Our story
The short version
The condensed edition. The rest we can tell you over dinner.
How we met
Elena was on the way to the library. Marco was on the way to nowhere in particular. The rain arrived faster than either of us had planned for, and Elena was the one holding the umbrella. Marco asked, very politely, whether he could walk with her. She said yes, mostly because he looked mildly ridiculous holding a very heavy stack of art history books over his head.
We ended up at a small caffè two streets from the piazza. Twenty minutes turned into an hour, an hour turned into dinner, and dinner turned into a plan to meet again the following Saturday. That Saturday became the pattern for the next few years.
“I remember thinking, on the walk home, that I hoped I'd have a reason to see her again by Wednesday.”
Marco, 2019
How we knew it was this
The lockdown, which by rights should have tested us, did the opposite. We lived on top of each other in a small flat in Milan and never once got in each other's way. We cooked, we read, we planted things on the balcony that mostly died. We watched the streets slowly wake up again.
We visited Positano for the first time in 2022. Villa Serena's owner told us about his grandfather, who planted the lemon trees on the terrace one summer in the 1950s. That evening we sat on the wall by the chapel, and neither of us said very much, and both of us knew.
And then this
Marco proposed on a Sunday morning in December, at the kitchen table, over espresso. There was no violinist. There was no rooftop. He asked a very short question, and Elena said yes, and then we sat there for another hour just letting it settle. Sometimes the loudest moments are the quietest ones.
And now we're going back to Villa Serena, and we're bringing everyone we love with us, and we cannot quite believe our luck.
The whole thing, briefly
Five moments, if you had to pick.
A shared umbrella in Bologna
A downpour in Piazza Maggiore. Elena had the umbrella. Marco had the good sense to walk under it. Coffee for twenty minutes turned into an hour, then dinner.
The lockdown flat
Two suitcases into a fifty-square-metre flat in Milan, one balcony, and a plant we now call Beatrice. We learned we could live together very well indeed.
The first Positano trip
A weekend that turned into a week. Villa Serena's owner brought us focaccia and told us his grandfather planted the lemon trees. We never quite left after that.
A ring at the kitchen table
No rooftop, no violinist, no candles. Just Sunday, an espresso, and a question that had been quietly waiting for the right morning.
You, us, the sea
Every good story needs the people who helped write it. We are so glad you are one of them.
Come and be part of the next chapter
The day is coming up quickly. If you have not already, this is a lovely time to reply.