Fate almost thwarted Emma Thorne and Serkan Piantino’s first date. An hour before they were supposed to meet, Serkan’s car got towed in the streets of New York. While he searched, it began to pour rain—an inconvenience on any normal given day, but an actual problem in September 2020, when restaurants only offered outdoor dining due to COVID-19 restrictions. “I was concerned about how we were going to have this date, but Serkan was ever positive and undeterred,” Emma says. When the two finally sat down, he asked the waiter to bring them the weirdest wine on the menu. She laughed, finding the slightly ridiculous request “delightful.”
Two years later Serkan, a tech entrepreneur, proposed to Emma, an actor, on the Ponte degli Angeli in Rome—a city of deep importance to Emma, whose father served as the American Ambassador to Italy under President Barack Obama. She said yes as the sun set over St. Peter’s Basilica.
In April 2024, the couple wed at their farm in Upstate New York, in an event planned by 42 North. They never considered anywhere else, as the farm is where they fell in love: early on in their relationship, Emma accidentally put an electric kettle on their gas stove, causing smoke to erupt and alarms to go off. She expected him to be annoyed after the whole fiasco. “Serkan, after dealing with the fire department which had just arrived sirens blaring, came back inside with a thoughtful look on his face,” Emma says. Then, he told her he needed a new kettle anyway. “I think that was the moment I fell in love with him,” she says.
On Friday night, they held a welcome dinner at Stissing House. “We love their food so much and the experience of being there feels warm and easy,” Emma says of their favorite restaurant, which they dine at every Thursday night. The bride wore a tiered lace vintage Valentino dress, sourced from Happy Isles Salon with help from bridal stylist Gabrielle Hurwitz. Guests enjoyed baked trout and wood-roasted chicken on candlelit tables, as well as slices of coconut cake for dessert.
It rained on their wedding day. Actually, “rained” doesn’t do it justice: “Not only was it pouring, it had rained four inches twice in the past two weeks. So the ground was a complete Woodstock-level mud pit,” Serkan says. “We had trucked in literal tons of gravel to reinforce the road around the property, and still everything with wheels was getting stuck and had to be towed out.” As Emma got ready in her second vintage Valentino wedding dress, which she paired with Ralph Lauren flats, vans carrying guests got lodged in the mud.
