Katharine

Katharine found Villa Mariella while looking for somewhere small and private, and only afterwards worked out that the villa and the planner came together. We did nearly all of it remotely: the pandemic meant she and her partner were choosing a garden they had never stood in, from photographs and video calls.

They married at Villa Cimbrone, on the Terrace of Infinity, and everyone came back up to Villa Mariella afterwards for the celebration — ceremony in one place, dinner in another, which is a normal shape here and only works if someone is holding both ends of the day.

Guests dropped out at the last minute, as they did constantly that year. We changed the seating, the counts and the catering close to the date, and nobody at the table had to know that anything had moved.

They did not book a videographer, so I filmed short pieces of the day on my phone as it went — the chairs before anyone sat in them, the lemons at dusk, the table before dinner — and gave them to her afterwards.