Gianna and A.J. | Ravello Ceremony, Philadelphia Party
Gianna and A.J. split their wedding between two countries: a ceremony in Ravello in the summer and a party in Philadelphia in November. The same photographer for both, four thousand miles apart.
Gianna and A.J. wanted two celebrations and one gallery. The first was a symbolic ceremony at the Belmond Hotel Caruso in Ravello with their closest family and a civil ceremony at the Ravello Municipio. The second, four months later, was the full party in Philadelphia with two hundred guests, a trolley, and the entire wedding party wearing Phillies jerseys on the streets of Center City. They asked me to photograph both. I packed my gear and flew to the US in November.
A two-part wedding is not something I photograph often, but the logic behind it makes sense for couples with roots in two countries. Gianna’s family has Italian heritage. A.J. grew up in Philadelphia.
They wanted the intimacy of a small ceremony in Italy, where the setting does most of the work, and the energy of a large American party at home, where the guest list is not limited by transatlantic flights. Splitting the two allowed them to have the day they wanted in each place without compromise.
The Ravello Half
The ceremony in Ravello happened in the summer. The symbolic rite was in the Wagner Gardens at the Caruso, with A.J.’s brother officiating. The guest list was small: close family, a few friends, their two daughters in the front row.
Angela and Rosaria from Ravello Events coordinated the day, which meant the timeline ran smoothly and I could focus entirely on the images, the same kind of small-ceremony format covered in our wedding in Ravello guide.
The Children’s Perspective
I have photographed dozens of ceremonies in the Wagner Gardens and the venue is covered in detail on the Caruso page. What made this one different was the scale. With fewer than thirty guests, the garden felt private in a way that a hundred-person ceremony does not. The girls sat on chairs next to A.J.’s mother and watched their parents get married.
I shot those frames from behind, capturing the ceremony through the children’s perspective: their small feet dangling above the grass, the couple visible beyond them at the altar, the coast stretching out behind everything.
After the symbolic ceremony, we walked to the Ravello Municipio for the civil rite. The photos of Gianna and A.J. walking out of the town hall, hand in hand, with the targa above the door reading MUNICIPIO, have a documentary quality that the garden ceremony photos do not. One is romantic. The other is official. Both belong in the gallery.
Couple portraits happened at Villa Rufolo and on the terraces of the Caruso. Gianna wore a beaded dress that caught every shift of light across its surface, and A.J. was in a grey suit. Their daughters appeared in several of the portrait frames, sometimes on purpose, sometimes because a three-year-old does not understand the concept of staying behind the camera.
Those interruptions produced some of the warmest images of the Ravello half: A.J. holding one daughter on his hip while holding Gianna’s hand, all four of them in front of the coast, a family portrait that happened inside a couple portrait because the children decided they wanted to be in the picture.
Philadelphia in November
Four months later, Felice and I flew to Philadelphia. Gianna’s sister Michela picked us up at the airport and spent two days showing us the city: the light in Old City, the texture of the buildings in Rittenhouse, the best streets for group shots near City Hall. Scouting a city I have never worked in before is the part of a destination commission that requires the most preparation.
I needed to know where the afternoon sun would be in November, which streets would be quiet enough for a bridal party of twenty to stand in the road, and where the background would feel like Philadelphia rather than anywhere in the world.
The getting-ready happened at Gianna and A.J.’s home. The house was decorated for autumn: pumpkins on the porch, warm light through the front windows, the kitchen full of bridesmaids and family and food. The atmosphere was the opposite of a hotel suite. It was loud, personal, and crowded in the best way.
I shot the details (the beaded dress hanging in the living room, the shoes on the hardwood floor, the makeup mirror propped against a window) and the candids (Gianna’s mother fixing her veil in the hallway, A.J.’s groomsmen drinking coffee on the front steps).
The Trolley
From the house, the wedding party boarded a trolley. A vintage Philadelphia trolley with wooden seats and brass fittings, packed with twenty people in formal wear, rolling through the city toward the venue.
I shot from the back of the trolley looking forward, the warm side light coming through the windows on both sides and the bridal party visible in silhouette against the front windshield. Then I moved to the front and shot backward: all twenty faces lit by the window light, laughing, holding drinks, the city visible through the glass behind them.
The trolley ride is a Philadelphia tradition that does not exist in Ravello, and the images from those fifteen minutes have a character and a palette, warm wood, brass, autumn light through glass, that nothing in the Italian half of the gallery shares.
My perspective is heartfelt, just like myself. I aim to capture moments of character within stunning scenes. In a way, this reveals a piece of my identity and personal journey.
I adore vibrant bridal themes
RAVELLO STORIES
There is a practical advantage to the trolley that most couples do not think about. It keeps the bridal party together during the transition from home to venue. Nobody gets lost. Nobody is stuck in traffic in a separate car. The group arrives at the same time, in the same mood, ready for the group photos without the scattered energy that a convoy of Ubers produces. For photography, that collective arrival is worth more than the aesthetic of the trolley itself.
Phillies on the Street
The Phillies were in the championship finals that weekend. The entire city was in the grip of it. Someone in the wedding party had brought a stack of Phillies jerseys, and before the group photos near City Hall, the whole bridal party changed into them.
Gianna in her beaded wedding dress with a red and white jersey pulled over the top. A.J. in his suit with the jersey open over his tie. Groomsmen, bridesmaids, everyone in team colors, kissing and cheering in the middle of a Philadelphia street while strangers honked and waved.
This is the image that opens the gallery. It is not a traditional wedding photo. It is not elegant or composed. It is two dozen people in baseball jerseys on a sidewalk, in love and in the moment, in a city that was vibrating with the same energy they were.
I shot it wide on a 24mm, low angle, so the buildings of Philadelphia rose behind them and the street filled the foreground. The image says more about who Gianna and A.J. are and where they come from than any portrait on a Ravello terrace ever could. Both images belong in the same gallery. That is the point of a two-part wedding.
The De Luci
The reception was at De Luci, a venue in the center of Philadelphia with tall windows, exposed brick, and warm overhead lighting. The tables were dressed with autumn florals: deep oranges, burgundy, and green against cream linen.
The room had a warmth that came partly from the lighting design and partly from the fact that two hundred people were crammed into a space built for that exact number. No empty corners. No dead zones. Every table was full, every conversation was loud, and the energy in the room was immediate.
The speeches were given by the father of the bride and by family members, and they ran longer and louder than any speech I have heard at an Italian wedding. American speeches are performance. Italian speeches are toasts.
Both work, but the American version gives me more reactions to shoot: the gasps, the groans, the standing ovations, the bride hiding her face. The first dance was emotional. The party that followed was something else entirely: a dance floor packed from the first song, the DJ reading the room perfectly, guests who had waited four months since the Ravello ceremony to celebrate together.
The American Dance Floor
I shoot American receptions differently from Italian ones. The energy is higher, the transitions are faster, and the dance floor fills earlier. In Ravello, the evening builds slowly from aperitivo to dinner to dancing. In Philadelphia, the party starts at the entrance and does not slow down.
I adjusted my approach: more flash, faster shutter speeds, more crowd shots, and less of the quiet candlelit work I default to in Italy, the kind of adaptability I describe further on my Ravello wedding photographer page. The gallery from De Luci is louder, brighter, and faster than anything I would produce at the Caruso or at Villa Eva. That contrast is exactly what Gianna and A.J. wanted.
Same Photographer, Two Countries
The reason Gianna and A.J. asked me to fly to Philadelphia was consistency. A two-part wedding photographed by two different people produces two galleries with different color grading, different compositional habits, and different instincts about what to shoot and what to skip.
CREAMY COLORS
I enjoy preserving emotions set in breathtaking environments with wonderful lighting in enchanting locations across Italy and beyond. I take pride in creating moments shaped by my vision, my approach, and certainly my sensibility.
PHILLY STORIES
They wanted one visual style across both halves, so the gallery would read as a single story told in two chapters rather than two separate albums. The color grading, the composition choices, the way I handle light on faces and fabric: all of that stays the same whether I am standing on a Ravello terrace or a Philadelphia sidewalk. What changes is the setting, and that is the whole point.
I do not travel to the US regularly for weddings, but when a couple asks me to bring the same eye to a second celebration in their home city, I say yes.
The logistical complexity is real: two flights, two scouting sessions, two sets of vendor coordination, two sets of deliverables. But the result is a gallery that no other arrangement can produce: the quiet of an Italian garden and the roar of an American party, edited and delivered by the same hand.
For couples considering a ceremony in Ravello with a party at home, this format works. Get in touch if you want to discuss a two-part celebration, and we will figure out how to make it work across whatever distance separates your ceremony from your party.
Ravello to Philadelphia is four thousand miles. The gallery makes it feel like one afternoon.
OUR HOTEL CARUSO STORIES
Alida and Michael at Belmond Hotel Caruso
Hotel Caruso – Anastasia and Joe
Hotel Caruso – Tim and Yafei
Hotel Caruso proposal
Hotel Caruso Elopement – Chad and Michael
Naomi and Theo – Proposal at Hotel Caruso
FIND YOUR IDEAL PLACE IN RAVELLO
Written By Emiliano Russo