Regal and Romantic Don’t Even Begin to Cover This Rosecliff Wedding

We're talking a 12-foot train, a five-tier cake, and a champagne saber.

By Rachel Kashdan· 2/6/2020, 12:22 p.m.

June 30, 2019
Rosecliff
Newport, Rhode Island

THE STORY

When Victor Dumé first spotted Ardita Ljulja inside a New York City nightclub in January 2011, you could say it was love at first sight. “As soon as I walked in I saw her at a table, and it was like there was a spotlight on her,” Victor recalls. “I was just stunned by her. Time literally stood still.” For Ardita, meanwhile, that wasn’t exactly the case. “I was out trying to have a girls’ night and he kept coming over to hang out with us, so I was like, ‘Oh my god, leave us alone,'” Ardita says with a laugh. Weeks later, the two ran into each other again at another club, and then once more during another night out not long after that. “After a few times running into each other it became a funny thing, so then at that point I worked up the courage to ask for her number,” Victor says. Ardita was a college student taking summer courses in the city at the time, so Victor suggested they meet between classes for lunch. “I thought to myself, ‘That’s harmless and he’s really cute, I might as well give him a shot,'” Ardita says. So they met for a bite to eat one afternoon, and then again the next day, plus every day that she had class for the next five weeks. After those weeks passed, they decided to go on an official first date—dinner and a movie—and the rest is history.

About five years later, the couple was living together on Staten Island, and Victor, who decided to go back to school shortly after meeting Ardita, was graduating from college. Throughout the prior years, Victor had occasionally asked Ardita questions about her taste in jewelry and taken note of her responses. “She kind of made her custom ring throughout the years without realizing it,” he says. Victor also knew that Ardita wanted to have a private, intimate engagement, so he rented out the rooftop of a hotel near the Freedom Tower for one night during the weekend of his graduation under the guise of celebrating his new diploma. When they arrived on the hotel’s roof that night though, it was covered in rose petals and votives, and the only other people present were a violinist playing “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” a photographer, and a videographer. “I was in shock and had no idea what was going on. They were snapping all these photos and I was like, ‘Victor, who do they think we are? What’s happening?'” Ardita says. “He looked at me and said, ‘It’s happening.'”

When Ardita and Victor first visited Newport’s Rosecliff mansion in search of a stately venue with a French chateau vibe, they fell for it immediately. It was the first venue they’d visited, though, and they felt they “needed to do our due diligence,” Ardita explains. So, they jetted off to Europe to tour similar venues in Paris and Venice. “Everything we saw we’d [compare] to Rosecliff and we just kept going back to [it]. We basically flew across the world to confirm it,” the bride says with a laugh. On the day of their wedding, the couple said “I do” overlooking the ocean in front of 135 guests, and then took to the ballroom for a grand fête. There, they played up the romantic, regal feel of their venue with large arrangements of white and blush peonies, roses, ranunculus, and hydrangea, plus gold and rose gold décor, and plenty of candles. “Everything really turned out exactly the way we imagined it, if not even more so,” Ardita says. “The day exceeded our expectations and nothing went wrong. We were so thankful.”

THE DETAILS