Bernadette Vanova hadn't dated in years and over dinner in Vancouver, her concerned sister, Apollonia, demanded to know what sort of man might suit her. "I looked around and at exactly that moment, James was walking up. I said—'Like him,'" Bernadette recalls.

James Dallas Gow was visiting from Tokyo and the sisters couldn't help but notice how he and his friend stared at them. James insists they were focused on seagulls fighting outside. Apollonia, an actress and opera singer, needed little encouragement, however, and over drinks, Bernadette and the Scotsman hit it off. At least, that's what James thought, but he left Canada two weeks later without her email address.

Obtaining it wasn't easy. But once she began to receive his eloquent missives, Bernadette's caution ebbed. "They were very articulate, very heartfelt, very beautiful emails," she says.

James's persistence paid off when Bernadette agreed to see him in England four months later. After two years, he convinced her to leave her studies at Cambridge and join him in Japan, where he'd just started an internet company. More than five years after they met, James took Bernadette to a mountain onsen. When Bernadette said, "It's very hot," as she descended into the geothermal spring, James responded that it was about to get hotter. "I jumped out, got the ring, and proposed to her stark naked," he says. His usual eloquence was absent. "Only two words came out: 'Marry me?' It was a bit pathetic, but it worked," he says.

With less than a year until their intended wedding date, Bernadette set about finding a location near James's family. Emily Astor of Fait Accompli delivered bad news: "Every place is booked in England, apart from my family home, which they don't normally offer." When the Astors decided to lend Kirby House, their 4,000-acre country estate, to the couple, Bernadette was thrilled. "As soon as I saw it, I fell in love," she says.

She found a gown to love in Paris; Jean-Paul Gaultier refashioned a gold cocktail dress in off-white with an added train.

Apollonia sang as Bernadette walked down the aisle for their traditional marriage service at St. Michael's, an intimate, 13th-century church. As their nearly 100 guests arrived at Kirby House for champagne and canapés, a friend snapped guest book photos with a vintage Polaroid.

There wasn't a dry eye under the marquee during Bernadette's father's speech. "He looks like a cross between Putin and Clint Eastwood, but he's absolute mush inside," she says. He described their flight from Slovakia with their possessions welded under the car. "The most precious things were in the backseat—my mother, my sister and I."

The best man lightened the mood by sharing the groom's romantic emails. After dinner and cake, a curtain rose to reveal a nightclub. Dancers were mesmerized by the black-and-white 8mm Gow family movies projected on screen.

After Sunday's brunch of blood sausage, bangers and mash, and other traditional dishes, Bernadette tossed her bouquet from their hired MG as they departed for a two-week Italian honeymoon.

"Coming back to Tokyo was a shock," says Bernadette, an art dealer who actually perks up at the thought of a business trip. She and James never phone when they're apart. Instead, she says, "He sends me very beautiful emails while I'm gone."

Written by Kim Knox Beckius