David & Caroline at Borgo di Tragliata: From a Water Fight to a Life Together

Their story had not begun with a particularly composed scene.

David and Caroline were fifteen, attending different schools in Killarney, when they met at the bumper cars at Birds Bizarre. It was raining. The encounter turned into a water fight.

Some beginnings only become romantic with a little distance. At the time, this one might mainly have looked like an excellent way to arrive home soaking wet. Yet within that lightness was the first chapter of a story that would continue.

Years later, they chose Borgo di Tragliata for their wedding. They loved Italy for its people, food and wine: a combination they considered the right recipe for a party. They loved the Borgo for the possibility of staying with their guests for a few days, giving shared time more space than a single occasion could hold.

Around the historic stone houses, the Roman countryside continues through fields and walnut groves. The old village, on its tuff spur, keeps an intimate character: somewhere to stop after so many journeys.

Around a hundred and twenty people were arriving from Ireland and other places, including Germany, the United States, Australia, Hong Kong and Dubai. For David and Caroline, the wedding brought an important part of their life here. Distance became a route towards the same place; the Borgo, for a few days, a meeting point.

The years between Killarney and this wedding had changed plenty of things, including the preparations. This time, Caroline's hair and makeup were entrusted to Linda Lynn, and the occasion called for rather different clothes from an afternoon at the bumper cars.

In the Massello Garden at Borgo di Tragliata, Enrico Epifani led their symbolic ceremony, accompanied by The Gloves' piano. A story that had opened so playfully now had space for a promise. Both belonged to the same two people.

The flowers were entrusted to Krafteemom Styling, part of the personal choices David and Caroline brought to the Borgo. The garden supplied its open setting; at its centre, the ceremony gave words to a life that had already travelled far beyond that first encounter.

There is a particular tenderness in a wedding whose beginning is remembered so clearly. The people making the promise carry their younger selves with them. David and Caroline's story could contain the teenagers in the rain and the couple in this garden, without having to choose between lightness and depth.

The aperitif on the Massello Terrace opened a more relaxed part of the day.

Music accompanied the transition, with the fathers' speeches finding their place in this moment. Voices connected to the roots of the story, within a celebration that had brought people together from distant places.

David and Caroline's wish to spend several days with their guests made this pause special too. Time was not simply the space between ceremony and dinner: it was one of the things they had wanted to give their wedding.

Behind it remained the character of the Borgo, its rural scale so close to Rome and so different from the city. A setting where conviviality could breathe, without asking every moment to become the next one immediately.

With photography entrusted to Celli Fotografi, this coming together also had its own visual memory. The garden and the terrace were chapters of the same day; the people David and Caroline had gathered were what made them theirs.

For their entrance to dinner in Massello, David and Caroline chose “Gimme Gimme” by ABBA.

That choice was enough to introduce another shade of their wedding. After the gentleness of the ceremony, the story allowed itself a change of pace: the music of the party was beginning to make room for itself at the dinner doorway.

Indoors, the day found an intimate scale again. Words from friends and David gave voice to other pieces of their story, alongside those evoked during the aperitif. Families and friendships, past and present: different perspectives on the same couple.

Dinner held these registers together without needing to separate them. Important words could sit beside an energetic musical choice. A romantic day does not necessarily have to maintain a solemn tone until the final course.

Film, entrusted to Fashion Video - Umberto Atterga, offered another way of carrying the day forward. Beside photography's stillness, a wedding film can hold the unfolding of a moment: a fitting counterpoint to a dinner that made space for so many voices.

Their first dance had another precise choice: “Are You Ready for Love” by Elton John.

The title seemed to place a question over the moment, but behind David and Caroline was a road already travelled together. The dance gathered it up while allowing it to continue.

A first step always has its small threshold: the anticipation before the music, attention returning to the couple, the passage from a day lived among many people to an instant that can seem to belong only to two. In that space, a song becomes part of a personal memory.

Elton John's song also brought a bright momentum, preparing the story to move out of the intimacy of the first dance and open into the party.

From the bumper cars to the centre of the dance floor, their story had found an entirely new setting. At its heart were still the two people who had met that afternoon.

The Teatro at Borgo di Tragliata gave David and Caroline's wedding room for its most gloriously unrestrained chapter.

The Gloves arrived at that point of the story in their full eight-piece formation, with male and female lead singers and a horn section. Two voices gave the show its exchange of energy; brass and the whole live band gave it momentum. The interactive entertainment invited the guests into the celebration, making the party something to take part in with far more than an appreciative nod.

David and Caroline's tastes had already made their direction clear: disco and feel-good music, with ABBA, the Bee Gees, Chic and Sister Sledge among their favourites, alongside Italian classics. The musical world they loved had plenty of room for exuberance. With the live band, that appetite found the wedding's big release: singing, dancing, the invitation to let go, and the joyful madness The Gloves build between musicians and the people celebrating.

The first dance had brought attention back to two people; the party opened that space to their guests. It gave a physical rhythm to the reason David and Caroline had chosen to gather everyone in Italy: time together, with a generous allowance for fun. The DJ continued after the live show, carrying the evening into its next chapter.

For a love story whose first encounter became a water fight, a celebration with a little abandon felt like a pleasing narrative fit. There are many ways to begin a romance. David and Caroline's had never put excessive seriousness at the top of the list.

The rain remained part of Killarney, safely in the memory of that first meeting. Borgo di Tragliata held something new: their promises, their people and a party large enough to give the day its joyful ending.

What began between two teenagers had become a shared life. The lovely thing was that growing into it still left room for the spirit of that first afternoon.

Find the rhythm of your wedding: explore the options and prices in The Gloves configurator.