Garlic Braids in One Garden, a Neon Octopus Over the Pool in the Same One: The Wedding That Chose to Be Two Events

Two weddings in two months, in two countries, for the same couple. Spanish model Rocío Crusset and American financier Charlie Shine married on 30 May in New York, and on 24 July they put on the bride and groom outfits again - this time on Ibiza, for the friends who could not get to America. That format has a long tradition here and a different name: the wedding where you live, and a second one back home.

The venue was a seaside estate with a view of the Mediterranean. The bride wore a piece from The Row, made to measure by Mary-Kate Olsen. But the design of the party itself is the part worth looking at more closely, because it was staged so that the same space read as two completely different places - one for daylight, one for the night.

The daytime version was tied to the landscape: butterflies, natural tones, rustic details. Butterflies were the main thread running through the whole decoration, appearing among the palms, in the shrubs and across different parts of the garden. From the colours and markings, they were most likely monarchs - a species associated with new beginnings, with travel, with resilience and with transformation. Anyone who wanted to read the message had it in front of them a hundred times.

The centrepiece was a table of cheeses and savoury bites - simple and well executed. A large wooden surface held different cheeses, cured meats, home-baked bread, fruit and small snacks. One large wheel of cheese served as a plinth to raise some of the wooden boards. Around it hung garlic braids, dried peppers, grapes and tomatoes, and along the top of the structure, bunches of dried flowers turned upside down. If that sounds familiar, it is because it is close to what every Balkan table knows by heart, only arranged by someone who does it for a living.

Among the greenery stood several mirrored columns that reflected the garden and, depending on the angle, appeared to vanish almost entirely. Mirrors are usually associated with reflection, with identity and with the road travelled - a reference that works at a wedding without a single sign of text.

The palette was green, brown and white. Green was in the trees, the grass, the chosen flowers and on some chairs and armchairs. Brown was in the wood, the tables and the boards. White came mostly through the furniture and textiles. Three colours, not one additional decision.

Then night fell and everything changed. Neon tones took over the decor - pink, purple, red and blue moved through the space via various plays of light, while geometric silhouettes were drawn across the landscape and small reflections coloured the trunks and leaves of the palms. The pool became part of the set through projections drawn onto the water, evoking mermaids and sea creatures, octopuses among them.

So from a rustic table with garlic braids to a neon octopus projected over a pool, in the same garden, on the same day. That is not indecision - it is a deliberate choice to make the daytime and nighttime weddings two different events, so that no guest has to pick which version they like more.