Kristen and Zack Christopher still can’t agree on the moment they first met. “I remember first meeting him at WholeFoods, but he says it was at a bar,” says Kristen, 28, a yoga teacher originally from Houston, Texas. The couple met while she was at college in Austin, where Birmingham, Michigan-native Zack had moved upon graduation to work for his family’s real estate investment business.
Zack, now 30, remembers thinking that Kristen was “very beautiful,” but didn’t think he had a chance; she had a boyfriend at the time. She thought he was “shy, but very sweet.” Through their shared group of friends, they became close, taking Spin classes together and catching up over casual dinners afterward. When Kristen and her boyfriend split up, they began to spend even more time together. One night, Zack made a move.
“We started dating right after that kiss,” Kristen says. “We were a little hesitant at first because we didn’t want to ruin a good friendship, but we decided to take the chance.” Though they tried to keep the relationship casual, it proved impossible. “We couldn’t stay away from each other no matter how hard we tried to keep it cool,” she recalls.
The pair share a love of travel—in their first year together, they visited 10 different countries, and went to countless more over the subsequent three years. It was on one of those trips, in the countryside outside of Jaipur, India, that Zack staged an elaborate proposal.
“We drove ten minutes away from the Amanbagh to a 16th century chhatri [a domed pavilion],” says Kristen, who admits she didn’t think anything of it as they had enjoyed many private dinners in the past. “As we pulled up, I could see the dome was adorned with flowers and hundreds of candles. A man played the sitar as we entered and I thought, ‘Wow, this is super romantic and so extra.’” As they were served champagne, Kristen began to take her seat, but Zack whisked her back up again, “I thought he was getting me to dance but he put me in the center of the room and got down on one knee,” she remembers. Zack proposed with a custom oval diamond ring set in a rose gold pavé diamond band created by Wolf Diamonds in Houston.
Zack’s choice of proposal location “was remote and extremely exotic,” Kristen says. “It’s like he tapped into my brain and found my dream destination that I didn’t even know existed.” There was no cell reception at the chhatri, so the couple couldn’t share the news until they returned to their hotel. Instead, they spent the next two hours talking about their future together.
Kristen and Zack knew that they wanted a wedding on Lake Como, Italy, having fallen in love with the destination on a previous vacation. “Even though we weren’t engaged at the time, we knew that we would get married there when the time came,” Kristen says.
They chose the picturesque Villa Balbiano of The Heritage Collection as their venue, one of the most historic properties in the area, with the help of BAZAAR Bride top planner Rachel Birthistle of the The Lake Como Wedding Planner. Birthistle and her team organized and designed the three-day celebration, which included a welcome pool party, a rehearsal dinner in Como’s old town, and the wedding itself on the grounds of the villa. Their wedding date, July 7, was a tribute to Zack’s late grandparents, who married on the same date in 1940.
They sent their 108 guests invitations created by Momental Designs, who also created name cards for the reception, with calligraphy by Teri Gaus. Photographer Christian Oth was charged with capturing every moment and memory (after the bride saw his work on BAZAAR Bride); Caleb Jordan Lee of East West Productions was enlisted with creating the couple’s wedding weekend video.
The couple were eager for their friends and family to fall in love with Lake Como as they had, and arranged for boat tours of the area en route to their various wedding events. “We wanted everyone to live a little bit of that Dolce Vita life,” Kristen says. That sentiment was wrapped into every part of the wedding, beginning with the pool party, an informal affair at Villa Balbiano, complete with a gelato cart and arancini by LùBar, a cocktail bar by Drinkable, and a DJ at the decks. Kristen looked every inch the bride-to-be in a white Johanna Ortiz swimsuit, Chanel sandals and a Jacquemus hat, with Zack coordinated in Solid & Striped trunks.
The following day, the couple hosted a welcome dinner at Pane e Tulipani restaurant in the town of Como for all of their guests. The vibe was rustic Italian with tables spilling onto the streets, and lasagna was served for the main course. The restaurant doubles as a florist, and the tables were verdant with herb pots as centerpieces. “We wanted to keep the décor minimal so the location could shine,” says Kristen, who wore a La Perla dress, Tom Ford heels and her mother-in-law’s canary diamond necklace, carrying a Dolce & Gabbana handbag that was hand painted with the words ‘Como, Italia’.
Coincidentally, Dolce & Gabbana's Alta Moda runway show took place the same weekend as the couple's nuptials—and this fashion-forward bride embraced the happy coincidence. Kristen's painted handbag and multiple Dolce & Gabbana looks were all curated by her planner, Rachel Birthistle, along with Como's best designer boutique, Tessabit.
Zack also wore a Dolce & Gabbana suit and shoes, and guests arrived into town by chartered boat, walking the streets of old Como in their formalwear as they made their way to the night’s festivities.
The following day’s ceremony took place in the gardens of the Villa Balbiano, overlooking the water. “We had to have our ceremony backdrop be the lake,” Kristen says. Guests were seated in rows facing the spectacular view, and kept cool with fans printed with the couple’s wedding hashtag, #thekristophers, while the programs included a tribute to Zack’s grandparents.
Kristen had her heart set on piano music for the ceremony, something she had come to love because of Zack’s talent for playing. For her walk down the aisle, the pianist was accompanied by a cello for a rendition of “Turning Page,” the music from the wedding in the Twilight movie series.
The bride wore Inbal Dror, a label she loved from her very first fitting—though it took some time for her to find the perfect gown. “The dresses I tried on at first were beautiful, but not ‘the one’,” she says. It was while her mother was browsing the Inbal Dror website that she came upon something really special. “I was running out of time and couldn’t find that dress anywhere near me,” Kristen says. As luck would have it, she was due to be in New York for a wedding and made an appointment at Mark Ingram Atelier, which had a sample for her to try. “When I first tried it on, I almost said no because it had a high-low [hem], which looked awful on me,” Kristen says. “But then my fitter added a full skirt and my face completely changed. It was my dress.”
Her makeup, by Kelly Dawn, was a flawless natural look with defined eyes and lips. Her hair was styled in a sleek up-do with a side-parting by Jennifer Bradburn, over which she wore a Monvieve mantilla-style veil, which was scattered with crushed crystals that glistened in the sun. “When I talked to [Monvieve Creative Director] Alison Miller about designing my veil, it felt like fate,” Kristen says. “She had also gotten married in Italy, and the tulle for the veil was sourced from Como.”
The look was finished off by a bouquet of pale pink roses by Rattiflora, Ralph & Russo shoes, and diamond studs borrowed from her sister-in-law—her "something borrowed." Her "something blue" was the lace in her La Perla bridal lingerie; her "something old" was her wedding band, which was actually a Bony Levy ring that Zack’s mother had bought for her a couple of years ago. “It fit perfectly with my engagement ring, so I decided to use that as my band,” she says.
Zack wore a custom suit from Dolce & Gabbana Alta Sartoria in Milan, where he’d previously had suits made. “We called the tailor that had helped him over the past couple of years, and he knew exactly what Zack wanted,” Kristen says. “We picked everything from the style and fabric, down to the buttons. It was just as special as when I picked my dress.” His look was completed by Valentino shoes and a Van Cleef & Arpels wedding ring exchanged during the ceremony, after which he and Kristen walked back down the aisle to “Love Story” by Taylor Swift.
As for the bridal party, the bridesmaids all picked their own white dresses. and the groomsmen wore their own suits with white Dolce & Gabbana bow ties, gifted to them by the groom.
A jazz band kept the mood buoyant during the cocktail hour, where guests were entertained by performers dressed as living statues along with a cheesemaker making fresh mozzarella before dinner, which was held outside on long tables under a leafy arbor. “Lake Como is just too beautiful to spend time indoors,” Kristen says.
The table décor was decadent with black Anna Weatherley chargers, pink Richard Ginori plates, and gold flatware with colorful floral centerpieces by Rattiflora. Class Eventi served an Italian feast that included scallops and burrata as appetizers, followed by a pasta course of ravioli stuffed with zucchini flowers and spinach, and tagliolini with black truffle and toma cheese. “We couldn't choose between the two pastas so we had both,” Kristen says. The entrée was a choice between lamb with asparagus or seabass with pistachio, followed by an assortment of mini desserts. During the second course, the servers erupted in song. Singers from the Milan opera doubled as the event staff, and staged mini performances throughout the meal. At the end of the meal, the Crystal Wing Performers illuminated along the tables, dancing on stilts in costume.
The dancers encouraged the guests to leave their seats and move back towards the area in which the ceremony had been held, which had been rearranged to host the cutting of the traditional Millefoglie covered in wild strawberries, created by Ramperti Pasticceria. As the couple cut into the cake, surprise fireworks erupted over the lake set to a remix of Lana Del Rey’s “Young and Beautiful.”
The guests were then guided indoors for the first dance to “Never Enough” from the film The Greatest Showman. “We started taking dance classes around the time we saw the movie and thought, ‘This is perfect,’” Kristen says. “It was so fun dancing to it, we never got tired of hearing it.”
The afterparty began in earnest after the first dance, aided by espresso martinis and Venetian masks, which were distributed among the guests. Hookahs and a photobooth kept everyone entertained into the night. Kristen hadn’t planned on changing for the afterparty, but in a spontaneous moment, a friend changed her mind. “The last hour of our wedding, my girlfriend Claire was like, ‘Let’s change you out of this!’ [In my closet there was] this Dolce and Gabbana skirt and top that I had only worn the day before for 15 minutes of photos. It was perfect! I even had a Dolce crown to wear with it, so I still felt like a princess.”
The couple enjoyed a mini-moon at Amanzoe in Greece to unwind after the wedding, and finally went on their official honeymoon last month, visiting Kenya for a safari followed by a stay at Soneva Jani in the Maldives.
Kristen admits that she and Zack have a hard time finding the words to describe their wedding, but a guest summed it up perfectly. “Idyllic would be the best way to wrap it all up,” they said. “It was romantic and adventurous in a Hemingway kind of way, yet chic and grand.” The guest experience, along with the couples, was aimed to surprise and delight at every turn, while still maintaining a warm, intimate atmosphere for the couple’s friends and family.
Grand it may have been, but the foundation of Kristen and Zack’s relationship remains simple; as rooted in friendship as it is in love. “We’ve always had a great deal of respect for each other,” Kristen says. “In some ways, we are opposites and that helps us both get out of our comfort zones. Zack is a true Taurus and I’m Sagittarius. He likes routine and I like spontaneity. While I get him to try to new things, he keeps me grounded.”
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Tamara Abraham is a UK-based journalist and the former Managing Editor at Business of Fashion. She spent six years in New York where she launched and ran the fashion and lifestyle team at Dailymail.com. Now back in her native London, she writes on fashion, lifestyle and royals for publications including Grazia, the i Paper, and of course, BAZAAR.com.
