Tatiana de Pahlen Wore Custom Giambattista Valli For Her Winter Wonderland Wedding in Gstaad

In 2019, Charles Lorenceau and Tatiana de Pahlen met at her sister’s house party in London. According to Tatiana, they “immediately fell in love.”

“We often say it’s like we met and then never left each other,” she tells Vogue.

Two years later, Charles proposed to Tatiana during his 40th-birthday weekend on the Amalfi islands of Li Galli, where mythological sirens are said to reside. Right before sunset, they decided to take a swim during the golden hour. While climbing the rocks to the shore, Charles got down on one knee. “We were both so happy,” says Tatiana. “He asked me to jump in the sea, but I was scared to lose the ring!” After some reassurance—and a careful placement of her precious rock on a volcanic one—they dove into the Mediterranean water together.

It took them more than two years to have a wedding, as the couple welcomed their first child together, Giovanni, in December 2021. Yet Tatiana doesn’t regret waiting. “I feel you know when the time is right, and we wanted to have the right mind frame and space to plan our wedding,” she says.

In March 2024, the couple threw a winter wedding in Gstaad planned by Lanza Baucina. The Swiss Alps town is a meaningful location for them both: Tatiana, the daughter of artist Margherita Agnelli de Pahlen, has been going to de Pahlen family home of Château de Rougemont in Gstaad since she was a little girl. Then, a week after they met, when Charles made a surprise visit to Tatiana there, where they began to fall in love. It’s also the place where they spent lockdown with their children. “We considered many other places for our wedding celebration, but nowhere made more sense for us. We wanted a place we always go back to and that is central to our love story,” Tatiana says.

Tatiana wore a lace gown with a hooded veil by Giambattista Valli, inspired by the mythical concept of a snow queen. “He is a dear family friend, and the whole process had a real sense of familiarity,” she says. “I was deeply impressed by the transformation in each fitting, and how the dress evolved under the meticulous eye of its designer. Part of Giambattista’s genius is how different all of his wedding dresses are—he always manages to perfectly capture the essence, personality, and form of the bride in a very unique and individual way.” Although she felt anxious while getting ready at Château de Rougemont, once she saw Charles waiting for her in the garden in a custom-made velvet jacket by Sartoria Lemmi, all her nerves subsided. “I felt very calm and at peace having Charles beside me,” she says. Together, they walked to the church of Saint-Nicolas de Myre, where they held a joint Catholic and Greek Orthodox ceremony in front of 300 guests. It was a family affair: Charles’s children from his first marriage, Oscar and Georgia, served as a groomsman and bridesmaid. Meanwhile, his younger sons Errol and August served as flower boys, along with little Giovanni.

The reception was held back at Chateau de Rougemont. After outdoor welcome drinks (with plenty of heaters) in the courtyard, guests wandered into a second “enchanted village” cocktail hour, complete with folkloric Russian music and roaring bonfires.

For dinner, Tatiana says she wanted it to feel like everyone was walking into a fantasy garden in C.S. Lewis’s Narnia. “The frost of winter but also the arrival of spring—all details from the flowers, to the floors, the table and my dress were inspired by this,” she says. “It was like being in a fairy tale in an enchanted castle.” After dinner and slices of traditional wedding cake, Tatiana changed into a second dress by Valli. A night of dancing began back in the courtyard, which had been transformed into a seventies-style nightclub. It didn’t end until the early hours of the morning.

Now that her wedding is over, Tatiana says it was well worth the wait. “We felt blessed to be able to have our children there with us.”