Their Story

Five chapters, one very long conversation.

Chapter I · Autumn 2021

The Bookshop

Isla and Theo met on a grey afternoon in a second-hand bookshop off a Milan side street, both reaching for the last copy of the same worn novel. He let her have it — on the condition that she read it over coffee with him. She said yes to the coffee, kept the book, and neither of them has stopped talking since.

Chapter II

Milan & London

Milano Centrale

Theo

✦

London St Pancras

Isla

Two years — last trains & early flights

For the first two years, theirs was a story told across a continent — Isla's work in London, Theo's in Milan, and a running tally of last trains and early flights. They learned a city by its train stations and each other by the long letters in between. Distance, it turned out, only made them certain.

Chapter III

Home, At Last

When they finally closed the gap and found a small apartment with a balcony and impossible morning light, it felt less like a milestone and more like exhaling. They filled it with too many books, cooked badly and happily, and spent their weekends chasing the lakes north of the city — Como, always, their favourite.

Chapter IV · Spring 2026

The Question

Will you marry me?

Theo proposed at golden hour on a quiet terrace above the very lake they'd return to again and again, with a ring he'd carried nervously for a week and a speech he forgot entirely. There was no one else there, no cell service, nothing to do but be completely present. She said yes before he'd finished. Of course she did.

Chapter V

What's Ahead

Now they're bringing everyone they love to the water that has always felt like theirs. Whatever comes next — more cities, more books, more badly-cooked dinners — they'll take it the way they've taken everything: side by side, and just a little in disbelief at their luck.

And so, forever begins

And they can't wait to celebrate this next chapter with you in Lake Como.

See the Weekend