As seen in The Boston Globe: A Surprise Backyard Wedding in Cambridge - Friends Take the Lead

In April, Carolina Rodeghiero and Felipe Soares had a wedding day they never saw coming. Initially planning a simple ceremony at Boston City Hall followed by a Celtics game, their friends had other plans. Unbeknownst to the couple, their friends orchestrated a heartfelt backyard reception in Cambridge, turning their modest day into an unforgettable celebration. As a Boston wedding photographer, capturing this surprise event was a testament to the power of friendship and community in creating memorable moments.

Following story is by Rachel Kim Raczka Globe Correspondent, Updated June 3, 2025, 6:06 a.m. and was taken from the boston Globe print edition

Following story is by Rachel Kim Raczka Globe Correspondent, Updated June 3, 2025, 6:06 a.m. and was taken from the boston Globe print edition

In April, with their Cambridge wedding reception coming up, Carolina Rodeghiero and Felipe Soares had no idea what to expect.

They knew the location and date — and the wedding cake flavor, notes Carolina — but otherwise had had no role in planning the celebration.

Originally, April 4 was to be a special, but simple, day: make their commitment to one another legal at Boston City Hall, then head to TD Garden for the Celtics game.

“I was like, OK, we can get married, go to a pub right there, and then go to a game,” Carolina remembers telling Felipe. “Everything is just so close.”

She was living in Cambridge, working with MIT’s Lifelong Kindergarten program — the MIT Media Lab research group that explores ways to make education more inclusive and accessible — where she’d been exploring pedagogical perspectives since 2018. While her colleagues had never met her London-based boyfriend Felipe, they knew of him.

To reveal their intentions to wed — and how she would arrange to cover her work during her absence — she held a meeting.

“They immediately started crying,” says Carolina.

They cried at the idea of Carolina marrying her best friend. They cried for a happy ending for the on-and-off romance between the academics that finally circled back to “forever” that January.

“Our friends decided, ‘No. You cannot go to a Celtics game. We’re going to celebrate this,’” says Carolina.

Felipe, now a lecturer at the University of the Arts London, fell in love with Carolina in 2014. They were students at Catholic University of Brasília, where Felipe was pursuing his master’s degree and Carolina was in the midst of her PhD.

The romance was a surprise. They had known each other for a few years — first as friends in a volunteer organization in their hometown of Pelotas, in Rio Grande do Sul in southeastern Brazil, then as peers in the same research group during their graduate studies.

But when a friend told Felipe he’d had a dream where the pair were dating, Felipe realized he’d been dreaming of the same thing: “It was just really clear to me.”

Around the same time, one of Carolina’s friends casually asked whether she’d considered dating Felipe.

“I had never thought about that,” Carolina says, “but then I never stopped thinking about it.”

They got together at a friend’s birthday not long after — five hours of “nonstop” chatting that tuned out the 200-person party and stretched into the morning. And “even after talking for so many hours I just wanted to be around her for longer,” Felipe says.

They set their first date for the following Saturday, but unable to wait, they met that Wednesday instead.

The romantic relationship was short-lived, though — Carolina is five years Felipe’s senior and gaps in generational and life experiences soon got in the way. Plus, academic pursuits were their north stars. Carolina headed to Boston for her post-doc, Felipe went on to earn his PhD in Porto Alegre, Brazil, followed by a fellowship in Toronto.

But connection persisted. They shared beers and cheers for birthdays over WhatsApp and video calls; they turned to each other for advice — both scholarly and personal.

“[With Carolina] I learned that love could be nicer and we could care for and trust each other. We can touch base and say, ‘I’m doing this, but not because you need to know everything that I’m doing,’ but because I care,” says Felipe. “It was being friends first.”

Their stars realigned this January in Pelotas over the holidays when Carolina met Felipe for a beer.

“The next day, he was already [at my house] with my family, playing cards,” says Carolina. “And almost immediately, I bought my flight tickets to visit [him in London].”

And on that trip, he proposed.

They originally planned for a November wedding in Brazil — but neither was keen on a long engagement. So, when Carolina spotted City Hall availability during Felipe’s upcoming Boston visit, they agreed it was meant to be.

On April 4, nearly 30 witnesses packed into the City Registrar’s Office at Boston City Hall to watch Carolina and Felipe say “I do”; 68 more friends and family members watched on Zoom. London friends in “fancy dress,” a teacher in Ukraine, former classmates in Brazil, and Carolina’s family, who had put Zoom on their living room TV and watched the ceremony while wearing smiles and suits.

“Half of my family couldn’t understand anything,” says Felipe with a laugh. “The other half could, but all of them were there, watching and trying to get some sense of what was going on … just seeing the effort of everyone, to be there, to be together, was amazing.”

Rupal Jain, Carolina’s research director at MIT, hosted the reception in her backyard. Beyond requesting a strawberry vanilla cake, the couple didn’t have to do a thing; friends contributed talent, time, and financial means to throw a wedding for 39 guests with all the bells and whistles. The event was not only a celebration for the newlyweds but a send-off for Carolina, who relocated to London late last month.

Contributions ranged from videography to floral arrangements to 96 vanilla macarons made by Rupal’s daughter, Jiya. (“She spent the whole week baking them.”) Friends serenaded their entrance with kazoos and shook up Campari Spritzes; they ate shrimp cocktail and lasagna.

Carolina and Felipe were in the photo booth as sounds of brass and bangs from the street grew louder. Moments later, 21 members of the School of Honk marched into the backyard, wearing their signature polka-dots and wedding day best.

They led the couple and their guests through dance moves on the patio-turned-dance floor. (Three of the bride’s close friends — Carmelo Presicce, Sean Hickey, and bridesmaid Lily Gabaree — are Honk members.) With Honk amid the revelry and a bouquet toss to be won, the labor of love continued through sunset.

“I think the wedding project made so much sense to people because it was about a couple celebrating,” says Carolina, “but also celebrating what we care about and what is important in life — that is love. That is friendship."