Cover Architects Margarida Osório and Gabriel Schmid, during their weekend wedding celebration, which blended custom spatial design with their Portuguese, Swiss and Filipino heritage across Lisbon and Sintra (Photo: Derek Malou)
Architects Margarida Osório and Gabriel Schmid, during their weekend wedding celebration, which blended custom spatial design with their Portuguese, Swiss and Filipino heritage across Lisbon and Sintra (Photo: Derek Malou)
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Across Lisbon and Sintra, architects Margarida Horta Osório and Gabriel Schmid celebrated a three-day destination wedding shaped by thoughtful spatial design, heirloom details and rich cultural traditions
When two creatives collaborate, the result is bound to be a culmination of intentional design and spatial harmony. The architects Margarida Horta Osório and Gabriel Schmid achieved this with their weekend wedding that spanned Lisbon and Sintra in Portugal. The deeply personal, three-day architectural and cultural celebration took nearly 12 years in the making, but it was meant to be, as Osório said, “From the beginning, we shared the same language of design and the same way of looking at the world.”
The two met at an international orientation at the Rhode Island School of Design. It wasn’t love at first sight, but it planted strong roots in friendship. The biggest breakthrough in their relationship came one fateful night in the fall, during their freshman year. “I reached for my phone to find someone to work outside with, and realised the only person I actually wanted to see was Gab,” Osório recalls. Despite Schmid’s initial curt decline, citing his classic response of having too much work, his roommate, Giacomo Sartorelli, convinced him to call back ten seconds later. Osório and Schmid spent the rest of that autumn afternoon talking about everything, instead of doing actual work. Shortly after, a 19-year-old Schmid would rush home to tell Sartorelli that he was going to marry Osório. Twelve years later, that bold declaration came to fruition as one of their very first collaborative design endeavours: their own wedding.
“Our wedding ended up being one of our first joint design projects, which brought a lot of joy along with a few challenges, but it was a lot of fun to learn to develop our ideas as a team,” Osório said.
Above The couple wed against the backdrop of the historic city of Lisbon (Photo: Derek Malou)
The couple wed against the backdrop of the historic city of Lisbon (Photo: Derek Malou)
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The couple got engaged two years ago, after surviving a rain-drenched proposal. They went through a gruelling six-hour hike through zero visibility and pouring rain, a trip that stubborn Schmid just couldn’t let pass. When Osório repeatedly tried to talk him out of the gruelling storm hike, Schmid answered, “I’ve never been surer of anything in my life.”
Schmid, a designer through and through, crafted the engagement ring himself. Learning that Osório loved her mother’s toi et moi ring, he took a ruby heirloom from his own mother’s engagement ring, gifted its flanking diamonds to his sisters and paired the ruby with a new round diamond to create a unique pairing.
Both Osório and Schmid carry global identities. Osório was born in Portugal and eventually moved to London at age 12. Schmid spent his early childhood in his father’s homeland, Switzerland, before moving to his mother’s hometown of Manila at the same age.
“There is a precise, punctual Swiss side to him, and alongside it a warm, boisterous, deeply social Filipino side,” Osório says. “It is exactly that meeting point that I have always loved about him.”
Above The couple with the family of the groom
Above The couple with the bride’s family
The couple with the family of the groom
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Rather than clashing, their backgrounds found common ground in shared values. They both have a non-negotiable dedication to family, warm hospitality, and subtle linguistic overlaps, such as the similarity between tio in Portuguese and tito in Filipino.
This cultural alchemy was threaded through every detail of their wedding weekend. On Friday, the first day, they welcomed guests with cocktails at the historic Palácio de Seteais in Sintra. They paid homage to Schmid’s heritage with a barong dress code. The groom wore a custom degradation-embroidered barong designed by Gabbie Sarenas, while Osório wore a structured two-piece by Vania Romoff.
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Above The welcome party at the Palácio de Seteais
Above Invitations by Save Our Day
The welcome party at the Palácio de Seteais
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The mother of the groom, Estefania Schmid
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The Saturday ceremony took place at the Basílica da Estrela in central Lisbon. This church has been ever-present in Osório’s life, as it is where she was baptised and where her sister was married. Incorporating each other’s heritage was at the top of the couple’s priority list. The traditional Catholic Nuptial Mass incorporated the Filipino tradition, where a veil and a figure-eight cord were placed over the couple by their wedding party to symbolise everlasting unity.
As designers, the couple curated the weekend’s visual language down to the smallest element. For the Saturday reception, the couple designed a custom fabric-wrapped tent within the gardens of Palácio de Seteais, eschewing traditional layouts. They placed the tent right on the grand lawn to have a beautiful view of the ocean, where the sun seems to melt as it sets. They placed tables on a diagonal, with a winding walkway threaded down the centre, filling the space with ruffled, velvet-like Celosia cristata (crested) arrangements that spilt over the edges like meadows. A signature motif—a glowing red circle—subtly repeated throughout the weekend, appearing in the dramatic projected lighting on Friday night and culminating in a striking, circular raspberry wedding cake.
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Above The wedding reception table setting
Above Guests enthusiastically wave their white napkins to welcome the bride and groom
The wedding reception table setting
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The personal touches extended to their wedding bands and wardrobe. For the former, Osório collaborated with her friend Ariana of New York-based Embirikos on a bold, minimal curved design, engraved in Lisbon by Daniel F Almeida. For the ceremony, Osório wore a sleek drop-waist gown by Sarah Seven, which was purchased during a trip to New York, with her bridesmaids serving as her “something blue” in custom Philippine-made silk robes.
The couple with the groom’s entourage
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By Sunday, they had set up a brunch by the pool in Estoril to debrief and recall memorable moments during the previous night’s festivities. Looking back on their celebration, Osório and Schmid reflect on the foundation laid by their families. “One of the greatest gifts our families gave us is showing us that love is a choice you make again and again,” Osório shares. “We begin our marriage knowing it won’t always be easy, but knowing it is still worth everything.”
Their advice for future brides and grooms is to focus on shared energy. “Stay together, quite literally, linking arms or holding hands throughout the day,” Osório advises. “You want to walk away with shared memories, not two separate versions of the same evening.”
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Karis Tsang serves as a Junior Associate Editor at Tatler Philippines. She tells stories at the intersection of high society, local arts and pop culture. A UST journalism alum, she has a knack for finding the extraordinary in the ordinary. When she’s not typing furiously against a deadline, she’s likely getting lost in a theatre, overanalysing style or planning her next creative rabbit hole.
