Real Italian Destination Wedding: Suzanne & Lee

Friday 28 September 2012

Real Italian Destination Wedding: Suzanne & Lee - Part 2

Brides dreaming of an Italian destination wedding are going to want to copy every detail of this gorgeous big day. Suzanne and Lee started with a heavenly vineyard wedding venue, and added a rustic theme, fabulous flower displays, and jam-jar lanterns, plus tonnes more wedding details. I love Suzanne's glamorous Rita Westenius wedding gown, her family heirloom tiara, and her beautiful bouquet, which included hydgrangea blooms as her 'something blue'. With an enormous, traditionally Italian wedding cake, and local specialities as wedding favours, Suzanne and Lee drew inspiration from their surroundings for their wedding theme, and added their own DIY touches. Read more about Suzanne's projects in her comments below! Huge thanks to Amoretti Weddings, who planned their big day, and Andrea Calvano for his stunning wedding pictures.

We got married in a little medieval village called Citta'Sant'angelo, in the rural province of Abruzzo Italy on 4 June 2012 – the Queen's Diamond Jubilee!

The venue was perfect and hopelessly 100% authentic Italy. An old villa situated in a vineyard perched on top of a cliff with panoramic views of the Adriatic and Apennine mountains; it was spectacular.

We wanted our decorations to reflect the rustic nature of the surrounding countryside and the faded grandeur of the villa. Because the views and setting were so wonderful, we knew we wanted flowers and decorations that would match it and hold their own amongst the surroundings.

I really enjoyed planning my wedding, but it did take up a lot of time! I am quite glad now that I can go to work and not have to think about favours or lastminute changes to seating plans!

Our wedding stationery was designed by Emiliana and the team at Amoretti Weddings, and they were fantastic. They were not wedding planners per se but more wedding designers! Emiliana was our wedding planner and she also designs amazing, elegant stationary so it was a no-brainer.

Fabrizio Panone of Pescara did out flower arrangements, we were so pleased with them! We chose him because, despite the language barrier, he instantly understood what I was trying to get across with pointing and gesticulating!

For DIY projects, I created a little package for every guest about the local area and plans for the day and put it in their hotel rooms. As it was a wedding abroad I didn't want anyone to feel lost, and we wanted to ensure our guests savoured the local delicacies and see why we chose the region.

I also made a guest book on blurb.com. I badgered family members to provide me with photographs of all our grandparents on their wedding day, that would intermingle with the guest book pages. I also managed to dig out some photos from 1906, 1928 and 1952 of my family wedding headpiece in use!

We decided to keep the favours simple and 'Italian'. The girls had little packages of sugared almonds – a regional specialty, and the boys had little bottles of {my fave} ratafia, a local Abruzzo cherry liqueur- they went down very well.

We had a traditional Italian creamy wedding cake provided by the venue.

No matter how hard you try, or how detailed you plan your big day, some things will just refuse to go to plan. My advice is to book someone at you wedding who can be your 'troubleshooter / present putter-awayer / MC / guest co-ordinator' and just relax, breathe and enjoy the day.