For nearly two decades, actor Arden Cho and orthopaedic surgeon Christopher Lee lived in Los Angeles without ever crossing paths. It wasn’t until they were both in their late 30s—focused on their careers and ready to take a more intentional approach to dating—that they connected on a dating app.
“Dating apps felt less like a trend and more like a practical way to meet someone outside our everyday routines,” Arden, who is known as the voice of Rumi in K-pop Demon Hunters, says. “As a public person, dating online came with its own challenges. I had actually been kicked off a few apps because people reported my profile, assuming it wasn’t really me. Fortunately, one app took verification seriously, and within just a few days—and only two dates—I met Chris. Looking back, it feels like timing was everything. We found each other exactly when we were supposed to.”
In March 2025, Chris proposed in one of Arden’s favourite places: Maui. “He planned a beautiful, intimate proposal set against one of the most breathtaking backdrops imaginable, and somehow he managed to completely surprise me!” Arden remembers. “It was incredibly romantic, and I’ll never forget it.”
The wedding took place just over a year later at Villa Cora in Florence, over the weekend of June 27. “Planning moved surprisingly fast!” Arden says. “Between K-pop Demon Hunters and a busy awards season, we didn’t start planning until right after the Oscars, which gave us just about two months to pull everything together. Thankfully, we worked with Nancy and Pae at So Happi Together, who made the process feel much more manageable.”
From the beginning, the couple’s goal wasn’t just to host a wedding, but to curate an unforgettable weekend for family and friends in Florence. “We fell in love with Florence and wanted the weekend to feel like a beautiful vacation where everyone could slow down, celebrate, and make memories together,” Arden says. “Italy is special to us, not only because of the food and culture, but because this is where I decided he was my person. It became less about the event itself and more about bringing all of our favourite people together in one magical place.”
Even though the setting was idyllic, the weekend had its fair share of challenges. “Looking back, it’s incredible how many obstacles arose before the celebrations even began,” Arden shares. “Our airline misplaced all four of our checked bags on the way to Florence—including my husband’s custom tuxedo, our hanboks, and the traditional attire for our Korean pyebaek ceremony. I remember sitting there in tears thinking our wedding weekend was already falling apart. Thankfully, with the incredible help of Villa Cora, we recovered everything just in time.”
Right after that, Christopher’s family’s flight was delayed and ultimately cancelled. “For a while, we genuinely thought they might miss the wedding,” Arden admits. “We were especially worried because our traditional Korean pyebaek ceremony is centred around honouring the groom’s parents. Fortunately, they arrived safely, and we simply moved the ceremony to a beautiful midnight celebration that ended up feeling even more intimate and special.”
As if that weren’t enough, Florence was under a record-breaking heat wave and a level-three “red” heat alert on the wedding day. The couple’s planners shifted the ceremony to later in the evening, while vendors—including JD Events, which doubled the reception’s air-conditioning units—went above and beyond to keep the celebration comfortable.
“Looking back, this is what made the weekend so special—life isn’t perfect, but the people in our lives came together to make it feel like it was,” Arden says. “In Korean, there’s a saying, ‘액땜했다,’ which roughly means that a small hardship spares you from a much bigger one. That’s exactly how we choose to remember our wedding weekend.”
“In many ways, it felt like the perfect beginning to our marriage,” Christopher adds. “We learned that even when things don’t go according to plan, we can face them together—with the love and support of the people around us—and still end up with something even more beautiful than we imagined.”
The wedding weekend began with a hanbok welcome party on Friday night. For the welcome party, Arden and Christopher both wore custom handmade hanboks created by MeeHee. They also encouraged their guests to wear hanboks. “There’s a saying that Koreans are the Italians of Asia,” Arden says. “We both love great food, cherish family, take pride in our cultures, and celebrate life passionately—so this ceremony felt like a fitting way to begin our wedding weekend in Florence.”
The couple also incorporated a traditional Korean pyebaek ceremony, during which they honoured Christopher’s parents and received blessings for their marriage. The ceremony included symbolic foods—including jujubes and chestnuts representing prosperity and future children—and culminated with the parents tossing them for the couple to catch together.
For the ceremony the next day, Arden wore a custom Vera Wang dress. “Because of my work, I’ve had the privilege of wearing many extraordinary looks over the years, so I wanted my wedding dress to feel truly singular—something that could only belong to this moment,” Arden explains. “The dress featured exquisite Italian lace, a subtle nod to the location of the wedding, and it felt unmistakably Vera Wang—elegant, romantic, and deeply feminine. The lace sleeves added a sense of softness and old-world romance, while the custom veil lent an ethereal quality to the look.”
Even though Arden is an actor, she was surprisingly nervous about reciting her vows. “My husband had been teasing me for months that his vows were so good there wouldn’t be a dry eye in the room,” she says. “In the end, I think he cried the most. Looking out and seeing so many of our family and friends crying and smiling alongside us was incredibly moving. It was one of those rare moments where time seemed to slow down. I never imagined a wedding could truly feel like a fairy tale, but somehow it did. It was everything I had hoped for and more.”
After the ceremony, an Italian folk trio led guests to the cocktail reception, and the newlyweds spent time with their guests before sneaking away for a quick drive together as husband and wife—a quiet moment before the celebration began.
For the reception, Arden changed into a custom Eden Aharon dress. “It was my couture princess moment for our first dance and reception,” the bride explains. “With its sculpted corset, delicate lace appliqués, and layers that create beautiful movement and lightness, the dress felt both dramatic and effortless.”
Once inside the tent, the focus was on the food. “One of our love languages is sharing a good meal together, so we knew that it would be a big priority for us during our wedding weekend,” Arden says. “For one of our courses, we served all of our favourite pastas—classic carbonara for me and spicy rigatoni with red vodka sauce for Chris. It was just one more way to reach our goal for the entire wedding, which was to share the things we love most with the people we love!”
The wedding cake was a classic Italian millefoglie with berries and chocolate cream—Chris’s favourite flavour. Chef Matthie left it unfinished and rolled it onto the dance floor so the couple could complete it with berries, cream, and powdered sugar. After the cake, Arden surprised Chris with an impromptu serenade of one of the couple’s favourite songs: Shania Twain’s “You’re Still the One.” The newlyweds danced surrounded by all of their guests, who eventually joined in. “The love and joy in the room was palpable,” Arden remembers.
Later in the evening, the bride changed into her final look of the night for the after-party. “I wanted something that felt entirely different from the dresses that came before it—a final fashion moment to close out the night,” she says. To that end, she collaborated with Los Angeles–based bridal designer Natalya Valentine to create an exclusive custom minidress.
“The vision was to create a dress that felt celebratory yet refined: a modern interpretation of after-party dressing,” Arden explains. “Together, we explored different silhouettes and necklines, shaping the design into something that felt both distinctive and deeply personal.”
The finished piece was hand-encrusted with nearly 20,000 sequins, beads, and crystal elements. The sculptural proportions and intricate embellishment felt bold enough for the final hours of the celebration, but elegant enough to remain unmistakably bridal—and designed for dancing until the very last song.
The bride had one final surprise in store: a custom ramen station. “Chris is obsessed with ramen,” she explains. “We had custom cups featuring our engagement photos, and the whole thing ended up being one of the biggest hits of the night. Between the live band, late-night ramen, and karaoke that carried on until sunrise, it was the celebration we’d always dreamed of.”
This article was originally published on Vogue.com.
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Our traditional Korean pyebaek ceremony looked incredible juxtaposed against the Italian neoclassical interiors of Villa Cora.
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We felt like we were on a movie set walking around the villa’s grounds in our gorgeous hanboks.
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My amber binyeo is a traditional Korean hair ornament that symbolises longevity, good fortune, and a lifetime of happiness. The butterfly motif symbolises love, harmony, and happiness in marriage. Together with the amber, the hair ornaments carry wishes for a joyful and prosperous life. It completed my bridal hairstyle while carrying the blessings of our Korean heritage!
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So excited to walk into our welcome dinner and be surrounded by all of our friends and family who travelled from around the world to celebrate with us.
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We created a gifting station during our welcome dinner to share more of our Korean heritage with our guests. Everyone received a silk Nossi Bojagi cloth purse. Inside were custom K-pop Demon Hunters Funko Pops (Rumi, Jinu, and Derpy—our little nod to Arden, Chris, and Chewy), my favourite Laneige Lip Sleeping Masks, Sanrio Character Charm Blind Boxes because I love them, and mini bottles of Don Julio 1942—my tequila of choice and something that’s surprisingly difficult to find in Italy. Each bottle was hand-painted by artist Jane Gahng to coordinate with our wedding’s colour palette and florals, making even the smallest details feel thoughtful and personal.
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Our friends looked incredible in the ornate ballroom of Villa Cora.
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A night full of laughter, love, and unforgettable toasts!
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A little wedding chaos was inevitable, but thankfully I married the one person who could make me laugh through every unexpected moment.
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My custom hand-painted details and beautiful gold embroidery were to die for! I loved reimagining this traditional look through a more fashion-forward lens with Meehee. The vibrant orange—not common for hanboks—symbolises joy, prosperity, and positive energy…the perfect colour to celebrate the start of our next chapter together.
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How gorgeous do all my girls look?
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A quiet moment with my glam team from Seoul, Jaein and Hojin, getting me ready for our late-night pyebaek ceremony, one of the most meaningful Korean wedding traditions, honouring family, gratitude, and the beginning of a new chapter together.
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After dinner, we wanted to celebrate that tradition while making the looks feel uniquely our own, so we created custom versions with Meehee that felt elevated, modern, and fashion-forward while remaining respectful of our heritage. My red skirt symbolises joy, prosperity, and good fortune, while the green jacket represents new beginnings, growth, and a long, harmonious marriage. Christopher’s attire reflects dignity, responsibility, and respect for family as he begins this new chapter as a husband. Together, our looks balanced tradition with personal style, something that was important to us throughout the entire wedding weekend.
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My pyebaek ceremony accessories included the traditional jokduri, a bridal headpiece historically worn during Korean wedding ceremonies.
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During the pyebaek ceremony the groom carries his bride on his back as a promise to support and protect his wife throughout their marriage. Chris took this very literally and refused to put me down! One of our many silly special moments of the night.
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Jujubes and chestnuts symbolise children and prosperity. Our in-laws threw them into our hanboks predicting four sons and three daughters. We then bit a jujube together to see who would be the “stronger-willed” one in our marriage.… Guess who won.
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My friends Katherine McNamara and Dominic Sherwood enjoying the magnificent sunset we got on the villa’s terrace.
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We encouraged our guests to embrace either the timeless beauty of the hanbok or the romantic elegance of Bridgerton-inspired dressing. Watching those two worlds come together was one of my favourite moments of the weekend.
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My girls Hannah Yi and Emily Mei in their custom Leehwa hanboks.
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Alberto Rosende and Dominic Sherwood in the impromptu Vanity Fair–style photo booth our photographer set up on the villa’s staircase for the evening.
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My brother wore a hanbok complete with a gat hat. Orimi designed a custom hanbok for my Elle Korea shoot. He happened to be in Korea when I chose the welcome dinner theme, and they were able to make this beautiful custom piece for him.
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Karen Fukuhara enjoying the espresso martinis we served with dessert.
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Architecture in paper form—the gate enclosure, layered palette, and sculpted embossed details of the invitation suite offered a first glimpse of the design to come.
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My custom Vera veil looking like art.
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Wedding bands have so many meanings in various cultures. We designed a dual band that represented the merging of two lives, interpreted through each of our personal aesthetics.
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I wanted to wear my highest heels with my dress, and I love these old Valentinos that I've worn to a million award shows. My something old for the wedding day!
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How beautiful are these Mikimoto pearls gifted by one of my girlfriends at my bridal shower! I love the classic bridal touch of pearls with the delicate Italian lace on my Vera Wang gown. My something new!
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Glam done and time to get dressed! Your girl is getting married!
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Detail shots to die for, thank you Rebecca! Wedding day is truly a blur and seeing all these moments have me living it all over again.
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Bridal portraits in my Eden Aharon reception gown because this dress had to be photographed against these sumptuous interiors! I spotted it at bridal fashion week just months before my wedding and reached out to Jaxon James Couture, and they were able to rush-order a custom version for me—it was a dream!
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One of my favourite moments with my longtime hairstylist, Hojin, putting in my veil for my Vera Wang gown right before our first look.
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Our photographer, Rebecca Yale, was photographing Chris getting ready in the connecting room and snuck this shot through the door of me playing with my veil.
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My bridal moment in my dream Vera Wang gown. Awards season left us with only a few months to bring this custom dress to life, but somehow everything came together. I’m endlessly grateful to everyone who made it happen—I can’t imagine my wedding without it.
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I’ve worn a lot of beautiful gowns throughout my career, but nothing prepares you for the feeling of your wedding dress.
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My handsome husband getting ready for the day. We worked with David Lim at High Society in Los Angeles to make him the custom midnight blue tuxedo that he always wanted.
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This Sky-Dweller was my 40th-birthday gift to Chris. Though sport watches aren’t traditionally considered black-tie, we embraced the idea of wearing pieces that feel personal and meaningful. This was his dream watch and the only watch he wanted to wear for our special day!
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Moments after our first look. Chris cried; I smiled and wiped his tears. It was perfect.
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Wrapped in his arms, exactly where I was always meant to be.
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First look done, ready to walk down the aisle and get married!
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One of the greatest gifts my planning team gave me was letting me simply be a bride. I never knew that in the 100-degree heat, Butterfly Floral Design was replacing flowers right up until our guests walked in. Thanks to So Happi Together, all I saw was the enchanted garden we’d dreamed of.
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He’s literally always smiling. I’m so lucky.
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Our sweet flower girls waiting to walk down the aisle with their custom silk flower-petal purses.
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Walking down the steps of the villa to the ceremony was such a surreal grand moment, I felt like a princess!
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Locking eyes with my husband.
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Chris seeing me walk down the aisle.
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Our garden ceremony, just as the sun began to soften. Thanks to a last-minute timeline adjustment by our incredible planning team, we exchanged vows in the dreamiest golden light beneath the shade of the trees. It couldn’t have felt more magical.
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His tears were the sweetest “I do.”
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Pastor Min invited us to “kiss as long as you’d like.” We lingered for just a little longer.
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Our first steps as husband and wife!
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Our guests making their way to cocktail hour in an adjoining garden.
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Cocktail hour from above. Loved seeing these drone shots from our photo/ video team!
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Aperol spritzes are a must for a cocktail reception in Italy. Perfect way for our guests to cool off in the heat wave.
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Pure bliss together at cocktail hour.
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My gorgeous friend Karen looking out from the terrace.
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At the end of cocktail hour, I absconded upstairs with some of my girlfriends to change into my reception gown. It was such a fun moment of girlhood getting my makeup touched up and laced into my gown surrounded by my girls.
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A moment for the train!
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On our way to peek into our reception tent we passed our—now empty—ceremony garden and took a moment to take it all in.
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Just the two of us and a little golden-hour magic.
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Dip perfection, practicing our first-dance moves! Chris was so nervous!
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Snuck up to the roof of the villa to watch the sunset together—just wait till you see the videos of this moment from Peyton Frank and the video team! Breathtaking!
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We always imagined an old-world Italian romance, and our vintage Bentley felt like the perfect final touch. We stole a few quiet moments together as it carried us around the villa before the evening’s celebrations.
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Chris had his Bond moment as we caught the sunset over Florence.
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Jaein touching me up before our quick getaway!
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Taking it all in that we’re married.
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I’m usually the one in front of the camera, but this time Chris got to experience a little of my world. Our vintage Bentley moment felt straight out of a movie.
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Swept away in the moment.
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One private toast before the party began!
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One of the most extraordinary transformations of the weekend. JD Events built this stunning glass reception space overnight, turning the villa’s parking lot into the romantic dinner party we’d always imagined.
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Our Florentine Belle Époque reception came to life thanks to Nancy and Paean from So Happi Together. Old-world Italian romance meets modern, refined elegance. We couldn’t have asked for a better team.
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Our guests making their way into our reception; audible gasps were heard.
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Gifting is one of my love languages. Gold pocket mirrors, custom-engraved with individual guest names, doubled as guest place cards.
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Loved seeing Emily in this incredible Diana Couture look she had commissioned for our wedding. The dress code was black-tie in rich jewel tones, and she absolutely understood the assignment.
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Our first steps into the reception, met with the loudest cheers and the most love we’ve ever felt.
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Greeting my mom as we made our grand entrance while our friends waved napkins in the air. One of my favourite details is seeing our photo and video team in the frame, a quiet reminder of the people behind the scenes that work so hard to preserve these memories for us.
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Surgeon by profession, dancer by surprise. We had so much fun, we might need to keep taking dance lessons!
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Our dance floor opened, and the rest is history…including two pairs of ripped pants.
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Toasting to an incredible night.
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Even on a packed dance floor it felt like just us.
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We laughed, we cried, and somehow the speeches were even more beautiful than we could have imagined. Not a dry eye in the room.
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We did a sweetheart table to make sure we got to spend some time together, and we had so much fun as our guests kept coming up to visit.
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One of my absolute favourite images from our wedding weekend. Villa Cora, the lights of Florence, and the Duomo glowing in the distance—it was the most dreamlike backdrop we could have imagined. Somehow this photograph captured it all.
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A bird’s-eye view of our reception, glowing well into the night, with the White Keys keeping the dance floor alive. Despite nearly missing the wedding due to a European heat wave, they arrived just in time. Thanks to our incredible planning team, everything ran flawlessly and the celebration never slowed down.
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The dinner menus by Sugared Fig embodied the rococo opulence we wanted guests to feel. Backed in luxurious velvet with a gold foil monogramme, nestled inside sculpted embossed gold-filigree shadow box frames, and pulled out by coloured tassels.
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I love how this captures the energy of the moment with both of our moms in a giant hug on the dance floor. We had so much fun. The White Keys had everyone dancing ALL night.
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Our little gelato VIPs! We opened up the Brindapino gelato cart early for our flower girls so they could have a bite between courses.
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Our wedding cake was a classic Italian millefoglie with berries and chocolate cream, Chris’s favourite flavour! Our chef Matthia Nesi left it unfinished and rolled it onto the dance floor so that we could complete it with berries, cream, and powdered sugar!
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My brother really said, “I got the train, you get the spotlight.”
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When I was at Jaxon James Couture, they showed me some dresses from Natalya Valentine, and we ended up creating this one together for the after-party. It had over 20,000 beads, sequins, and jewels, and it set the tone for the party.
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No Korean celebration is complete without karaoke. We built one into the after-party…and somehow the singing continued until sunrise!
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John Harlan Kim and Alberto Rosende stepped off the dance floor for ramen. It was the hit of the after-party, all our friends were ramen slurping all night long. Very Huntr/x-coded.
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Anyone who knows me knows that I quickly end up in slippers on all my red carpets. Loved my silver shoes and bag that matched my after-party dress, but they quickly ended up on the table and the slippers went on.
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Corrected Text Original Text Chris’s favourite food is ramen, so my best-kept wedding secret was surprising him with a custom Nongshim ramen bar all the way in Italy. Since he’s convinced the Rumi ramen is the best, I had our engagement photos printed on the cups as a little keepsake for our guests.
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Our after-party took place in the basement of Villa Cora, and our friends were dancing till well after sunrise the next morning.
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From dancing and karaoke until sunrise, straight to the pool. An effortlessly chic all-white brunch. The perfect send-off.
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Relaxed recovery day-after brunch party with detox juices, poolside lounging, wood-oven pizza, and slow goodbyes.
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Walking into our all-white Sunday brunch and seeing everyone embrace the dress code was such a beautiful moment. I wore a custom pleated organza look by Vivianchan, created just for the occasion, while Chris wore a custom silk and bamboo suit by High Society. I loved seeing all of our friends have so much fun with their looks.
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Cooling off in the shade of the rose-covered trellis at our brunch.
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