Ana Laura Ferreira Aguiar, who works in marketplace merchandising at Moda Operandi, and Kristian Legind Langhoff, an area export manager for ESS Food, happened to sit next to each other at a random bar in Piccadilly Circus. She was interning at David Koma, and he was living in central London for work. A few months later, Ana moved back to Brazil, and the two tried long-distance. She then moved to Copenhagen to be with him.
After seven years together, Kristian got a job offer in Chicago, and the pair decided to get legally married, so she could join him, and they’d later have a larger wedding. Ana requested to say, “I do,” on her birthday, April 18, but as it was a Sunday, the office was closed, and they’d have to pivot to the day prior. When the bride-to-be found out, she was distraught, but then Kristian dropped to one knee at home with a Sophie Bille Brahe ring box and sweetly proposed. “It may not have been a grandiose proposal story, but it meant the world to me,” she says. “It was perfectly romantic, perfectly imperfect, just like most of our story is. And I loved it.”
The morning after their City Hall ceremony and a mini-moon at Hotel D’Angleterre, Ana started planning their bigger wedding. She originally was set on venues in Provence, but as they had no emotional connection to the locale, Ana started her search from scratch and serendipitously found a quaint little white chapel at Capela dos Milagres in her home country of Brazil.
“I must admit that I had more than 980 pins on my very elaborate Pinterest wedding board,” Ana laughs. “I knew every detail I wanted, from the candles, to the exotic fruit, the colorful glasses, and the blue ribbon holding the napkins together. The vibe for the weekend was to be tropical but elegant, and always with a touch of irony.” To aid in bringing Ana’s vision to life, the pair tapped local planner Roberta Suruagy Bentes, and La Dichosa was behind the camera all weekend. Ateliê Ligattura set the tone with a beautiful invitation suite.
Ana also knew she wanted a Brazilian Carnaval–inspired welcome event, complete with Churrasco, Samba drums, and music from Maria Bateria. “Our Tropicalia Night kicked off the weekend in the best possible way,” the bride shares. “There was so much dancing, jumping, singing, everyone got to know each other and to have so much fun together.” To this, Ana wore a dress by Brazilian designer Paula Raia and Bottega Veneta feathered heels.
In line with the multi-day event’s aesthetic, Ana looked for a wedding dress that reflected her personality and was a tad ironic and imperfect. While scrolling on Instagram, she came across a picture of a woman wearing a light green vintage-looking striped dress and was deeply drawn to it. She investigated further and found out it was an older Oscar de la Renta style worn by someone to the Academy Awards in the ‘90s. . .and was available on Maison Sully. “I couldn’t care less that it wasn’t white; I didn’t even care that the size was way too small for me, that was just THE perfect dress,” Ana says. “All of a sudden, thinking of the whiteness of the chapel walls and the sand in the background, I could not imagine a different color for a wedding dress.”
One classic element of the bride’s ceremony look was her pair of Manolo Blahnik Lurum shoes. Ana further styled her dress with earrings that had once belonged to her late grandmother and a bouquet from Aura.
Kristian loked handsome in a Ralph Lauren white dinner jacket from Bergdorf Goodman with Bottega Veneta intrecciato loafers.
On February 4, 2023, one of Ana’s best friends officiated the ceremony. “A couple of days before the wedding weekend started, on our way to Sao Miguel dos Milagres from my bachelorette party in a nearby village, I said to Antonia, ‘I did mention you’re the one performing the ceremony, right?’ and apparently I had not!” Ana laughs. “But she whipped up the best, most perfect words and delivered a truly magical ceremony.”
The bride walked down the aisle to a Brazilian song called “Preta Pretinha” by Novos Baianos. “[It was] a reference to my life-long pet name for being much darker than the rest of my family,” Ana smiles. “It is also worth noting that while I planned 95 percent of that weekend, I did have to have to hear from multiple people that what really stole the show were Kristian’s vows,” Ana recalls. “He nailed it. Apparently, he was so nervous about vows, something they don’t usually do in Denmark, that he did a lot of research on it.” To top it all off, he said three sentences in Portuguese that melted everyone’s hearts, Ana’s included. And they recessed back down the aisle to a classic Danish song.
“While the ceremony happened just by the beach, the [reception] decor and ambience felt extremely elevated, and small details such as my mom handwriting each of the placement cards, or the Rococo cake with maraschino cherries on top, made it a little uncommon and interesting,” the bride shares. For entertainment, singer Del Cavalcanti put together a band to play from the cocktail hour until the early hours.
As the sun usually sets around 6:00 p.m. in Brazil all year, once it got dark, everyone moved inside the chapel for the seated delicious dinner by Buffet W Gourmet. Desserts from Petite Fleur in São Paulo, Brazilian brigadeiro, white chocolate truffles with berry jam, Nutella crunch cups, and peanut and dulce de leche cakes were laid out on tables.
Dancing began on the other side of the grounds, under the stars and disco balls. “Our first dance was terrible, and there are pictures of both of us cracking up while trying to figure out how to dance a rather simple waltz,” Ana laughs. The specific steps are done by all Danes, including the royals, and as tradition goes, guests form a circle around the newlyweds and slowly close in on them until there is essentially no more room. “I noticed that my people, while they had absolutely no idea of why they were doing it, started closing the circle on us as well. It was very funny and they just loved learning that new tradition.”
After cutting the cake, Ana changed into a short saudade Jacquemus dress with silver Miu Miu heels. “‘Saudade’ is a Brazilian word with no translation but that means that feeling of nostalgia, or missing something or someone.” It also complemented the weekend perfectly.
The caipirinha bar with 14 different variations on the Brazilian cocktail kept things lively. “It was so fun to try all different flavors—actually by sticking to one type of distillate we also saved our drinks from bad hangovers the day after,” Ana smiles.
The bride’s favorite moment from the party was when the deejay started a dance competition between the women and men to Anitta’s song, “Envolver,” which has popular choreography set to it. After the ladies took to the floor, a horde of Danes (and one Italian uncle) “got into a circle, dropped down on the floor, and twerked their European bums off!!” Ana exclaims. “Absolutely unforgettable.”
