A Fever Dream Lisbon Wedding Where Art & History Collide at Palácio do Grilo

There’s a quiet magnetism to Madeline and Elliot’s wedding — one that lingers in the details long after the celebration ends. Drawn to the faded grandeur of Lisbon’s Palácio do Grilo, the couple embraced its layered history rather than competing with it, creating a celebration where old-world architecture, contemporary artistry, and deeply personal storytelling existed in perfect balance. Their vision came to life through richly textured event design, sculptural florals by THE WED member Babel Bloom, candlelit tables, unexpected artistic moments, and a seamless journey through the palace’s remarkable rooms, each revealing a distinct atmosphere. Every choice, from vintage cars driven by close friends to intimate creative collaborations, reflected a celebration built around meaning rather than convention. Captured with extraordinary sensitivity by THE WED members Emotions and Math, the wedding feels cinematic without losing its intimacy — a beautiful reminder that the most memorable celebrations are those shaped by personality, trust, and a willingness to let beauty emerge naturally.

Our Love Story

The Day We Met

Years separated our first meeting from falling in love. We met in 2014 as each other’s very first Tinder match. Our first date was seeing The Pixies at the Sydney Opera House, but the timing simply wasn’t right. We were young, and life took us in different directions. Almost a decade later, in the strange stillness of lockdown, I posted on Instagram asking for music recommendations. Elliot replied with a playlist. It was specific and completely me. I remember thinking he had somehow been paying attention all along. Unable to meet in the usual ways, we fell into long conversations, shared routines, exchanged photos of our days, and sent each other recipes for meals we couldn’t yet share. We built a life together in miniature. It was an unusual way to begin again, but there was something tender about being given a second chance.

The Proposal

We had talked about getting married so often that I had stopped imagining it could still surprise me. Somehow, it did. It was Christmas Day, at the end of a month-long road trip through Thailand. Elliot had brought the ring with him, keeping it hidden somewhere among our shared luggage and waiting, day after day, for the moment he had imagined.

We were about to check out when I stepped onto the balcony to take one last look at the view. I turned around, and he asked me to marry him. Nothing had been arranged around the moment, and no one else was there to witness it. After all the places we had been and all the things we had done, it happened there, in that small pause before we left. Later, we called our families from Thailand. It was Christmas Day, so everyone was already together.

The Engagement Ring

I always knew Madeline would want something timeless, but with enough character to still feel completely like her. I spent close to a year searching and changing my mind! Through all of that, I kept coming back to the work of Grew & Co. It was elegant and distinctive without feeling overdone. Simon Grew is an incredible craftsman, and the finished ring couldn’t have suited her more perfectly. Madeline later worked with Simon to design a custom wedding band that would complement the engagement ring rather than simply match it. The band features a hand-cut yellow diamond in a gold setting with a silver band, giving it its own character while still sitting beautifully alongside the marquise diamond engagement ring.

Our Wedding

The Vision

The garments became the starting point. Working with our incredible designer, Jack Hancock, shaped the vision from the very beginning. It was their thoughtful point of view that inspired us, and the way the pieces they created carried history and references while still feeling entirely original. There was precision, but also patina and texture—nothing too polished, nothing quite resolved—with the hand of the maker remaining visible.

Our families have always shared a deep love of history and art, and I think that naturally shaped the way we approached the day. We looked closely at what came before us while allowing those references to become something new. We were drawn to things that felt familiar yet difficult to place—where history could be present without being recreated, and where every detail carried a sense of intention. And after bringing everyone to Portugal from all corners of the world, we wanted to heighten that sense of dislocation—to make the day feel almost like a fever dream: beautiful and slightly unreal.

Our Team of Vendors

We had the privilege of working with a group of people who understood the vision and then pushed it somewhere we couldn’t have reached on our own. Ami was the brilliant planner who held the entire thing together, guiding every detail while giving the creative process room to evolve. Babel Bloom brought their own vision to the styling and florals; Jack Hancock brought their wonderfully thoughtful, slightly subversive point of view to the clothing; Mighala turned the cake into a true work of art.

Emotions and Math captured the day exactly as it felt—all the emotion, beauty, and chaos, preserved just as it was. The coming together of those creative collaborations, along with the trust, generosity, and sheer talent of everyone involved, is what made the wedding feel so completely like us. And that doesn’t even begin to acknowledge everyone who helped make the day what it was. There were so many hands, ideas, and acts of care behind it, and we are deeply grateful to every one of them.

The Location

We first traveled to Lisbon in 2023 and fell in love with it almost immediately. There was something about the city that stayed with us, and we always knew we wanted to return. With some of my family living in Europe, having a destination wedding there felt natural. When we found Palácio do Grilo, it felt completely right. Its history, old-world beauty, and the intimacy of its spaces made it unlike anywhere else we had seen.

The Ceremony

Our ceremony took place outdoors, in front of the weathered façade of the old palace, with the Portuguese afternoon light falling across the stone. I walked down the aisle with both my mom and dad, something I knew I wanted from the very beginning. They have each shaped my life in such different and equally profound ways, and it felt right for them to share that moment together. Walking between them, seeing Elliot waiting for me, and taking in the people who had traveled from all over the world to be there is a moment I know I’ll carry with me for the rest of my life.

My sister Olivia was our officiant. She is my best friend and a writer by profession, and hearing her tell the story of our life together, in her own words, was as emotional as you’d expect. She had been there for so much of it; hearing it back in her voice, given shape by someone who had known it from the beginning, felt like a gift. I will always treasure that she was the one who married us.

The Cocktail Hour

We wanted the cocktail hour to feel nourishing and generous—an unhurried stretch of time where everyone could simply settle into being together. It lasted nearly three hours, unfolding in front of the incredible façade of the old palace, with guests free to wander through the gardens and discover the quirky art installations tucked throughout the grounds. It was lovely to watch the day take on a life of its own—kids playing in the gardens, friends drifting between spaces, and a few very cute wedding crashers in the form of completely random dogs. It felt like the perfect pause between the ceremony and the night ahead: joyful, curious, and a little surreal.

The Reception

What we loved most was the feeling of moving through the palace as the night unfolded, each room revealing itself with a completely different mood and its own strange little theater. We began around a square table so everyone could face one another, dining by candlelight beneath a veiled deer mounted on the wall, which became a delightful source of fascination for everyone. There were speeches and toasts, incredible food, local Portuguese wine, and the quiet surrealism of sitting down to dinner with our closest friends and family in an old palace in Portugal. We took a shot of ginjinha with our cake before descending a candlelit, tiled staircase into the ballroom, where the night shifted once again and we danced late into the night.

The Special Touches

We wanted the day to feel personal through the people and connections that had already become part of our story. Our Portuguese friends were the ones who first made us fall in love with the country, taking us on a gastronomy tour during our first visit. Having them, years later, drive us to our wedding in their vintage cars felt like a beautiful full-circle moment.

In much the same way, our friend Lara became part of the day’s visual memory. We asked her to capture moments throughout the day on our digital Super 8-style cameras, and she embraced the assignment with such enthusiasm that I don’t think we ever saw the camera leave her hand. We’re so grateful for the little fragments she captured along the way—the moments unfolding just outside our line of sight that we might never have known about otherwise.

Our Favorite Moment

For both of us, it was exchanging our vows. We had each spent a long time writing them, and it was important that they felt personal and truly reflected the relationship we had built over more than ten years. Hearing Elliot’s words for the first time, and finally being able to share mine with him, made it one of the most meaningful parts of the day. As we exchanged our vows, the wind suddenly picked up and caught my veil, adding even more drama and poetry to the moment. Looking back, those became some of our favorite photographs from the entire day. It was completely unplanned, but somehow it made both the visuals and the feeling of it all even more romantic.

Our Style

The Bridal Looks

Working with Jack from The System was one of my favorite parts of the entire process. We never really started with a fixed idea of what the dress had to be. Instead, it slowly revealed itself through sketches, fabrics, and conversations as the rest of the wedding came together. Jack drew so much inspiration from Palácio do Grilo itself—its age, architecture, colors, and slightly theatrical quality—while still keeping the dress feeling modern and like something I would actually wear.

There was something really beautiful about how thoughtfully it all came together. The dress wasn’t designed in isolation; it evolved alongside the shoes, the venue, and all the other small choices that were shaping the day. By the end, it felt less like choosing a wedding dress and more like creating something that belonged specifically to this wedding.

The Groom Looks

Elliot always knew he wanted something more individual than a traditional wedding suit, so once we began working with Jack from The System on my dress, it quickly became obvious that they should design his look as well. Jack understood how to make it feel distinctive and personal while keeping it refined. They even incorporated fabric offcuts from my dress into the suit, creating a tender connection between the two looks without making them feel overly coordinated. The final result felt completely natural on him and perfectly suited to the day.

Our Advice

For the Planning Process

Stay close to what feels true to you, and try not to let expectations—your own, the algorithm’s, or anyone else’s—dictate the day. I’ve never loved the advice to do what’s "expected" of a wedding; you have to live with those choices long after the day is over, and I think you’re far more likely to regret the things you did to satisfy an idea of what a wedding should be than the things that felt true to you. Instead, be realistic about the resources you have and use them creatively. You don’t need to recreate someone else’s wedding to make yours feel extraordinary. Find people you truly trust, then give them the freedom to do what they do best. The best parts of our wedding came from allowing things to evolve rather than trying to control every outcome. And somewhere in the middle of all the decisions, remember that you’re actually getting married. That’s the whole point.

For On The Day

Eat a proper breakfast, preferably with the people you love. The day has a tendency to become a series of small departures—from one room to the next, one person to the next, one version of yourself to another—and it helps to begin with something steady. After that, let the day be what it is. You can’t possibly take all of it in at once, and you shouldn’t try. If something goes wrong, let it. By the time you notice, everyone else will probably be dancing.

For Post-Wedding

Plan for rest—not just the next day, but the days that follow. A wedding is a strange accumulation of months, sometimes years, of anticipation, decisions, and energy, all condensed into a single day—and the sheer scale of it can take you by surprise. We spent a few days with our family before going away on our own, which gave us time to slowly come back down, be together, and let the enormity of it all truly sink in. It was a lovely way to transition from the wedding back into everyday life as just the two of us.