This Three-Day Garden Wedding in Venice Turned Into a Wild Masquerade Party with a Dancing Aerialist

Claudia walked down the aisle, arm in arm with her parents, while a string quartet played a rendition of “There She Goes” by the La’s. Yet despite being surrounded by a crowd of 150 people, “all I could see was Kyle,” she says.

Kyle, wearing a Ralph Lauren tuxedo, squeezed Claudia’s hand as she reached their floral-covered chuppah. He didn’t let go until the rabbi officially proclaimed their union. After the smashing of the glass, the two walked back down the aisle to “September” by Earth, Wind & Fire. “I had never been happier than I was at that moment,” Claudia recalls.

Then, it was time to party.

They started small, taking a celebratory tequila shot alone together in a private room. Next, the couple headed to cocktail hour on Hotel Cipriani’s Fondamenta Terrace. The lights of Venice twinkled in the background at dusk as guests ordered Champagne from bars covered with Milton & King spring-landscape wallpaper.

The reception, held in a cavernous brick ballroom, had several long dinner tables embellished with Murano-glass table lamps, floral arrangements of roses and peonies, and tapered candles that bathed the room in the soft glow. Yet most eyes went straight up to the ceiling, where a suspended aerialist twirled amid several crystal chandeliers. As Claudia and Kyle made their entrance, she removed her 40-foot-long train and performed a spotlight routine to “Run For Me” by Sebastian.

Once the music started, it didn’t stop. The Phly Boyz, a group that describes itself as an “international party band,” performed tableside throughout the dinner. “By the end of the dinner, no one could sit still,” Claudia remembers. “Our friends were lifting us up in chairs as the Phly Boyz performed Avicii’s ‘Wake Me Up’—one of our favorite throwback songs.”

After dinner, guests headed to a second ballroom that had been transformed into an Italian discoteca with pink velvet lounge seating, mirrored bars, a ceiling covered with disco balls, and dancers wandering around in Venetian masks. By that point, Claudia had changed into a custom Clio Peppiatt beaded minidress. Depicted within its embellishments was the story of their Venice wedding night. “The dress took about a year from initial discussions to delivery—Clio and her team are so incredibly talented,” Claudia says. “She even included our new initials, CR and KR, in the moon and our wedding date on a gondola on the back of the dress. These personal details made the dress feel more like art than attire.” She wore her hair down in loose waves and borrowed a pair of the mother-in-law’s pearls.

Servers passed around truffle french fries, gelato sandwiches, and sour candy (Kyle’s favorite) as the dancing went on for the next four hours, which is a long time by any standard. Yet for Claudia and Kyle, the night—and the whole weekend—felt like a fleeting moment. “If we could have paused time, we would have,” she reflects. “It was a complete and utter dream, and we couldn’t be more thankful to our families who made it all happen for us.”