COVER STORY

How Roxanne Navaï Reimagined a Persian Wedding in Monaco

With
The Bridal Journey

Fourteen years is a long time to know someone without quite knowing what they will become to you. For Roxanne Navaï and Ryan Brett, it was precisely that stretch of time, across cities, careers and continents, that quietly shaped the certainty of their eventual marriage.

They met in 2011 as students at the University of St Andrews, introduced at a party by a mutual friend. Roxanne was nineteen, Ryan was twenty. The connection was immediate and disarmingly unforced, sealed over a shared love of Drake, a detail that felt almost preordained given Roxanne’s Toronto roots. Then life, as it often does, intervened. Ryan moved to New York, building a career across finance and technology and later completing his MBA at Yale. Roxanne’s world unfolded through London, Shanghai and Berlin before settling in Paris, where she honed her instincts at Karla Otto before founding RX STUDIO, her own boutique fashion PR agency representing a new guard of global designers. They remained in each other’s orbit, but not together. Almost a decade passed that way.

WEDDINGS

27 JAN 26

It took a global pause to recalibrate the timing. At the start of the pandemic, Ryan sent a message on Instagram. A few exchanges became daily FaceTimes. Long-distance visits followed, then a decision that felt inevitable rather than dramatic. In 2021, they moved to Paris together. Looking back, Roxanne describes it as surreal that they spent so many formative years knowing each other without being a couple. In hindsight, it was exactly right.

Ryan proposed two years later, with a gesture that spoke less to grandeur than to intimacy and lineage. With the help of Roxanne’s mother, Iranian Canadian jeweller Jaleh Farhadpour, he selected a marquise diamond from her archive. He set it in her signature white gold, engraving her name inside the band. The ring was both heirloom and collaboration, a physical meeting point of the two people Roxanne loves most. He proposed at home in Paris, with champagne, pastries from Cédric Grolet and flowers from their local florist. It was private, considered and deeply personal exactly as she would have wanted.

That same sense of intention guided the wedding itself. From the outset, the couple were clear that this would not be a performance of tradition, but a thoughtful interpretation of it. Honouring Roxanne’s Persian heritage felt essential, not only for its visual beauty but for the poetry and symbolism embedded within its rituals. Equally important was honouring family, particularly her parents, who were closely involved throughout, and her late father, who passed away in 2017 and never met Ryan. His presence was felt through music, woven carefully into playlists across the weekend, and through the vintage Bulgari watch Ryan wore on the wedding day, a quiet gesture that carried enormous emotional weight.

ROXANNE & RYAN (1)
Photography Cinzia Bruschini

The choice of location was never in question. Cap d’Ail and Monaco are deeply entwined with Roxanne’s family history. Her great-grandparents once lived nearby on Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. Her parents honeymooned in Monaco. Summers of her childhood were spent in Cap d’Ail, learning its rhythms, its people, its sense of ease. When she first brought Ryan there in 2021, he fell for it instantly. The venues they chose were not discoveries, but familiar places they had loved for decades. Welcome drinks unfolded at Le Cabanon by the sea. The wedding itself took place at the Monaco Yacht Club, founded by Prince Rainier III, its modernist architecture offering both gravitas and restraint. A final beach day at Eden Plage Mala closed the weekend, relaxed and sun-soaked, precisely as they had imagined.

The Sofreh Aghd ceremony formed the emotional centre of the celebration. Curated entirely by Roxanne’s mother, it was built from heirloom textiles, pearls and symbolic objects passed down through generations, some dating back to the seventeenth century. Transported from Toronto to the south of France, it was modern in its restraint yet rich with meaning. During the ceremony, seven of Roxanne’s closest friends stood behind the couple holding the ceremonial cloth, dressed in black for a contemporary cohesion, as sugar cones were rubbed overhead to bless the marriage with sweetness. Her younger brother officiated, reading Rumi’s words in both Farsi and English. The moment was intimate, reverent and quietly powerful.

Fashion, inevitably, was treated as an extension of identity rather than a costume change. Roxanne’s wardrobe across the weekend traced her personal history and professional philosophy. Pieces were sourced globally, often secondhand, often from designers she has long admired or represented. Archive Ann Demeulemeester, Rick Owens and La Perla sat alongside bespoke collaborations with emerging brands like Fancì Club and NiiHAi. Each look carried its own story, assembled with time and intention rather than trend.

For the wedding day, she turned to Vera Wang Haute. The decision came after an exhaustive search across Paris, Toronto and New York, but the moment she stepped into the Vera Wang showroom, something clicked. She was drawn to the designer’s ability to balance classic bridal codes with a subtle rebellion. The custom gown, a strapless corseted mermaid silhouette from the early 2000s, was reimagined with organza flowers cascading along the skirt and train, finished with a horsehair veil. It was sculptural, dramatic and unmistakably Vera. Jewellery by her mother was worn throughout the weekend, not as an adornment but as a legacy.

Ryan’s approach mirrored her own in its restraint. Bespoke tailoring, familiar loafers, cufflinks engraved with the crest of St Andrews. Nothing felt performative. Everything felt true.

As the weekend unfolded, unplanned moments became the most memorable. A beach party that danced so hard the deck briefly gave way. A last-minute security lockdown following an unexpected presidential visit to Monaco. Laughter, improvisation and a sense that perfection was never the point.

When Roxanne reflects on the three days, she returns to a single pause during the ceremony. Looking out at family, friends, the Mediterranean beyond, she felt time slow. Gratitude replaced nerves. Presence eclipsed control. It was the feeling they had hoped to create, not only for themselves, but for everyone who travelled from across the world to be there. Intimate. Intentional. Full of heart.