Where Time Stops

There is a moment when you first arrive at Mas de les Voltes when time does something unusualit slows down.

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Cypress trees line the paths, olive trees cast long shadows, golden wheat fields stretch under the Catalan sky. The gardens were designed by Fernando Caruncho, a man who prefers to call himself a simple gardener.

He believes that when you enter a real garden, time stops. You are transformed.

"That's exactly how we felt when we first encountered Mas de les Voltes," says Madi Calleja, who married Anton Chiongbian here on the summer solstice last knew that we were in a special place." Standing among the guests that afternoon, we felt the same.

The couple, both creatures of beauty and culture, had spent the summer before their wedding in the Empordà and Costa Brava-a region that once inspired Picasso, Dalí and Chagall. Calleja holds a master's in Art Management, having cut her teeth at Art Fair Philippines before returning to Manila to run an art gallery.

Chiongbian, now in his family's logistics business, recently completed his MBA in Boston. They met at the Ateneo de Manila, became engaged in Kenya, and spent most of their engagement apart-sharpening their conviction that the wedding had to be extraordinary.