Franzi & Andy — Same Friends, New Stage

Casa Piane Pettirossi, Marche ,Italy

Ph: Jacqueline Kirillov

They had been to one of our weddings before. They sat at the table, looked around, and decided they wanted one of their own.

Franzi and Andy live in the same building as the couple whose wedding brought them to the Marche in the first place. They holiday together — design villas in Mallorca, Portugal, South Africa. They know what a well-considered space feels like. When it came to their own wedding, they asked for something new — same region, different house.

After visiting several properties, they chose Casa Piane Pettirossi — a beautifully restored villa in the heart of the Marche, finished with the kind of care that only owners who live there can bring. That the owners happened to be German, from the same city as the couple, felt less like coincidence and more like confirmation.

The pizza party the day before set the tone — four varieties chosen for their aesthetic as much as their flavour, a chalkboard listing the options, limoncello spritz, and a dress code that asked nothing of anyone. The photographer, Jacqueline Kirillov, was there from the beginning — a German photographer recently added to The Lane's recommended list, whose eye for this kind of relaxed precision is exactly right.

Franzi's eye for design shaped everything. The antipasti buffet was plated following current Pinterest trends — food as visual composition as much as nourishment. The millefeuille was assembled in show cooking, finished with blueberries and sage leaves. The limoncello spritz arrived as a signature welcome drink. Lorenzo Castricini was behind the bar with his espresso martini — as he was at the wedding that started all of this.

The S-shaped table was the centrepiece of the evening — a form currently consolidating itself as a trend on Instagram, and one that fits the garden of this villa as though it had always been there. Around it, candlelight, old friends, and a dinner that felt more like a late summer gathering than a formal reception.

The wedding day ended with a DJ brought from Berlin. The guests — almost all of them the same friends who had been at Casa Olivi two years earlier — danced until late, then jumped into the pool. Every last one of them.

The best possible way to close a season.