This model bride’s wedding in Italy featured Lake Como views and a Sabyasachi lehenga

When international model Arya Bendkhale met orthopaedic business owner Federico Diego Perego at an equestrian event in Verona during Milan Fashion Week in 2021, neither could have predicted the whirlwind romance that would follow. Their love story, spanning continents and cultures, culminated in two wedding ceremonies that celebrated both their Italian and Indian heritage, making for a memorable wedding in Italy.

Bendkhale, a 23-year-old model from Pune, Maharashtra, was in Milan for Fashion Week when she attended the event in Verona. At the after-party, she met Perego, an Italian business owner from Brianza who shared her passion for horses. Both non-drinkers, they struck up a conversation that continued well into the night. “We just started talking and shared our Instagram handles,” recalls Bendkhale. “Then he DM’d me and asked me for a first date in Milan.”

That first date had its share of challenges. Perego took her to an aperitivo place that proved disappointing. “It was very, very disgusting,” Bendkhale laughs. But he quickly booked another restaurant, Izu, and the evening turned around. Over four and a half hours they discovered an unexpected connection. The night soon turned unforgettable when Perego’s vehicle was damaged and his jacket stolen.

For Bendkhale, the relationship was a first. “He was the first guy I ever dated,” she says. “I never dated anyone before because I was always studying, and my mum had told me to get a degree before I could start dating.” After a month, she returned to India to tell her parents about Perego.

The following year, when Perego was in Chennai for work, her father insisted on meeting him. “Either he comes to Mumbai, or I go to Chennai,” he said. Perego flew to Mumbai, meeting her parents at dinner in his Italian shirt and moccasins while they wore formal Indian attire. “Everybody was staring at us,” Perego recalls. “The restaurant in India was huge, and everyone was really looking at us, wondering what I was doing with them there.”

After more than two years of long-distance dating, Perego decided to propose. Knowing how important New York was for Bendkhale after she signed with Ford Models, he planned the proposal there with the help of her best friend Madhulika, who later became her maid of honour. The setting was Summit, a building with panoramic views of Manhattan. “I had to hide the ring from her during the entire trip,” Perego says. Madhulika kept up the ruse by telling Bendkhale they were headed to a Michelin-starred restaurant and persuading her to get her nails and hair done. “She took me for a blow-dry and nails, which I don’t usually do,” Bendkhale remembers. The proposal took place on a cloudy afternoon, but as Perego got down on one knee, the sky cleared to reveal what Bendkhale calls “the most beautiful sunset in New York I’ve ever seen.”