A Wedding That Blended Ghanaian and Italian Traditions at a Historic Farmhouse in Puglia
Yolande Wilson, a mergers-and-acquisitions investment banker, and John “Johnny” Prah, a private-equity investor, both were born and raised in Ghana. There, they attended rival high schools—but never met while growing up. “We lived 20 minutes from each other, and our moms were acquainted, but we never crossed paths during our childhood,” Yolande says. In December 2010, they were home from their respective colleges in the United States—her Yale and him Brown—and they were finally introduced at a party at his uncle’s house in Ghana but spoke for only five minutes.
A few years later, in 2012, Yolande was at a bar in New York City and Johnny walked in. She recognized him immediately. He was interning, and she was working in the city at the time. “I had a sense that he was special,” Yolande says. “A friend he was with at the time told him I was staring intently at him before I walked up and initiated a conversation.” Again, they spoke for only five minutes.
The following year Yolande’s friend Kwesi Sey invited her for cocktails at his friend’s place. “I arrived, and it was Johnny’s apartment,” she says. “We spoke at length that night—much longer than five minutes. I was hosting a fundraiser in New York at the time to support an amazing orphanage in Ghana, the Marfo Children Care Foundation. I strategically asked him to be a member of the planning board.”
In August of 2018, Yolande and Johnny decided on a whim to get married at the Washington, DC, courthouse on a normal afternoon. “It was just the two of us,” Yolande says. “We were anticipating the challenges of being at separate business schools—him at Harvard and me at Wharton. [At City Hall,] we said a prayer together, signed the marriage certificate, had a stranger take our picture, and enjoyed a casual postnuptial meal at Nando’s. It has been our best-kept secret.”
Later that year, over Thanksgiving, the couple took a trip to Cartagena, Colombia, where Johnny officially proposed. “I had made the reservation at 1621 restaurant, and upon arrival the maître d’ addressed him by name,” Yolande recalls. “He said, ‘Good evening, Mr. Prah’—which immediately raised my suspicions.” Their table was set in a private, candlelit, leafy enclave. At the end of the meal, a decadent chocolate-mousse dessert arrived, and after a few bites, Yolande’s spoon hit a hard, shiny object. “My first words were: ‘What is this?!’’ she says. “A nervous Johnny got on one knee and asked me to marry him, and of course I said yes, reemphasizing our union. Later, we laughed about how nervous he had been hiding the ring from me and keeping it safe during our travels.”
Per Ghanaian custom, Yolande did not wear her engagement ring until their traditional engagement ceremony in Ghana in January 2019. This was a family-centric ceremony and a dowry gifting, with almost 400 people in attendance, including childhood friends, Johnny’s fraternity brothers, and Yolande’s best friends and suitemates from college. “In Ghana, it is not atypical to have two weddings—the traditional Ghanaian engagement and a Western wedding,” Yolande explains. So after the engagement ceremony, Yolande and Johnny had to pivot to planning the next event: their Western wedding celebration.
“I am very much a maximizer psychologically and truly wanted to explore as many options as possible when selecting a venue,” Yolande explains. “We started by visiting venues in Newport, Rhode Island; Manhattan; Connecticut; and Massachusetts and had almost settled on a venue when COVID hit. We had to hit pause on everything and put wedding planning on the back burner. We moved into our New York apartment together in May 2020 and hunkered down for the quarantine. In the back of our minds, we still wanted to celebrate our love, but it was not front and center for us at the time.”
Being travel starved in quarantine, the couple would often reminisce about their travels, especially their trips to their favorite country, Italy—one of the first travel destinations they visited as a couple. “One day while scrolling on Instagram, I discovered Puglia, a southern region in Italy, and immediately fell in love with the neutral color palette, rustic-chic aesthetic, lush green vineyards, and vast olive groves,” she says. “We had visited Rome, Florence, and the Amalfi Coast but were drawn to the novelty of Puglia, which for many of our guests who have been to Italy would be their first time visiting.” Next Yolande worked with her sister Claudette to research, evaluate, and rank wedding venues in Puglia. “Ninety-four of them!” Yolande laughs. “I kid you not. You name it, we ranked it.”
Finally, they landed on Masseria Amastuola Wine Resort—an ancient family-owned farmhouse dating back to the 15th century, with centuries-old olive groves and a prolific vineyard, now converted into a luxe boutique hotel. The property had been meticulously restored by the Montanaro family, preserving the old yet incorporating the new. The masseria produces on site its own wines, which were served exclusively at the wedding. Most ingredients for the four-course wedding dinner and pre- and post-wedding meals were also grown organically at the masseria and prepared by the chef on site. Family and friends flew into Italy from Ghana, London, Paris, Côte d’Ivoire, Canada, and the US to celebrate with the couple in early September 2022.
Yolande and Johnny worked with wedding planner Santa Vigante of Italian Boutique Weddings to orchestrate the wedding of their dreams. Neither Yolande nor Johnny spoke Italian or had time to directly liaise with vendors, so they were happy to hand over the reins. “Santa was incredibly creative and had the best ideas and attention to detail, which facilitated putting our personal touches and infusing Italian traditions into aspects of our wedding celebration,” Yolande notes. “She went above and beyond—from procuring Apulian delights like local olive oil, handmade taralli, pasta, and freshly baked handcrafted biscuits for our welcome bags to cutting and assembling 86 velvet ribbon bows for our menu and place cards—Santa did it all.”
Over the years, Yolande would write down the names of bridal designers she loved in the Notes app on her phone, which served as the starting point for her aptly named “never-ending dress hunt.” Atelier Pronovias’s Dickinson dress, a handmade embroidered tulle floral masterpiece, was the first gown she tried on, and she never got over it. “Being the maximizer that I am, I truly exhausted every option before returning to my first love, sans overskirt,” Yolande explains. “I wanted all eyes on the intricacy of the gown and did not want the distraction of the voluminous overskirt.” She paired the dress with crystal-embellished Jimmy Choo strappy sandals and a cathedral-length Vera Wang veil “to introduce a touch of drama.”
