Paola Fendi Wore Dresses Designed by Kim Jones and Pierpaolo Piccioli During Her Wedding Weekend in Ibiza
Paola Eulalia Saracino Fendi’s mother always said she would meet a nice boy at the library or in church. “Moms are just always right,” Paola says. “Aram [Warya Ahmed] and I met through very close friends at a church—it just happened to be at Gremio de Brixton, which is a bar underneath St. Matthew’s Church. I knew he liked me when he agreed to dance to Beyoncé with me when no one else was dancing. I had just moved to London, so was very much swooning over his awesome British accent.”
The two got engaged in Greece in August of 2016, on a trip with various European destinations since Paola was about to move back to New York after seven years in London. “Aram told me later on he had a proposal plan in each one of the places we were visiting that summer, but it all went out the window when on day one of our first trip I asked him when he would join me in New York. He had the ring in his pocket, and he thought the best answer to my question was to just come out and say, ‘let’s spend forever together’—so he dropped down on one knee and proposed. I was in such shock that I honestly didn’t even hear him. He had to repeat the whole thing!”
Wedding planning began in 2019, but when the world shut down due to COVID-19, Paola and Aram were forced to spend most of 2020 and 2021 living in different countries. He was still working in London, she was in New York, and they were an ocean apart, unable to visit each other. “There was so much uncertainty with everything that was going on that it was just hard to plan. Aram was my rock as I often felt like maybe we should just cancel. I relied so much on my family, my friends—so many of whom were in similar situations—and our Spain-based wedding planner Paola Sofia, who was my hero. She was our eyes, ears, and mouth...reviewing the venues in Ibiza—where we wanted to get married—tasting the cake, and checking everything. There was a lot of FaceTiming, but it was really all in her hands as neither Aram or I could be there.”
The couple’s wedding date was always scheduled for June 18th, 2021. “When we got engaged, a lot of changes were happening, I was starting in a new role at Christie’s, had just moved to New York, and Aram and I were planning to buy our first apartment as well,” Paola says. “I felt a bit overwhelmed by planning a wedding as I wanted to make sure I could give my proper attention to it, so I knew I wanted to wait until 2021. Who would have known that a pandemic would then hit? My heart goes out to all the couples affected as it has been truly a stressful experience. But one of my best friends had a beautiful ceremony earlier this year in Bali that was streamed live on Zoom, and when Aram and I saw how happy they were just being together, we knew we had to keep the date no matter what.”
Planning a wedding is never easy, but doing it from another country during a pandemic presents a particular set of challenges. “The biggest last minute change was that we really wanted to have our celebration at my grandmother’s home in Ibiza, but unfortunately events in private homes were not allowed,” Paola remembers. “Two weeks before the wedding, we decided to move the welcome party to Las Dos Lunas. The owners are old friends of my parents who have known me since I was little and really helped to create the atmosphere I wanted that evening.”
Paola de Herrera Soriano from A-tipica orchestrated everything. “She, my grandmother, and I all have the same name,” the bride says. “Aram called us the Holy Trinity of Paola!” Toni Riera, who is an event planner in Ibiza, was the local planner and helped with organizing everything at the church including the flowers, the beautiful orange trees, the music, and the traditional 17th-century dance that happened after the ceremony.
Coming from a fashion family, it’s no surprise that curating the wedding weekend wardrobe was the bride’s favorite part of the planning process. “I put a lot of thought into this as I’m the first person in my generation of our family to get married,” Paola says. “I wanted my family to be part of this journey.”
Her grandmother, Paola Fendi, was an important part of the process. “She is my role model, and I wanted to wear something that still felt very me, and I was comfortable in, but was also an ode to her legacy and our family,” the bride says of her guiding principles for the day’s ensembles.
“It was kismet as my friend Kim Jones joined Fendi at the end of 2020 and was preparing his first couture collection,” Paola says. “I am thrilled that he is now part of our Fendi family, so it was a pleasure working with my Aunt Silvia Venturini Fendi and him on a dress. I knew I didn’t want a traditional white dress for the first evening and when Kim suggested a beautiful green gown from his Spring/Summer Haute Couture 2021 collection, it was perfection.” The dress featured murano flower embroidery that reminded Paola of her grandmother’s garden, and she furthered the theme with jasmine in her hair. “The entire design process was a special experience as it was Kim’s first collection in womenswear as well as his first wedding dress,” she adds. “It’s a piece of history now for the both of us.”
Paola also wanted to relive her grandmother’s time as a designer. “She had worked in fashion for over 50 years—since she was 14 years old—and collaborated with many young designers at Fendi...one of them was Pierpaolo Piccioli.”
Because of their longstanding relationship, Paola’s grandmother asked Pierpaolo if he would be open to creating a wedding dress. “Pierpaolo was so thrilled to see my grandmother and show her what he’d been working on,” Paola says. “I enjoyed listening to their stories of the atelier. He said that he always respected and admired my grandmother as she knew him when he was just a kid and now to have her see him as a couturier...it was emotional, and my grandmother is so proud of him. He knew me when I was little and used to visit my grandmother at work, and when he saw me now, grown, he knew immediately what to do.”
