I first visited Florence the summer before my senior year of high school on a school trip across Italy. Florence was easily my favorite stop on that trip. Something in me came alive. In fact, my senior English teacher wrote in my college letter of recommendation about how she saw me light up in Florence. (Here’s me with my cousin, Rachael, who was studying abroad in Florence that summer!)
I love the city more with each visit and have loved seeing it through John’s eyes in recent years. It’s wild to think that this city which first woke up part of me is where we’re now getting ready to share with the people we love and host our wedding this year.
Ben and his cousin Rachael in Florence
June 2006
Every time we visit, I find myself learning new ways to appreciate the beauty around me — whether it’s the food, the architecture, the churches and piazzas, or the way you can see people living their lives in these rhythms that feel unhurried and peaceful. It’s really on the nose, but in the city known for the Renaissance, I find myself feeling reborn. It’s like pieces fall back into their proper place when we’re there.
There’s also this invitation — I feel invited with each visit into new ways to walk in love. I hope you feel the same. What more could we ask for from our wedding than for our people to leave walking in more love in all aspects of
From Ben...
WHY FLORENCE
Florence has never been a destination for me — it’s always been a return.
On different backpacking trips across Europe over the years, I would find myself stretching my time in Florence longer than anywhere else. Not because I had more things to see, but because something in me needed to stay. It always felt like home.
There’s a moment every time I step off the train at Santa Maria Novella — before I’ve seen a single painting or eaten a single bite — where I notice my nervous system settle and my breath deepen. The city has a way of receiving you.
John in the Florentine Leather Market
June 2006
In the fall of 2015, I was given the gift of a sabbatical, and I chose Florence without hesitation. What I didn’t expect was how much it would choose me back.
Living there — not visiting, but living — cracked something open. I found myself painting again, lingering over a coffee for an hour without guilt, wandering without an agenda. I watched Florentines move through their days with an unhurried intentionality that I had quietly been starving for. A nonna hanging laundry. A craftsman sanding a chair frame in a doorway. Simple things, done beautifully, without apology for the time they took.
That sabbatical changed how I came home. I started a company with presence and beauty as core values. I invested more deeply in the people around me. I tried to stop rushing past the simple things. Florence had rewired something in me — and I believe that rewiring is part of what made space for Ben.
We met in the summer of 2021, and it wasn’t long before I knew I wanted to take him to Florence. The following summer, we traveled there together to celebrate our dear friends, the Coopers’, 10th anniversary — and watching Ben fall even more in love with the city I had loved for so long felt like its own kind of confirmation. We’ve been back together several times since. The city keeps inviting us in, and we keep saying yes.
So when it came time to choose where to begin our marriage, there was only ever one answer.
And now we get to share it with you. Our hope is that somewhere between the espresso and the art, the cobblestones and the light on the Arno at golden hour, Florence does to you what it has done to us — slows you down, opens something up, and sends you home a little more alive. Let yourself linger. Let a simple moment be enough. Let the city receive you. There is no better way we know to start a marriage than surrounded by people who have been invited into that kind of beauty together.
From John...
WHY FLORENCE
