This Bride’s Black Archive Dolce & Gabbana Gown Was The “Something Borrowed” For Her London Wedding

Fashion multi-hyphenate Anna Rosa Vitiello married her partner of 15 years, women’s professional football coach Robin Shroot, in an intimate ceremony at London’s Old Marylebone Town Hall just before Christmas. “We wanted it to feel much more, ‘Carrie and Big, the successful intimate wedding’, rather than ‘Carrie and Big, jilted at the altar’,” laughs Anna. “It was important to me to have that feeling of genuine love and intimacy, including a cosy, relaxed lunch where we got to spend time with the people we love.”

The couple were introduced when Anna was studying fashion marketing in Nottingham and Robin was playing professional football at Birmingham City. And despite once being tempted to propose when they were barely out of their teens, Robin ended up waiting over a decade to get down on one knee—a fact that was referenced jokily at their nuptials.

Robin’s job as the coach of a Norwegian professional women’s football team means he lives in Norway, so the couple have spent the majority of the last decade doing long distance. It was on one of Anna’s visits that they became engaged, with Robin surprising her with an elaborate proposal set up at home. “The stairs were lined with candles and cards – one for each of our fifteen years together,” remembers Anna. “I was blindfolded and led to our living room where I found myself in the middle of a heart of candles staring at a wall of our memories. It took me a few minutes to register that the words ‘Will you marry me?’ were written between the photos, and I turned around to find him on one knee.”

The couple decided on an intimate civil ceremony on 23 December, followed by a four-course lunch on the terrace of Italian restaurant Il Gattopardo in Mayfair, later checking in to the Mandarin Oriental Mayfair. “Although we’re from London and have our own place here, we also wanted it to feel like a weekend away,” says Anna. “The team at the hotel worked incredibly hard to create the most special couple of days for us, even making us bespoke ‘A&R 23.12.24’ pillow cases, and we quite literally felt like royalty coming and going from such an incredible place. We’ve already decided we’ll be staying there on 23 December every year, just to relive that unforgettable experience.”

When it came to choosing her wedding dress, Anna knew that she didn’t want anything too traditionally bridal. “Even with that certainty, there was a lot of back and forth with myself on what I wanted to feel on this special day,” she shares. “I have the immense privilege of dressing up and attending beautiful, glamorous events for work, and I knew that I didn’t want my wedding day to feel like that. The more thought that went into it, the more it started to feel contrived and, inevitably, more like work. So I decided to let fate take the wheel and as I relaxed away from forcing a decision, it all came to be quite naturally.”

Anna’s first wedding look—which she only secured two weeks before the big day—was an off-the-shoulder black fishtail gown from one of her favourite designers, Dolce & Gabbana, which doubled up as her “something borrowed”, too. “I was showing my friend my Powerpoint of archive Dolce & Gabbana looks that I’d requested and she said I could just borrow hers instead,” explains Anna. “I loved surprising everyone with a black dress. As one of our guests commented, ‘I knew this bitch was gonna pull out something different.’” Anna also added further drama to the dress via a piece of black chantilly lace from the 1800s that she had found at a vintage fair, which was sewn to three-metres of tulle and worn as a cape tied at the neck. “I was really keen that everything was archival or had a slice of history,” she says.

She borrowed from her own archive brand, Cassetto, for her jewellery, choosing two different pairs of vintage ’80s Valentino earrings to complement each of her wedding looks. Meanwhile, she kept her beauty look simple yet classic, working with hair stylist Lewis O’Dowling on a classic chignon and her make-up artist Katy Jane on an understated version of her go-to glam look.

The bride’s love of fashion is shared by Robin, so it’s no surprise that he also knocked it out of the park with two wedding looks. The first was a Dior tux, which he wore without a shirt as per the runway styling. “It was a perfect, unexpected touch for an unconventional day,” says Anna. The second was a suit from Fendi, worn with his trusty Salomons. Guests, meanwhile, were encouraged to rent their outfits, while Anna’s mother and cousin both chose dresses by Solace London.

The ceremony was relaxed and intimate, with plenty of laughter and warmth. “It was exactly as we’d dreamed,” shares Anna. “Not in terms of the order of events, but more in reference to the atmosphere. We wrote our own vows and they could not have been more special. Robin had the whole room crying and laughing simultaneously, and it was all just perfect.”

After the ceremony, Anna changed into a custom-made top and skirt by designer and friend, Cabrini Roy, inspired by an image of Italian actress Claudia Cardinale from the ’90s, which only arrived two days before. “What we ended up designing was a Filipino take on that look, a joint ode to my Filipino and Italian heritage,” explains Anna. “The top is a nod to the Filipiniana sleeve made with piña fabric from the Philippines and the skirt is made from Italian silk—the perfect blend of my heritage.”

The day was full of unorchestrated magical moments, like when the friend who had first introduced them gave an impromptu wedding speech (“we gave her five minutes warning,” says Anna) and their photographer friend, Moeez Ali, was able to be there to shoot the day last minute. “Sometimes, preparing less leads to more authentic, natural moments and it feels like that’s how so much of our day came together,” explains Anna. “And we wouldn’t change anything about it.”

This article was originally published on British Vogue.

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