Wedding Planning 101
Everything I wish someone had told me on how to be your own wedding planner, survive your big day and – most importantly – enjoy it.
Normally, I would wait to have a few experiences under my belt before claiming to be an expert in anything. But weddings are a rare beast: you only do it once (if you are lucky), and that one time is enough to impart you all the wisdom you can ever need, should you ever wish to do it again.
Or, like in this case, give a helping hand to other brides-to-be.
With my first wedding anniversary fast approaching (we got married on the 4th of July), I found myself trotting down memory lane and reliving the rollercoaster of emotions that was the lead-up to our day. I have also been corresponding with a future bride who is getting married in our same venue, seeking advice. So I thought, why not share what I have learned with my lovely readers?
Before we begin:
We got married in Italy, my motherland, but most of our guests (including us) flew from the UK, so you could call it an “abroad wedding”. Our wedding took place over three days, and I didn’t use a wedding planner.
I’m telling you all this because my advice is drawn from my personal experience, and while I think most of it applies to any wedding, some will be specific to abroad weddings.
I have divided this article into five main chapters:
1. General advice
2. The Leadup
3. The Suppliers
4. Planning the day
5. Suppliers Directory
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Chapter 1: General advice
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Do what makes you happy
If I had to pick only one, top-level advice, it would be to just follow your gut, stick to your guns and do whatever the hell you want. Some weddings get derailed by trying to please everyone. I get it, you want everyone to have a good time, especially when you are asking your guests to fly abroad for your big day. But ultimately, the only people who truly matter are you and your partner, and those are the only people whose happiness you should prioritise on the day.
All about personal touches
Make sure you infuse your day with as many personal touches as you can, to make it truly yours. I will be talking about the touches we added in detail in a chapter of its own, but I truly believe they make all the difference in making the day completely unique to you, and make the memories that much more significant.
Don’t put pressure on yourself for it to be the best day of your life
Sure, if everything goes well, it will be magical. Even if it doesn't all go to plan, if you are there for the right reasons, you won’t even care if the florist gets something wrong. But expecting this one day to be the best day of your life is setting the bar too high, and when expectations are that high, you are setting yourself up for disappointment. I once read somewhere something along the lines of “if your wedding day is the best day of your life, you peaked too soon. Imagine how dull the rest of your days will be!”. I found these words very refreshing and liberating, in a way. It allowed me to be free of expectations and truly make the most out of our day.
Move as a unit
Another valuable piece of advice I received is to never leave the side of your husband, for the duration of the wedding. The temptation to “divide and conquer” in order to say hi to everyone is high (especially if, like in most cases, the wedding takes place in a single day). But inevitably you will be pulled in different directions and at the end of the day you will have barely spent any time with your newly acquired husband (or wife). We made a conscious decision to always stick together when doing the rounds, and Joe even came with me when I changed from my big dress into a much lighter party dress (the help definitely came in handy!).
Delegate
On the day, you can’t possibly be involved in the nitty-gritty logistics of coordinating suppliers. If you don’t have a wedding planner or coordinator, give your bridesmaids, groomsmen or close friends specific tasks. For example, we tasked Joe’s best man to give our payment to some of the suppliers who required cash payment on the day, and I briefed my bridesmaids ahead of time on the little details they needed to look out for.
Pause to take it all in
Practice some good old mindfulness tips and make sure you stop regularly during the day and really try to take the moment in. As they rightly say, the day truly does fly by, but pausing to savour the moment really helps make you feel like you have been an active participant, a present protagonist of your wedding.
Chapter 2: The Leadup
The Wedding Dress
The first task I set myself was to find the wedding dress. Partly because I found it the scariest bit, but mainly because the general advice is to get it sorted a whopping 9 months ahead of your big day to allow for it to be made-to-measure and for last minute alterations. It takes even longer for a completely bespoke design, but you can of course also choose an off-the-shelf model which would take much less time.
I shopped for mine in November for my July wedding and booked a grand total of two ateliers to visit (and found the one at the second one). Personally, I found that two shops were enough, and more would have totally overwhelmed me. The second one in particular (shoutout to the lovely ladies at Morgan Davies) had so much choice and the staff were so amazingly kind, that I needn’t look any further.
My only other piece of advice, other than leave yourself a generous margin, is to bring with you only people you know will make you feel good. Some feel the pressure to bring a whole party, including relatives, bridesmaids etc, but just bring whoever you are totally comfortable with. I had quite a lot of anxiety related to the choice of the dress: there is an expectation that the bride should lose weight and be at her thinnest on the day, and as someone who is neither thin nor extremely body confident, I really struggled with that. I only went with one of my best friends (who was also one of my two maids of honour) at the first appointment, and with a close friend at the second.
As for the dress itself, I ended up choosing a simple, timeless model that highlighted my strongest features and was kind over my curves. The shape of the skirt and strung corset meant it had a lot of leeway should it need last-minute adjustment (spoiler alert: I did not lose any weight, so my dress didn’t need any adjustments at the seamstress appointment). Most importantly, it made me feel good and confident in it, and that’s how I knew it was the one.
Changing into a second, lighter dress for the party is something I would highly recommend, unless of course a) your main dress already allows you a certain freedom of movement or b) you are not much of a dancer. The second dress, in my opinion, needn’t be expensive: I opted for a simple white dress bought on the high street (specifically from the brand Theory), to which I added a custom bow purchased on Etsy, to make it look in keeping with the main dress. That did the trick nicely for me.
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The venue
The second biggest task is choosing the right wedding location. The style of the place naturally is up to your taste. For us, the choice of Umbria as a region held sentimental reasons, as it was there we first started talking about getting married and we visited the area together many times. We also dreamt of recreating a very specific setting – a hilltop village square – and found in Castello di Rosciano the perfect backdrop for our day. Before settling on Rosciano, we saw about 8 other venues in the area. Some of them were exquisitely beautiful and very tempting, but none of them ticked every single box on our checklist.
Here are some things you may wish to consider when hunting for a venue:
The plan B: we wanted a venue that had a good option in case of rain. Of course, you can always rent a Marquee, but the costs are quite steep especially if you don’t end up using it on the day. You want to make sure that, rain or shine, your experience will be equally nice
Versatility: one of the reasons we loved Rosciano so much was that it felt intimate enough to not be dispersive, but had different pockets of actions to allow for each part of the day to have its own setting. This is especially important if, like in our case, your wedding takes over a few days and you have welcome dinners/farewell parties included. We had seen another venue which was breathtakingly beautiful, but had no real plan B and only 3 main areas to play with. It would have been perfect for a shorter wedding, but I think it would have been a little to tight for a 3 days event.
Sleeping capacity: it was our dream that we could have all our guests sleeping in the same place for the duration of the wedding (we only had just over 100 guests, and 88 came to the day). This is a non-essential characteristic, but we found that having everyone there really helped take away some of the logistic stress from our guests (more on that later), and gave them the chance to chat and mingle the night before the big day. As a result, everyone was in such a good mood, and many of our guests said they felt like they were on holiday which is exactly what we had hoped for.
The hosts: much like finding the right builder when you are renovating a house, finding the right people to look after you and your guests on your wedding day is paramount. A venue whose business primarily consists of weddings is usually a well-oiled machine. This was certainly the case with Rosciano, but the biggest difference to us was that it was family-run, and the people of Rosciano made us feel like they truly cared and treated us like family, going above and beyond even before we signed any contract. This is the kind of people you want to give your money to. We came across all sorts of hosts on our hunt, from perfectly professional to complete disasters, but none had the warmth and familiarity that Rosciano’s team had.
An all-in-one solution: the last thing that sealed the deal for us was that Rosciano had the legal permissions to perform the legal ceremony as well as the symbolic one, so we didn’t have to have two separate bits. The cherry on top was that it had the sweetest non-consecrated chapel, which meant we could have our lay ceremony but with the charm and gravitas of a church setting.
The invites
Invites should be sent as early as you possibly can, immediately after securing the date with your venue, to allow ample time for your guests to plan. Rather than printing the classic wedding invites – which, as much as it pains me to say (what with being a graphic designer who loves print) usually gets chucked – we decided to create digital invites and most importantly, a wedding website. We used Bliss & Bone for both the digital invites and the website. I found it offered a lot of customisation options as well as great ready-made designs.
This is something I would really recommend doing especially if you are planning a wedding abroad and there are a lot of logistic things to communicate to your guests. We appreciate that asking people to fly to another country for your day is already a big ask, so we tried our hardest to make our guest’s life as easy as possible. Our website provided useful information such as:
Local airports to fly to
Taxi details
Recommended local hotels (we wanted to give people options, although everyone ended up staying at the castle with us)
Agenda of the 3 days, with timings
Google map
Things to do in the area
Various other policies such as:
Children: this was by far the most delicate to handle, as people usually have strong opinions on whether they want children or not at their weddings. In our case, with people flying from abroad for multiple days, asking them to leave their babies at home was certainly not an option (although some did choose to do so). But I was quite strict about the ceremony, so we arranged for babysitters to be there on the day and kindly asked the parents to leave the children to play outside under their supervision for the duration of the ceremony.
Gifts: we were conscious of how expensive it is to fly out to Italy and given our then (and current) economic crisis, we asked our guests not to worry about bringing us gifts or money. As some guests insisted, we created a wedding gift list with The Wedding Shop and only shared it with those who asked.
Dress code: we kept ours intentionally loose as we aren’t very formal people, and wanted our guests to feel comfortable and at ease. We encourage linen suits for men and flat shoes for the ladies, as the weather in Italy in July is very hot and the Castle is on uneven grounds.
With the money we saved from the printed invites (and a little more), we decided to produce instead a printed booklet to give as a welcome present to our guests. This Guide included things like the agenda and the map of the castle (annotating where each activity will take place), but most importantly, a guide to Umbria, full of pictures, personal anecdotes and tips we had collected over the years of exploring the region together. We thought this to be a more useful object that people would be more inclined to use and keep for the future, and it added a bit of personal touch.
Chapter 3: The Suppliers
Where to splurge and where to save
With so many things to organise on the day, finding the right suppliers is really fundamental, and possibly the only area where the experience and contacts of a wedding planner do come in handy. But all this can be remedied by some thorough research, and if you choose wisely your wedding venue, it’ll usually come with a list of tried and tested suppliers they like to work with. We gladly followed Rosciano’s advice on most of the suppliers, with only 3 of them (my hair and make-up artist, the photographer/videographer duo and a photo-booth service) sourced by myself.
You might be as shocked as we were when we started getting in quotes: getting married is a costly affair. However, I definitely think some areas are worth investing more than others, and some savings can be made here and there. I have divided suppliers into three tiers depending on the degree of importance (and therefore budget to be allocated to them).
The non-negotiables
There are certain elements of your wedding you want to invest in. Of course, everything depends on the couple and what they value the most, but for me, the biggest chunk of your budget should go to three things:
Photographers / Videographers: having someone really good and reliable to capture your big day is the best money you can spend, as those memories will last you a lifetime. We hired the lovely English duo Grace & Mitch because we fell in love with their aesthetic. Sure, a local photographer would have been much cheaper, but I wasn’t prepared to compromise on this.
☞ Saving tip
We did make a little saving though, simply because they came as a photo+video duo: it would have been more expensive to hire two different suppliers, plus the final aesthetic would have been different.Food. This might be the Italian in me talking, but as a guest, there is nothing more disappointing than going to a wedding where the food is not very good, or worse, scarce. Especially when your guests are travelling from abroad, the least you can do is feed them well. If you have ever been to an Italian wedding, you’ll know that the food takes second place as the protagonist, immediately after the bride. The never-ending feast usually starts with a vast buffet of starters, followed by a seated dinner, followed by another buffet of desserts and, of course, the wedding cake. If you are getting married in Italy, it is worth giving your guests a heads-up about, or else they’ll stuff their faces with the antipasti believing it is the full thing. You will also need to cater for some of your suppliers, especially the photographers who will have likely been with you the whole day and are probably starving.
☞ Saving tips
The caterer/venue will suggest a 3 or 4 courses seated meal (usually two primi and one secondo). We ended up caving in, although I think a two-course meal would have been perfectly acceptable given the abundance of the antipasti buffet. Another area where you can save a little is the wedding cake (although of course, this is entirely up to you). We weren’t fussed about this part of the celebrations, so opted for a classic and simple millefoglie, which was made by the castle’s chef, rather than an elaborate designer cake.Florist: people will remember how you made them feel, and to me, the floral decor was a big part of the experience. I had a very precise vision in mind, and I created mood boards and briefed the local florist Sartoria Floreale to a T. They came recommended by the Castle and they brought everything to life in the most beautiful way, so much so that the flowers were one of the things our guests commented on the most. I opted for one single flower, gypsophila, forming aetherial clouds, hanging from the church ceiling and on our dining tables. The florist also helped set the table decor (again, following my tight instructions) and display certain objects we had prepared for the ceremony (more on that later). They also supplied other decorative touches, from candles and fans for the ceremony to lounging areas. Together with the photographers, this was the highest cost we faced, but one that truly delivered. I truly don’t think the day would have felt the same without those flowers.
☞ Saving tip
An area where we saved a little was the confetti, which was rose petals grown and dried especially for this occasion by my wonderful mother-in-law. Like any respectable English lady, she is a keen gardener, and even chose the variety of roses to plant in her garden for us based on the names of the roses, selected amongst the ones that had a well-wishing meaning like Tranquillity. This was yet another personal touch we really loved, but of course I appreciate not everyone’s mother-in-law has the patience of a saint or even the means to cultivate roses. But if you have a garden (or someone you love does), you might consider this option.
The money savers
Music. Again this is totally personal preference, but I truly don’t think you need to hire a band to make your party memorable. Unless the band is truly amazing (in which case it might even risk stealing the limelight from the newlyweds), I think a DJ or even a well-thought-through playlist will do the job nicely. Where we chose to invest a little was hiring a string trio for the ceremony and the antipasti part: the cello is our favourite instrument (Joe even used to play it as a kid), and we were keen to have live music playing in our little chapel. Speaking of music – the best piece of advice I heard on the topic was that if you have all three generations usually attending a wedding on the dancefloor, then you have hit the jackpot. But Ultimately, as I said before, it is your day, so have music that gets you moved and moving, and that will set the mood for your guests too.
Hair & Makeup. I will hold my hands up and say I had a wonderful HMU artist from Milan to do my look on the day, as well as my mother, 2 sisters and 2 maids of honour. Although it’s a nice luxury to have, it is definitely not essential to extend the service to anyone other than the bride, and if you are good at doing your own make-up or have a particularly handy friend, you could even consider doing it yourself. If you do decide to employ a professional, ideally arrange for a trial before the wedding, to test what you are going to do on the day. Make sure you choose someone who puts you at ease and brings positive energy, as it will make all the difference to your preparations.
My stellar hair & make-up artist, Elena Gentile. Elena was so fun, calm and positive and just a great person to have around!
The non-essential, nice-haves
Rented decor: Although Rosciano offered perfectly fine white dining chairs and tablecloths, I ended up choosing and renting a different set from a local supplier. Of course this wasn’t essential, but I just knew that, with gypsophila being our only floral decoration, it would have all blended into an endless sea of white. Instead, I opted for ecru table cloths and napkins and wooden farmhouse style chairs. It was definitely a non-essential expense, but one I’m really glad we took as it made a big difference to the overall aesthetic.
Babysitters: as I mentioned before, we hired a bunch of babysitters (4, to be exact) to cater for the 10 babies and toddlers we had coming to our wedding. We wanted our ceremony to be adults-only, but also wanted our guests to be able to fully enjoy the day, so we thought it a nice gesture to extend the babysitter service until the cutting of the cake. In hindsight, we could have only hired them for the duration of the ceremony, as nearly all of the parents promptly rejoined their children after the ceremony (not that I blame them).
Photo booth: we hired an external photo booth to entertain our guests while we were away taking photos. This turned out to be a really fun thing for them, and all the photos were collected in a Guest book we had made for the occasion, which is one of my most treasured mementoes from the day.
Chapter 3: Planning the day(s)
Morning vs Afternoon ceremony
If your wedding will take place on a single day, then I think a morning start will allow you to truly make the most of the day, as it does go so very fast.
But, if you have the luxury of having your wedding take over a few days, I think an afternoon ceremony is ideal, especially if you are getting married in a hot country. The midday sun is unforgiving, and you’ll be glad to have those extra hours to sleep in the morning.
Speaking of sleep – from what I gather it is quite normal to have a sleepless night before the day of your wedding. I was chill as a cucumber for the whole three days before the wedding, including during our welcome pizza party on the wedding’s eve, yet I experienced the worst palpitations of my life when I went to bed and didn’t sleep a wink. I am not saying this to scare you, au contraire, I want to reassure you that even if it does happen to you, you can be safe in the knowledge that adrenaline will work wonders on you. I felt utterly rubbish on the morning of my wedding, but by midday, the adrenaline had kicked in, and I spent the rest of the day feeling fresh as a rose. I danced the night away and stayed up until sunrise, slept only about 4 hours the following night and yet – would you believe it – I was again on top form the following day, staying up until 2 am again. Every time I have a poor night’s sleep now, I always cast my mind back to those days and tell myself that if I can get through that, I surely can get through anything.
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Getting ready
Similarly to shopping for your wedding dress, you want to make sure you are surrounded by only positive vibes when you are getting ready. Nerves might be kicking in, and the last thing you want is people stressing you out. Always allow for plenty of time for you to get ready, as it’s not nice to have your partner and guests waiting too long. I was mortified to be half an hour late (through no fault of my own, to be fair), and even though my guests swore they didn’t mind, I would have much rather arrive punctually.
The ceremony
Whether you are having a religious or lay, legal or symbolic ceremony, I think it is important to make it feel as personal as possible: the choice of music, as well as having some special people contribute to the ceremony itself, are a sure way to make that happen. Beyond that, the best piece of advice I received was about photos: we asked our guests to put away their phones for the duration of the ceremony. This allowed for everyone to be present in the moment, and most importantly for me to walk in a church full of smiley faces, rather than phones pointed at me. Besides, we had our photographers there to capture the day!
The Photo session
Although we were conscious of not spending too much time away from our guests, we found that the moment of the photoshoot gave us the opportunity to have a moment of quiet between the two of us, to take in what had just happened during the ceremony. In this respect, we have to thank our amazing photographer’s tactful approach, as they were not in the slightest obtrusive. My make-up artist was also with us, making sure that everything, from my face to the dress, was picture-perfect (your maid of honour could easily cover that role).
If you are doing the traditional family group photos, a good tip is to give the photographers the full list of groups you want ahead of time, and ask one of your bridal party or family members to gather everyone for you so you don’t have to. This can turn into a very time-consuming activity (trust me on this), so the more efficient and organised, the better!
Dinner
I already mentioned the topic of food, but a well-thought-through seating arrangement is just as important. Some people like to mix and match their group of friends, in the hope that everyone will end up mingling with each other. We wanted to facilitate everyone having the best time possible, so we decided to seat our guests in friendship groups as much as we could, and if not, we put a lot of thought and care into ensuring we would seat together people who at least had something in common.
If you don’t have a wedding planner, it will be your job to give instructions to your caterer on things like where people ought to sit, and who has special food requirements or intolerances. I made a seating chart (you can download similar templates online) containing all the guests names and positions, as well as signalling who needed to be served a vegan/vegetarian meal (marked in green), who had severe food allergies (marked in red), and who was meant to receive the wedding favour (one per couple, given to the ladies, marked by an asterisk).
-As for where the happy couple should sit, there are a couple of options there. The most common is the traditional “head table” configuration (think medieval royal banquet), with the bride and groom sitting in the middle of a long rectangular table, facing everyone, and the parents or best people (or both) sitting alongside them. Although this position allows you to see all your guests at once, and undoubtedly puts you in the spotlight, I think that it is the least conducive to conversation. On top of that, once the bride and groom inevitably leave the head table to “do the rounds”, the other guests sitting in the wings are left quite isolated.
The second, and in my humble opinion much sadder option is having a table for two. This avoids the problem of guests feeling isolated, but I find it a slightly depressing sight.
What we opted for instead was to sit at a round table, together with our 4 “best people” (two maids of honours and two best men, what in Italy we would call compari or witnesses), and to have our table sit in the middle of all the other tables. This made us feel close to everyone and in the middle of the action, and, together with the speeches, made dinner my favourite part of the day.
Speeches
Speeches, I think, should be no longer than ten minutes each, and always interspersed between meal courses. I have been to weddings where all the speeches were ahead of the dinner, and although I can somewhat understand the logic (as it allows all the speech-givers to enjoy their meal in peace), your guests will be hungry (especially if dinner is not anticipated by an Italian antipasti feast) and bored by the second speech. Having them in between courses allows everyone to pay their full attention.
Even though in neither our culture is tradition for the bride to speak (or for any woman, for that matter), and even though I thoroughly hate public speaking, I worked up the courage to give one, and I am really glad I did. The trick was not to tell anyone, and to reserve my spot at the beginning of the dinner: that way, should I have had a last-minute change of heart, no one would have been the wiser, plus I could enjoy the rest of the night. But I needn’t worry, because, as someone once told me, you’ll never find a more favourable crowd than at your own wedding.
The other speeches, scattered in between the courses, followed the following order: my husband Joe, my two maids of honour (Carolina surprised me with an emotional and totally brilliant speech, even though she wasn’t meant to give one) and Joe’s best friend.
Party
Other than changing into a lighter dress and putting together a killer set/playlist, my top advice for the party is to keep the bar as adjacent as possible to the dance floor: in fact, the goal should be to have it directly on the dancefloor. This measure will ensure that your guests will stay on the dancefloor at all times. This was the only advice we didn’t follow, and which I lived to regret (a bit): due to the logistics of our venue (such as starting the dance outdoors but having to move to an enclosed space past midnight, and us wanting to use the second, non-consecrated old chapel as this second space), our bar was positioned just outside the room where the party was, and the dancefloor saw fluctuating waves of attendance as people inevitably headed out to fill up.
Other events
Over the course of my research, I have come to realise that most abroad weddings take place over the course of several days. In Italy, in particular, the formula seems to be always the same, across all the venues we visited: a welcome “pizza party” dinner and a farewell pool party / barbeque. All I can say is, if you can afford it, go for it. I particularly loved the Pizza Party: it was a great opportunity to welcome and chat and spend some quality time with everyone ahead of the big day. This allowed us to be much more relaxed the following day, as we didn’t feel the pressure to talk to everyone (although we tried our best to do so). It also allowed all our groups of friends to get to know each other and mingle.
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Of course, the degree of formality of this event is totally up to you: I’ve seen couples set a all-white dress code, for example. We chose to keep things pretty casual, with tables adorned in cherry tomatoes and aromatic plants and a spotify playlist of traditional Italian bangers from the 50s and 60s playing in the background. It might have been a little “on the nose”, but the atmosphere was great and we all had the best time.
The farewell barbeque for us went really fast, as everyone had a lie in the morning after the wedding, and our guests started to make their way in the early afternoon. It was great to have yet another chance to chat to everyone and say bye properly, but if I had to pick only one extra event, I would choose the welcome dinner in a heartbeat!
Chapter 4: Personal Touches
Such is the importance I place on personal touches for a wedding that I have decided to dedicate a whole chapter to them. Whether you get married because of your faith or, like us, you are going for a non-religious ceremony, this should be a day of meaning, and the more layers you are able to weave into it, the more special and memorable it will feel.
Of course, personal touches are exactly that: personal. As such, only you will know what will give meaning to your day. But perhaps you can find some ideas and inspiration in mine.
The rings
As the chief tangible emblem of a wedding union, we wanted our rings to be crafted with love. We entrusted their creation to my dear friend Sara, who is a talented jeweller. The whole process felt very personal and special, with Sara coming round to ours to test the sizes multiple times (thanks to Joe’s ever-swelling hands). We had a short message engraved for each other inside the ring, together with the date of the wedding and our initials. We kept the message as a surprise to each other and only read it on the night of the wedding (when we realized we had written nearly identical things).
I also decided to re-use the silver with which Sara made our wedding bands prototypes and create 3 necklaces, one for me and one for each of my maids of honour, to symbolise our sisterly bond but also their involvement in our big day.
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Tying the bow(s)
You might have noticed that one of my wedding dress's main features was a generous bow at the back. Being the detail-oriented freak that I am, I thought it would be a nice touch to carry this theme throughout the days. I already mentioned that I added a bow to my party dress (I was quite people when a few people commented on it, thinking it was the same as the OG dress. The shoes I wore welcoming our guests the day before the wedding had white bows on them, and the next day, I wore a bow in my hair with Joe’s and mine’s initials embroidered on each of the strings.
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The pillow that held our wedding rings (pictured above), also featured bows. The pillow itself was made by my mom’s long-standing seamstress, using scraps leftover from my wedding dress. It also had our initials and the date of our wedding.
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Bridesmaids / Maids of honour gifts
Speaking of my two besties, I also gifted them two matching silk dressing gowns to wear on the day, as we were getting ready all together. They really appreciated the gesture, and I think it made us all feel a little more special as we were getting ready. I didn’t have bridesmaids as it’s not a tradition in Italy, but I appreciate that if you have a large bridal party, having these sorts of gifts might be tricky (although I know some brides wish to pay for all their bridesmaid’s dresses!). Even a little symbolic something to say thank you to your girls will go a long way.
A letter to your partner
Joe and I wrote letters to each other and had them delivered on the morning of the wedding (Joe went further and surprised me with a beautiful present too). It was such a lovely way to start the day and connect with each other and what we were about to do that day.
Bespoke scented candles
This might be the most extravagant, yet one of my favourite touches. I am a big fan of scented candles at home, but I also have an extremely picky nose. I am lucky to have managed to befriend my favourite candle makers in London, Homework, and so I asked Steph and Ross to create a bespoke scent to capture our day. The idea was that the candles would be burnt in the church during the ceremony, and would also be gifted to our guests as wedding favours, as a way to relive that specific moment in time.
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Our brief to Steph and Ross was to create something similar to my favourite candle of theirs – Bai San (now rebranded and called Fire), but adding woody notes like cypress, inspired by the landscape of Umbria. Aptly, Bai San was originally created to evoke the burning of incents during spiritual rituals, so we thought the combination of the two would be perfect to represent our wedding. And it was. I vividly remember noticing the scent as soon as I stepped into the church, it was actually the very first thing I noticed.
We have kept a generous batch of candles to ourselves: the idea is to burn one each year, to mark our anniversary, for the years to come.
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Chapter 5: Suppliers directory
Wedding Venue
Castello di Rosciano
Wedding Dress
Tiffany by Alan Hannah via Morgan Davies Bridal
Veil and pearl earrings
Morgan Davies Bridal
Wedding Photographers
Grace & Mitch
Florist
Sartoria Floreale
Wedding Bands
Nodo
Hair & Make-up
Elena Gentile
String trio
Ensamble Hubay
Bespoke Candles
Homework
Photobooth
Ideaphotobooth
Vintage Car Rental
Slow Hills
Bridal and maid of honour silk dressing gowns, customised embroidered hair ribbon
Gigi & Olive
Wedding e-invites and website
Bliss & Bone
Wedding giftlist
The Wedding Shop
Cloth-bound Guest book & Wedding album
Rosemood Atelier
I hopeyou found this article useful! Is anyone of you getting married? Or are you a seasoned bride who fancies sharing your top tips with this community? Leave a message below!
I'm not getting married but I loved reading your article and looking at your lovely photos!