Video LoadingVideo UnavailableClick to playTap to playThe video will auto-play soon8CancelPlay nowSamantha Barks has her dream of playing a Disney Queen on stage every night as Elsa from Frozen: The Musical. But the West End star got her real life fairytale when she married fellow actor Alex Stoll in a romantic Italian wedding exclusively covered by OK! Celebrating with 50 of her closest family and friends, the star had a personal ceremony, followed by Irn Bru cocktails, topped off with a special wedding cake show. Sign-up or login below to see all the beautiful wedding photos and read all the details about her special day – exclusively for OK! VIP members. Are you an OK! VIP? If not, why not? It’s free and gives you backstage access to stories like this, exclusive home tours, special discounts and so much more! All you need to do is pop your email address below! P.s. if you’re already seeing this article in full, congrats – you’re already on our guest list!
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Standing on a hilltop overlooking the Tuscan town of Gaiole, Samantha Barks’ closest family and friends are waiting for her to make an entrance. Her husband-to-be, Alex Stoll, appears surprisingly calm and relaxed, despite the harsh late afternoon sun beating down on the gathering. And then suddenly he gasps and mouths, “Oh my God.” The guests turn to see West End star Samantha gliding down the aisle on the arm of her proud dad, Richard – who unbeknown to everyone had earlier rescued the OK! team from our hotel in his car when we couldn’t get a taxi to the venue. A harpist plays music from The Legend Of Zelda, one of the bride’s favourite video games, as she walks towards her groom.
Samantha and Alex were married on June 18th
(Image: daniele vertelli)
As expected, the 31-year-old is wearing a stunning white gown, which has a long train that follows her up the aisle – not too dissimilar to the style of dress she wears to play Elsa in the stage production of Frozen: The Musical. And while Samantha gets to play a Disney queen almost every night of the week, today, she later tells us, “I just wanted to be me.” “When I wear Elsa’s dress every day for my day job, it’s quite difficult to then have a rational idea of what is a ‘princess dress’. But I felt very much like me in the dress, which is great. I spend my life being other people and other characters so, on my wedding day, I wanted to feel, ‘That’s so me’.” Samantha tells us that her Frozen co-star Steph McKeon, who plays onstage sister Anna, helped her choose her dream dress – but it was a task she left to the very last minute.
They married at the Capannelle wine resort in Tuscany
(Image: daniele vertelli)
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“You’re supposed to look for your wedding dress a long time in advance – but that’s way too organised for me,” she laughs. “It wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped it would be. A lot of the dresses I’d picked weren’t available.” It’s just after 4pm at the picturesque Capannelle Wine Resort when Samantha and Alex, 38, who met while starring together in the Broadway production of Pretty Woman in 2018, exchange vows and rings. Samantha’s four bridesmaids, her brother Carl, and Alex’s close friend, Broadway actor Colin Cunliffe, who is their registrar, then join the 50 other guests to shower the newlyweds with rice and confetti as the harpist plays Beyoncé’s Love On Top.
Her dress was a last minute purchase
(Image: daniele vertelli)
Dad Richard walked her down the aisle
(Image: daniele vertelli)
“I got emotional during the ceremony,” Samantha admits. “If there was any part of the day I could have been slightly nervous for, it would have been that. Performing is what we do, so I’m so used to that, but in my mind I was thinking, ‘I don’t want to mess anything up’. But once I got there and you see everyone, walking down with my dad and seeing Alex, the nerves went away. Colin was magic – it was that personal touch. And then I was like, ‘Ah, phew!’ I’m not great at very formal situations, but it was really chilled and laid-back.” After the service, their guests, including former X Factor star Lucie Jones, grazed on cheeses, meats and other meze snacks, while sipping on cocktails selected by the bride and groom. Alex chose a Manhattan – a nod to his American roots – while Samantha opted for a Celtic Comfort, a mixture of Irn-Bru and Southern Comfort – a drink loved by her family who are from the Isle of Man. “It’s quite specific, but it’s a niche thing my family loves,” she says. “You can’t find any of those ingredients in Italy, so I shipped over everything to make this cocktail way in advance. We wanted loads of personal touches. We wanted the guests to feel they had been so looked after and thought about. The Isle of Man is so important and special to me and I loved all the little connections – it meant a lot to my family as well.”
There were lots of personal touches on the day
(Image: daniele vertelli)
Close friend Colin was the registrar
(Image: daniele vertelli)
And the personal touches didn’t stop there. The couple arranged for an artist to draw portraits and a saxophonist to play their favourite songs, while guests – some of whom had flown in from San Francisco and Alex’s native New York – enjoyed refreshments from the prosecco station. Following the drinks reception, the wedding breakfast got underway – a four-course Italian meal of tomato flan, truffle risotto, beef with potatoes, topped off with lemon sorbet. For the favours, instead of sugared almonds, guests were treated to miniature bottles of olive oil. The early evening meal took place outdoors under fairy lights, and friends and family sipped on some of the winery’s house vino while the speeches began – arguably the most emotional part of the day.
Friends and family gathered to shower the couple in rice and flowers after they said “I Do”
(Image: daniele vertelli)
With co-star Steph, friend Lucie and sister Kim
(Image: daniele vertelli)
First up was Samantha’s dad Richard, who welcomed Alex into the family, before the groom himself stood up to talk about his beautiful bride. “You are everything to me,” he told her. “I’m just thrilled to be in your orbit at all, let alone able to put a ring on your finger and call you my wife, so thank you.” But the most tear-jerking speech was from Alex’s brother and best man Daniel, who spoke of his pride in his brother and also paid tribute to their sister Jess, who passed away five years ago from cancer.
They enjoyed the wedding breakfast by candlelight
(Image: daniele vertelli)
Samantha’s dress felt “very her”
(Image: daniele vertelli)
Addressing Samantha, Daniel said, “One of her favourite lessons Jess would have talked to you about, if Alex hasn’t already, it’s called chapter one and chapter two. Chapter one is, ‘Do what you want.’ And chapter two is, ‘Consequences’.” Alex said it wasn’t the most “traditional” of best-man speeches, but the brothers are “sentimental”. “My brother is just like me, but a better version of me. He’s an amazing man and he spoke from his heart and I loved it.” And the groom had his own way of remembering his late sister on his wedding day.
The couple were wowed by the personal and emotional speeches
(Image: daniele vertelli)
The stunning tableware
(Image: daniele vertelli)
“She had a little leather pouch with quartz, amethyst and healing stones she carried around a lot near the end of her life, when she was going through treatment for cancer, so I carried that with me all the time we were in Italy. “Colin said at that moment when Daniel was talking about her there were all these dogs in the village that started howling. She’s always with us and we talk about her all the time.” Sam’s maid-of-honour, her sister Kim, rounded off the speeches – something that shocked the bride, because of her sibling’s sometimes shy nature. “I am my sister’s biggest fan, she’s very much the Elsa to my Anna! I’ve never been more in awe of her making that speech,” she exclaims. “It was the one night of my life I didn’t have to perform, so I loved sitting back, having a drink and listening to everyone’s speeches.”
Alex’s wedding party
(Image: daniele vertelli)
After dinner, guests gathered for the Italian cake show – a display in which chefs make the wedding cake in 10 minutes to music. Samantha and Alex then cut the masterpiece to Diamonds by Rihanna as guests waved sparklers in celebration. Talking about the song for their first dance, Shallow by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper, from the film A Star Is Born, Samantha said, “I love the song and the film, but we have a very funny story of doing karaoke [to it]. “As a singer, I don’t normally do karaoke. We were in a restaurant and it was a little tiny room and no one was there. They say dance like no one’s watching, well we were singing like no one’s listening. We were properly going for it and we turned around and 200 people swarmed.”
The first dance had a special meaning
(Image: daniele vertelli)
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“At that moment, the sky opened up and it was pouring down,” Alex adds. “It was thundering and lightning. It was also a song we listened to a lot when we first started dating.” Guests partied late into the night while the DJ spun his decks, before the bride and groom finally went to bed at 2.15am, with Samantha saying she nodded off feeling “drunk on love”. When we catch up with the newlyweds post-wedding, Samantha and Alex are still on cloud nine as they describe the event as “the best day of their lives”.
Guests were treated to miniature bottles of olive oil as favours
(Image: daniele vertelli)
Samantha tells us, “It was everything we could ever hope for, and so much more. You plan every intricate detail of a wedding and hope it all happens the way it’s supposed to, and it did. There was nothing I would change from the day, it all went perfectly and smoothly, but what you can’t prepare yourself for is everyone you love being there and celebrating with you, and the atmosphere of that. It took us by surprise.” Samantha reveals that the couple have known each other for years, but their romance blossomed when they were both in New York. “We’d actually known each other quite a while as friends, weirdly we go way back,” she explains. “When I performed at the Oscars with Les Mis [in 2013], Alex also performed at the Oscars that year. “I always think we’re like Monica and Chandler [from the TV show Friends] – they were friends for a long time before anything happened. Our paths have constantly crossed throughout our lives.
Their spectacular wedding cake – made in 10 minutes
(Image: daniele vertelli)
“We worked together for two years but it was after we finished working together that we got together. We started long distance and it was nice, because we really had to make the effort to make the relationship happen. The time we spent together was really special – it was about making time for each other. Long distance has a bad reputation, but it did work for us.” But it wasn’t until the pandemic hit, forcing the couple to move in together or face many months apart, that their relationship grew more serious. “We just got on really well, we were living together, and the relationship got better and better,” Samantha says.
The gelato stand
(Image: daniele vertelli)
Alex adds, “I was finishing up a two-year acting conservatory programme in New York, I was about to go into Harry Potter. Broadway shut down on a Thursday and by Sunday I was in London, because we didn’t know what was going to happen at that point. We spent the whole pandemic together. It was a snap decision that set us off on the course of the rest of our lives, because we were together 24 hours a day.” Asked about his decision to move across the pond, Alex adds, “I couldn’t turn down the opportunity to start a life with someone who struck me so deeply and who I’d fallen in love with.”
With bridesmaids Kim and Danielle
(Image: daniele vertelli)
He popped the question last year, while on a woodland walk in Upstate New York, after taking Samantha on a wild goose chase he’d told her was a quest to visit pal Colin. “He got down on one knee and I was like, ‘Ah!’” she recalls. “It was this incredibly romantic setting, like a fairy tale. It was snowing, we were on this dainty bridge in the middle of a forest covered in snow. I was like, ‘Oh my God.’” The couple hope to see children in their future, but right now they are clearly enjoying married life and their careers. In fact, the day after returning from their honeymoon, Samantha swapped her bridal wear for Elsa’s dress and was back on stage in Frozen. “I was excited to see everyone, because [before the wedding] I had the most amazing weekend with the cast,” she says.
The venue was set upon a hillside
(Image: daniele vertelli)
Samantha’s wedding party carried pink flowers to match the bridesmaid dresses
(Image: daniele vertelli)
“They all came on and sang Love Is An Open Door [from the show] and gave me a surprise hen do. So I couldn’t wait to go back and tell them all about it. When you’re in a show you’re part of a family.” When we ask her about her future dream roles, Samantha says she’s happy where she is. “Right now, I am just so happy as Elsa, I really don’t take that for granted for a second,” she says. “It’s the biggest thrill playing Elsa. Every night when you sing Let It Go, it’s the most adrenaline-fuelled, incredible experience you’ll ever have – and I get to do it every single night. I can’t wait to see what the next adventure is, but I love being surprised.”
The day surpassed the newlyweds’ expectations
(Image: daniele vertelli)
And how did the buzz of the big day compare to being on stage? “It’s different,” she says. “Doing Let It Go, there’s the adrenaline because it’s exciting and overwhelming, but it’s also scary and terrifying. But then it was very different at the wedding where there’s no pressure, expectation or judgement. On that day I felt insanely calm.” PHOTOS: DANIElE VERTEllI VIDEO: ANDREA MEONI VEIl: @UNVELILEDBYSOPHIE BRIDESMAIDS’ DRESSES: @MAIDSTOMEASURE MAKE-UP: @AlEXREADERMAkEUP WEDDING PlANNER: @GlAMEVENTSINTUSCANY READ NEXT: Inside Billi Mucklow’s wedding to Andy Carroll from first dance to stunning flower displays Inside Rangers star Jermain Defoe’s ‘crazy’ wedding – flamethrowers, stars and 7am finish Holly Hagan’s wedding wardrobe – from classic bridal underwear to sheer gown and mini skirt Mario Falcone’s wedding to Becky Miesner in full from stunning gown to celeb pals Get exclusive celebrity stories and fabulous photoshoots straight to your inbox with OK!’s daily newsletter Story SavedYou can find this story in My Bookmarks.Or by navigating to the user icon in the top right.Follow OK! MagazineFacebookTwitterCommentMore OnVIP ClubCelebrity weddingsSamantha Barks
