Nigerian and Italian Traditions Combined at This Wedding Weekend in Campania
It was March 2017 on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and Alessandro Marchesano, a global finance director at GE in Paris, was in the city on business. “He claims it was love at first sight,” Nony Odum remembers. She’s a former fashion executive who counts Calvin Klein, Loro Piana, and Ralph Lauren among her former employers and is currently working on launching a website called In Vibrant Company, which will publish lifestyle guides by successful women. “I was lukewarm, but he impressed me with his confidence and easy manner,” she says.
They went out a second night, too, and got along so well that he asked her to come visit him in Paris the following month. “I took the offer with a grain of salt, but after he returned to France, he sent me some flight options,” Nony says. “I was so impressed with his take-charge manner and that he meant the things that he said. He claims he always had a good feeling about us.”
On the last night of her visit, Alessandro made her dinner, and “Today I Met The Boy I’m Going to Marry” by Darlene Love serendipitously popped up on her playlist—a harbinger of what was to come. “I actually have this moment on video because I was Insta-storying the food and the table setup,” she admits. “I actually tried to resist the relationship because I knew what I’d be giving up by getting serious with a man in another country, but I felt like in him I had found home and would be gaining a whole lot too.”
The two went ring shopping in September 2017. “I moved to Paris in May 2018, and he proposed two weeks after I arrived,” Nony says. “Sounds fast, but it felt right.”
Nony is the first to admit she was expecting a proposal as soon as she moved to Paris. “I was practically looking at every turn,” she jokes. “When he took me for a walk on Pont Alexandre III for no reason or a random stop in front of Les Invalides, I was ready, but nothing came. Then, we had a weekend in Ischia planned. At the end of the long weekend, it still hadn’t happened. Finally on our last night, he took me to dinner at a restaurant called La Lampara which has beautiful sea views. He had changed the dinner reservations multiple times and was wearing tight jeans which I noticed couldn’t really conceal a ring box and so I thought, ‘I guess it isn’t happening on this trip.’” At the end of dinner, Alessandro suggested they stand up and take a few photos. “Once we stood up, he was behaving a bit nervously, and then I knew,” Nony says. “He got on one knee and proposed. He had stuffed the ring in his pants pocket. Without the box! It was simple and perfect. A solitaire emerald-cut diamond on a thin platinum band. I wanted a ring I would never get tired of.”
The couple decided to host their wedding weekend in Italy. Alessandro is Italian, but Europe also made sense for Nony’s family as it’s in between for her friends and family, who are mostly in the United States and Nigeria. “We looked all over the Amalfi Coast and Capri, but none of the locations were perfect for what we wanted: a venue that embodied the Campania region, could comfortably hold 175 people, and had grounds, where we could host the aperitivo, dinner, and dancing until very late,” Nony explains. “This is actually quite difficult to find, as in Southern Italy the wedding is really about the dinner. The dancing is considered the after-party which happens at a second location, if at all. You end up losing some people this way. We wanted everything and everyone together at all times.”
They expanded their search to Paestum, located just 25 minutes from Albanella, the little village Alessandro is from. An ancient town that was founded by the Greeks, Paestum is known for its temple ruins, buffalo mozzarella, and olive oil. “We wanted to incorporate that history and characteristics of the location into the aesthetic for the wedding weekend and emphasize it in the venue,” Nony says. The invitations by Momental Designs celebrated the location and set an elegant yet playful tone with soft, washed colors and a bit of gold. The Momental designers hand-painted the reception villa onto the save-the-dates, the temples onto the invitations, and a map of the region behind the weekend agenda.
“We came upon Villa Andrea when we were interviewing wedding planners,” Nony remembers. “It was perfect because its large grounds allowed us to split the aperitivo and dinner and still feel like the guests were getting a different experience.”
They relied on Simona Imparato to organize it all. “It was important to us to hire someone who spoke Italian and knew local vendors, as this is a region where everything is negotiable, and it’s helpful to know who is who,” Nony explains. “It’s similar to Nigeria in that way.”
The weekend started with a welcome dinner at Ristorante Nettuno, which is situated within the area’s temple ruins. Nony’s wardrobe inspiration for this evening was nymphlike to match the location of the dinner. “A nymph in Greek and Roman mythology is a young female deity typically identified with natural features such as trees, flowers, and the sea,” Nony says. “To give off this nymphlike effect but still honor the occasion, I wore a long, flowing, light dress and then added a flower crown for that goddess effect.” Fittingly, photos were taken in front of the Temple of Hera, the goddess of marriage.
The dress code for the wedding the next day was black tie, and Nony instructed all of her friends to “bring it.” Color, and lots of it, was highly encouraged. “My Nigerian side needed no guidance, because in our culture, weddings are serious business,” she says. “My aunts came in full traditional attire, which is always long, elegant, and colorful.”
Nony’s best friend is the head of global communications at Vera Wang, so wearing Vera Wang was always the plan, and after she got engaged, Nony quickly made an appointment to look at dresses in New York over the Thanksgiving holiday. “But I thought, well, I have some time before I head over, and I do live in Paris, so I should just look here and get a sense for what I like. I had no idea what would look good on my body, but I knew I wanted my dress to match the occasion, black tie, and the location—Italy in June.” She found Metal Flaque, a boutique in the 1st arrondissement, where she tried on a Viktor Rolf dress and fell in love. “I still kept my Vera appointment and loved another dress there as well, but Priya and I both knew the Viktor Rolf was the one. Since my dress didn’t have a lot of embellishments, I went with a dramatic lace and tulle veil made at the atelier at Metal Flaque.”
