LADA KRAVCHENKO & ALEXANDER POLOVITKIN

The gown, the setting, bouquet, music, the dance steps, the dramatic departure. Like every happy couple, Lada Kravchenko and Alexander Polovitkin desired an indelibly perfect wedding, but they didn’t agonize over one detail: the guest list.

Their three-day celebration was “a holiday only for two,” says Lada, explaining, “We are happy to share fun with friends and family at any other time, but love is always a story only for two.”
They met in Moscow at a fashion magazine’s opening party. “The crowd was huge; we danced a lot,” Lada recalls. Alex requested her number, but he was going away on business and Lada was leaving for Hong Kong. Months had passed, then “Alex made his first trip around the world to see me,” says Lada. “It was incredibly impressive.”

On their first romantic escape, they lingered in Monaco. Lada, unable to “keep silent,” confessed her love. “Since then, we have shared all our trips,” she says.

As they walked through the cathedral square to an apartment they’d rented while Lada worked in Milan, Alex took advantage of the moment. “I fell on my knees, asking her to be my wife. I felt like the happiest guy in the world when she said, ‘Yes.’”

“It was destiny” that she found the perfect dress in Milan. “One of my castings was for Nicole Spose,” Lada reveals. But finding a garden location in Monaco proved to be more challenging. “Almost by chance, we saw pictures of Giardini Botanici Hanbury” in nearby Italy, she says.

Their wedding odyssey began at Monaco’s Vista Palace Hotel. “The next day, we moved to Hotel de Paris, where we started our preparations in two different apartments,” Lada shares. It was Friday, May 13. Although she is “not superstitious,” she was “worried so much about everything,” that she even swapped out flowers in her bouquet en route to the gardens. As Lada heard musicians strike up a waltz and she spied Alex at the altar, she “almost fainted.”

The ceremony—performed in French—“sounded as beautiful as the music.” Having taken waltz lessons together, “it was incredibly delightful to dance together,” Lada says. Back in Monaco, their yacht awaited and fireworks illuminated the sky as they listened to 60s-era songs.

The next day, the couple “relaxed, sailing near the most beautiful places of Côte d`Azur.” On day three, a helicopter swept them to St-Paul-de-Vence. “We walked around the whole day,” says Lada, and afterwards they hosted “a dinner for [everyone] who helped us. It was the end of the wedding and the beginning of our life as a couple.” Alexander agrees: “All three days went like one happy dream.”

In the days that followed they motored through France, Italy, Austria, Germany and Switzerland, seeking out “the most beautiful places” and wanting “those days to be only for us,” Lada says.

His company, Fitness Holding, is in Moscow; her modeling takes them to New York. Just as they know when to “be a bit selfish” and carve out time for two, they’re also not afraid to be apart or to disagree. “I really love her, even when I think the opposite,” Alex assures. And Lada believes “space and time” to pursue ambitions ensures they’ll “be in love, even when time passes.”