says Stepputtis. He adds, “The dress is nothing less than a reflection of Vivienne’s work ethic, which is ‘ buy less, choose well and make it last ‘.”
The bride walked down the aisle in vintage 1930s Dior mary-janes , asking her friend, jeweler Taja Guirey, to design an oak leaf necklace that would remind her of the New Forest, where she grew up.
Angelica, Giuseppe’s mother, showed off her interior designer savoir-faire: sumptuous fabrics, palm trees from a local nursery, and candlelit tables in keeping with the 16th-century building’s Renaissance charm. “You had to keep the style of the villa in mind so that everything seemed natural,” says Genevieve. “Still, it was a very unconventional party.”
Traditional Florentine entertainment came from a group of sbandieratori (flag throwers), who guided guests from the chapel where the ceremony took place to dinner. The group performed, too, as guests feasted on ” almost everything you can imagine from an Italian wedding .” Therefore, the burrata, mozzarella, sausages and pasta could not be left out, along with the best wine produced on the land adjoining the building.
After dinner, Nancy Andersen and Luca Mantero, from the group Babeheaven, performed live as a gift to the couple; while DJs Edie Ashley and Josh Nickerson kept the party going well into the night. “It was a blast,” Genevieve remembers. “The windows of the house were shaking. It seemed that the porcelain figurines had come to life.” At the end of the weekend, “we couldn’t believe how much fun we had,” adds the bride. “We cried for two days when we came home just remembering it.”
