Some couples you photograph once. Alice and Vitto I’ve had the privilege of photographing across years, a maternity session, their baby boy Giulio’s first portraits, and then this: Vitto getting down on one knee at Castello di Trisobbio, a historic castle in the Piedmont region of northern Italy, while Alice had no idea what was coming.

Their story is one of those that makes you believe in the universe having a plan. They met on a school bus in high school, it didn’t work out, crossed paths again years later, still couldn’t quite make it happen, and then New Year’s Eve brought them back together for good. By the time I photographed this engagement session at Castello di Trisobbio, they already had little Giulio, a home Vitto had refurbished himself, and years of real life behind them. The ring was almost a formality. Almost.

Castello di Trisobbio sits in the hills north of Alessandria in Piedmont, the kind of Italian landscape that turns golden at sunset and makes every portrait feel like it belongs in a film. If you’re planning an engagement session or a proposal in northern Italy, it’s one of those places that does something special to the light.

Alice & Vitto, thank you for letting me be part of so many chapters of your story.