MANALI AND ANTHONY

It all started in a Punta Cana discotheque for Manali Yavatkar and Dr. Anthony Wiggins. They were both on Spring Breakand despite attending different universities—Anthony, Harvard; Manali, Columbia—stayed at the same resort. Manali remembers it well, “After a fun night of dancing followed by a few carefree days surrounded by friends, sunshine, and endless mojitos, it became clear that our serendipitous spring break meeting could be much more.
Four years later on Manali’s birthday trip to Florence, Anthony proposed at Piazzale Michelangelo in 2017. It was an easy yes. What wasn’t as easy, however, was the wedding planning process that followed. They original set a date for a 2020 wedding at the Fairmont in San Francisco, but the pandemic thwarted those plans. The couple decided to postpone their nuptials to 2023.
With the luxury of time now, Anthony and Manali began to consider a completely new venue option. “Prior to the pandemic, my mom and sister visited Lake Como where my mom fell in love with the idyllic scenery and recommended it as the ideal wedding location,” Manali recalls. “I am not sure how many couples need convincing to get married on Lake Como, but we certainly were not one of them.” They visited in October 2021 and immediately found everything they could have wanted in Villa Pliniana, including lakefront views and a natural waterfall backdrop. They enlisted Shannon Leahy Events to plan and Larissa Cleveland to photograph the event."
- Over the Moon