The bride kept her accessories relatively simple. She had the House of Gilles team design a coordinating veil—a dramatic touch requested by Jeff—and wore a simple flower made from the same fabric in her hair. “For jewelry, I wore two tiny teardrop earrings my sons gave me for my 60th birthday last year,” she adds.
Jeff admits he needed some guidance to find his wedding day attire. “When Paulina met me, I typically wore the comedy writer’s uniform, jeans, and logo T-shirts. I’m not even sure I owned a decent suit,” he says. “So I needed a great deal of help.” Stylist Sean Spellman advised the groom to have a bespoke suit made to perfectly fit his 6’7” frame. He guided Jeff towards a classic silhouette in blue wool fabric. “Wearing wool in 90-degree heat seemed insane to me, but he was right. It looked crisp, sharp, and classy,” shares Jeff. “As for the rest of the outfit: I bought a pair of Church’s black oxfords which cost more than my first car, suspenders because they keep your pants from falling down when you’re dancing like a maniac, and I wore my cherished gold 1946 Rolex Oyster Perpetual bubbleback.” He adds, “Watch nerds will know what I’m talking about.”
The wedding weekend began with a casual dinner for guests to get to know one another at a trattoria Pan&Vino in the center of Orta San Giulio. “We fell in love with this place on our very first trip to Orta, perhaps because of the signs out front which warn ‘no pizza, no pasta, no panini,’” shares Paulina. “Also, they have an entire menu page of tinned fish, which stole this Czech girl’s heart immediately.”
The wedding day arrived, and guests gathered at the lakeside garden patio behind the town’s city hall. Unfortunately upon arrival, the bride realized she had left her bouquet back at the hotel. “Two of her friends began frantically pulling flowers out of the ground and assembling one, trying to avoid the watchful eye of Roberta Mattioli, the city official who’d be conducting the legal part of the ceremony,” remembers Jeff. “To Ms. Mattioli’s enduring credit, she made no move to stop them.”
Paulina’s sons and stepson played “The Moldau” by Smetana on violin and guitar as the wedding party made their way down the aisle. Jeff’s sister Jill and Paulina’s brother Kym served as officiants for the ceremony, but also wrote vows for the couple. “We left it entirely to Jill and Kym, who sent drafts back and forth from Maine to Texas, and they were magnificent,” shares Jeff. “We wouldn’t change a word—and coming from two writers, that’s saying something.” Adds Paulina, “For me, family is my sense of safety, so having family walk us through the vows was profound.”
At the end of the ceremony, Jeff stomped on a glass, and the newlyweds kissed at least four times before recessing to “Go All the Way” by The Raspberries. They completed their brief civil ceremony to complete their legal marriage, and had the song blasted one more time over the speakers. Instead of taking traditional portraits afterwards, the couple did one big group photo with all their guests on a cobblestone street.
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