No Cake, All Fireworks: Hannah & James's Wedding at Pestana Palácio do Freixo
- Author: Natali Grace Levine
- Wedding date: 05/24/2026
- City: Porto
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Love Story
Hannah and James met five years ago at the educational travel company where they both still work, hired on the same day and settling into an easy friendship long before either of them thought to call it anything more. “We were hired at the same time and were friends for the first year, before growing our relationship to something more,” Hannah says. Four years later, they’re still colleagues, just in different roles - a detail that somehow makes the rest of their story feel more grounded rather than less romantic.
Travel has run through their relationship from the start, and it eventually led them to Porto. The proposal happened by the river on the couple’s first trip to Portugal together, with both sets of parents along for the visit. James brought Hannah down to the water, claiming he wanted to get closer to it, while photographer Ivo waited nearby, already in position. Rain had threatened the whole day, and James had spent hours quietly worried the weather would ruin both the pictures and the moment - until the sun broke through right on cue. Hannah didn’t fully expect it, though his nerves had been giving him away for hours by the time he actually asked.
About Your Wedding
On May 24, 2026, Hannah and James married at Pestana Palácio do Freixo in Porto, in front of 83 guests who’d traveled in from across the country to be there. The couple spent a full year planning a wedding built around distance - with family scattered everywhere, no single location would ever be convenient for everyone, so they leaned into that fact rather than fighting it. “We wanted something romantic, yet timeless. The last thing we wanted was to look back at pictures and think, ‘Why did we choose that trend?’” Hannah says of the vision guiding nearly every decision that followed.
That vision extended past aesthetics into the experience guests would have across the weekend. Hannah and James wanted people to leave not just having attended a wedding, but having made a few new friends along the way - and by their own account, it worked better than they’d hoped. Old-world elegance met modern styling throughout the palace, letting its antique architecture do quiet work in the background while the couple’s own colors and details did the rest.
Morning Details
No bridesmaids, no fuss - just family, one best friend turned officiant, and a room inside a 17th-century palace to get ready in. Hannah spent the morning surrounded by her mother, sister, mother-in-law, sister-in-law, niece, and the close friend who’d go on to officiate the ceremony itself, all gathered inside her own room at the venue.
The details layered in quietly around that same close circle. Invitations came from Invitari, with the rest of the day’s stationery - petal cups, ceremony signage, bar signs, and menus - designed by Lagar 54 Design Studio. Hannah wore two pieces of sentimental jewelry alongside her wedding day look: a pinky ring from her grandmother, worn since childhood, and a ring on her right hand that her mother had custom-designed for her high school graduation.
Bride Getting Ready
Hannah’s dress search wrapped up faster than she expected, though she didn’t quite believe it herself at the moment. She found her Wona Bridal gown on the very first day of shopping, at the first store she tried, and still visited two more shops afterward just to be sure. “I couldn’t get the dress’s uniqueness out of my head, so it seemed like the perfect fit,” she says of the moment she finally admitted the search was over.
She completed the look with a veil, lace sleeves, earrings, and her shoes, keeping the accessories simple enough to let the dress itself lead. Her bouquet, designed by Mande uma Flor, followed the same instinct toward softness - organic in shape, built around light colors that matched the airy, romantic mood she wanted for the whole day.
Groom Getting Ready
James got ready in his room at the palace, dressed in a custom Indochino suit and surrounded by his father, brother, father-in-law, brother-in-law, and three close friends. It was a relaxed, family-heavy morning, matching the same instinct that shaped the rest of the day - familiar faces close by, nothing overly formal about how the time was spent before the ceremony itself. With three generations of the family in the same room, the morning carried an easy, low-key energy, more like a gathering than a countdown to anything.
The palace grounds gave James and his groomsmen plenty of room to spread out between getting dressed and simply waiting, stepping outside occasionally to take in views neither of them had really had the chance to appreciate the day before. By the time they left the room, there was little left to do but walk toward the same ceremony Hannah was preparing for just a few doors away, each side of the family completely unaware of what the other looked like that morning.
First Look
Hannah and James’s first look took place inside the venue itself, away from the wider group of guests still arriving. James later admitted he could hardly process the moment as it was happening. “I can’t believe she is going to be my wife,” he said. Hannah felt something similar standing across from him. “I can’t believe we are actually doing this,” she said - a rare instance where both sides of a couple’s first look land with almost identical disbelief, just phrased in their own words.
Coming together privately, away from 83 waiting guests, gave the two of them a version of the day that belonged only to them before the rest of the afternoon took over. Five years of friendship and four years together had built up to that exact minute, and neither of them describes it as a grand realization so much as a quiet confirmation - the sense that something they’d known for a long time was finally, actually happening in front of them.
Photoshoot Before The Ceremony
The Palácio do Freixo gave them everything they needed for photos without a single trip beyond its own walls - room after room, each with its own light and story to lend to the pictures. Hannah and James never considered leaving the property for portraits; the palace’s range of interiors and grounds gave them more variety than most couples find across several separate locations.
Built in the 17th century and later expanded with neoclassical touches, the palace offered enough contrast within its own walls to carry an entire portrait session - ornate interior rooms giving way to sun-washed courtyards, then to the manicured structure of the Italian garden waiting just beyond. Staying on-site also meant the couple lost none of their limited time before the ceremony to travel, spending every spare minute either with each other or with the small group of family already gathered around them.
Ceremony
The ceremony took place outdoors in the palace’s Italian garden, with Hannah walking down the aisle to a violin instrumental of “Can’t Help Falling in Love.” The couple’s one-and-a-half-year-old niece, Bella, served as flower girl, while James’s ten-year-old cousin, Simon, carried the rings. “I remember walking down the aisle to the music, and seeing everyone smiling back at me. I remember making it to the altar and feeling the nerves wash away when James took my hands in his for the remainder of our time,” Hannah says of the moment that stayed with her most clearly.
A close friend, standing in as officiant, led the ceremony itself - a detail that gave the whole service a warmth most couples only get from years-long friendships put to genuinely meaningful use. Rain had shadowed parts of the couple’s story before, from the proposal onward. Still, the day itself stayed dry and mild, letting the Italian garden’s structured hedges and open sky frame the ceremony exactly as they’d pictured it a year earlier.
Wedding Venue & Decor
Hannah and James built their palette around light blue, sage green, white, and gold, with hints of purple woven through the florals for contrast. Personalized bar decor and signage carried that same palette through the reception spaces, tying the smaller details back to the day’s overall color story.
Choosing the venue turned out to be one of the more straightforward decisions of the entire process. Photographer Ivo, who’d shot the couple’s engagement photos the year before, recommended Pestana Palácio do Freixo directly - and it became the only venue they ever toured. “It was actually the only venue we toured, as it fit everything we were looking for in a venue and guest experience,” Hannah says. Proximity to a major city mattered too, giving guests an easy home base along with plenty to explore on their own throughout the weekend.
Couple's Advice
“Don’t try to change the venue’s decor; fit your decor to the venue and its immense beauty. If you can have the ceremony in the garden, it is well worth the views.”
Reception
No cake, no cutting ceremony - just a champagne tower catching the light and fireworks doing the job a dessert course usually does. Skipping the cake was, by the couple's own account, their hardest planning decision, but the payoff was immediate: guests still bring up the fireworks and the champagne tower long after the rest of the details have faded.
The couple's first dance was set to "Dream a Little Dream of Me" by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, and the bar leaned into one personal request throughout the night - Aperol Spritz, a longtime favorite of Hannah's, kept flowing alongside whatever the venue's own team had planned. Looking back at the reception as a whole, Hannah points to a specific moment that stuck with her: standing back and watching guests who'd never met before deep in conversation, forming the kind of connections she and James had hoped for but hadn't dared expect. Wedding planner Vera Costa of Q Velvet is the vendor the couple credits most with making that ease possible - keeping the full weekend on track, from payments to logistics, in a destination wedding neither of them could have coordinated alone. It was Ivo, the couple's photographer at Momento Cativo, who first pointed them toward the palace after shooting their engagement photos the year before - a full-circle detail that meant the same eye behind those earlier photos was also the one capturing the fireworks and the champagne tower on the night itself.
Wedding Team
- Venue Pestana Palácio do Freixo
- Venue Pestana Palace Hotel
- Photography Momento Cativo
- Wedding Planning & Coordination @qvelvetfromveracosta
- Videography @ninhofilms
- Florals @mandeumaflor.studio
- Makeup & Hair @jennymakeupland
- Rentals @rental.prive.pt
- Music @musicboxporto
- Stationery @lagar.54.design
- Invitations @invitari.pt
- Dress @wona_concept @wona.bridal @calvetcouturebridal @tailoredinwhite
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