Looking Back on Jenna Johnson and Val Chmerkovskiy’s Dance-Filled Vows

An apt word for the entire day, really. 

Val having already pulled off the Venetian proposal he had dreamed about after he visited Italy at age 17 (“I promised myself then that the next time I would come back to Venice was to propose to the woman I’d want to spend the rest of my life with,” he told People. “Fifteen years later I kept my word”), the couple decided to lean hard into romance for their actual wedding. 

After walking down the petal-strewn island to the sounds of a string quartet in her long-sleeve Vera Wang, So You Think You Can Dance finalist Jenna, 28, wed her Brooks Brothers-clad groom, 36, under a chuppah covered in all manner of white blooms— tibet roses, ranunculus, lisianthus, garden roses, peonies—the Pacific Ocean serving as backdrop. 

With the Terranea Resort in Rancho Palo Verdes, Calif., providing the views, the couple supplied the emotion, exchanging self-penned vows and matching rose gold Jacob & Co. wedding bands in a ceremony that, as Jenna put it, “incorporated a few meaningful traditions,” from each of their families.