Divya Lagisetti and Holden Prosser are lucky that their last names rest close to each other in the alphabet. Thanks to seating charts, the two were constantly placed next to each other in all of their classes, beginning with freshman year at their Atlanta high school. “Maybe teachers were rooting for us, or maybe it was just how our last names were spaced in the alphabet,” says Divya. “We were just so comfortable around each other and could sit next to each other the whole day without getting bored.” While the two remained oblivious to each other’s feelings, all their friends suspected the two had a crush on each other.
By sophomore year, Holden finally asked Divya out to a movie. “She didn’t even realize I meant as a date!” Holden says. They have been together ever since. “We navigated long-distance throughout college, spent all of the pandemic apart, and later balanced medical school and Holden’s travel-heavy career,” explains Divya. “Even when life placed us in different cities, we always found our way back to one another.”
After 11 years together, Holden finally popped the question while the couple was traveling through Thailand in 2024. The two were on a private longboat trip through the Limestone Islands near Krabi when the boat took a detour after an island lunch. “I thought we’d be stopping at another island, but the boat turned around a corner at the end of the beach and into an inlet that took us to a completely empty lagoon at the heart of the island,” remembers Divya. Holden had arranged this ahead of time with the captain and got down on one knee on the boat. “He said the sweetest words about our time together since high school and asked me to marry him,” she says. “Of course, I burst into happy tears! I couldn’t stop looking at him and the ring against the twinkling water and islands the whole boat ride back to our hotel.” That evening, the couple celebrated with dinner in a cave at Rayavadee.
“Looking back, it feels like fate that our haldi celebration later took place on another cave beach—this time in Sicily,” says Holden. The couple brought their friends and family from the United States and India to the Italian island in May 2026 for a multi-day celebration that blended the couple’s heritage with Sicily’s distinct identity. “Its history is one of cultures meeting and influencing one another over thousands of years, and that became a natural metaphor for our own families,” shares Divya. “Rather than recreating an Indian wedding in Italy, we wanted each event to feel as though it belonged there while still honoring my Telugu traditions and our American upbringing.”
Working with the wedding planners of Stress and Success Events, the couple crafted an itinerary of celebrations in Taormina and along Sicily’s coastline. “Every venue had its own personality, and we let those spaces guide everything from fashion and florals to menus and music,” shares Divya. “The Ancient Greek theatre, the cloisters of the Four Seasons, the cave beach at Capotaormina, the baroque church, and the gardens at Radicepura all had their own personality.”
