Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Princess Eugenie and Beatrice arrive for Misha Nonoo wedding
With paparazzi photographers yelling in Italian, gridlocked traffic and onlookers exclaiming “Che bello!”, a whiff of la dolce vita returned to Rome last night as celebrities attended the wedding of the fashion designer credited with introducing Prince Harry to Meghan Markle.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex were the star guests of the lavish wedding between New York-based designer Misha Nonoo and Mikey Hess, the heir to an oil and gas fortune.
Rolls of British lawn grass and food from River Café in London were trucked into the capital for the wedding, which was celebrated in Villa Aurelia, a historic palazzo on the Janiculum Hill that overlooks the city’s terracotta roofs, church spires and domes.
On a perfect late summer day in the Italian capital, the Duke and Duchess, who left five-month-old baby Archie at home, joined James Corden, the comic and presenter of The Late Late Show, Orlando Bloom and Katy Perry, and Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner.
The Duchess wore a black dress with a sheer top, with gold earrings, while the Duke wore black tie.
The royal contingent included Princess Beatrice, wearing a diamond head band, and her boyfriend Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, as well as her sister Princess Eugenie with her husband Jack Brooksbank.
Villa Aurelia, which boasts landscaped gardens shaded by umbrella pines, was the scene of bloody fighting in the 19th century, when volunteers under Garibaldi defended the nascent Roman Republic from attacking French forces.
It is now owned by the American Academy of Rome, a cultural institution.
Flower garlands were draped over the black iron gates that guard the entrance to the property, as a procession of black limousines delivered the guests.
Food, drink, a pergola under which to celebrate the nuptials and lighting were transported from the UK in around 10 large lorries, while flowers were delivered by truck from the Netherlands.
“They even brought in British grass, eight pallets of it, probably to lay around the pergola,” a lorry driver told The Telegraph. “They brought in bottles of water and their own ovens for cooking.”
Another wedding organiser said: “There were 40 people just to cut and arrange the flowers.”
The estimated carbon footprint of the wedding was hefty – around 16.5 tons of CO2 emissions from the trucks alone.
The average person in the UK produces around 10 tons of CO2 a year, while it takes 50 tons to build a house.
As the sun went down, guests sipped prosecco and cocktails on a terrace overlooking the city before sitting down to a gala dinner catered for by Ruth Rogers, a chef from River Café.
On Thursday evening, Ms Nonoo and her fiancé dined with some of their guests at Pierluigi, a Rome institution that attracts the likes of George Clooney and Woody Allen when they are in town.
The celebrations are due to continue on Saturday, with guests attending another lavish dinner at the Cinecittà film studios on the outskirts of Rome, where big budget epics like Ben-Hur and Roman Holiday were filmed in the days when the city was nicknamed ‘Hollywood on the Tiber.’
Ms Nonoo, 31, who wore a minimal white wedding dress, has been friends with Ms Markle for years after they met in Miami while the former actress starred in Suits. She is said to have introduced Meghan to Prince Harry, setting up a blind date three years ago.
The fashion designer’s mother is British while her father comes from a prominent Bahraini family.
This was her second Italian wedding - previously she married Alexander Gilkes, an Old Etonian, in Venice in 2012.
Mr Hess, 33, the heir to an oil and gas business empire, is close friends with Josh Kushner, the brother of Jared.
The Duke and Duchess will return home at the weekend in time to fly to Cape Town for a royal tour of southern Africa that starts on Monday.
