Hi everyone!
It's been a long time since I've been on the boards, mainly because the second I was done planning, I wanted to be DONE. But I thought it might be helpful to share a little bit about my wedding, just in case there are new brides out there, looking to have their own Italian destination wedding. And yes, we were married before Kimye. About 10 days before. Never wanted to have that in common with them, but here goes:
I started by looking for wedding planners in Italy, and came across Jo Bertolino, of Tuscan Pledges. She does planning services and celebrant services, and she will let you know what you need to with the various laws, hoops to jump through, etc. She was fantastic, and I would highly recommend her. She does weddings all over Tuscany, and I think she will go outside of Tuscany too. Look her up if you have questions.
Jo recommended our venue, Castello del Trebbio, a castle, vineyard, farm, with a farm to table restaurant. I am not kidding that my wedding meal was one of the best meals I've ever had in my life. (During our tasting, I remarked to the restaurant manager that the wild boar was some of the best I've ever had, and she replied: "That's because they were eating our olives, so we were obliged to shoot them." True farm to table.)
Our photographer, Andrea Corsi, will also do weddings throughout Italy. He'll probably leave the country too. I've never seen a wedding photographer that obviously loves his job as much as Andrea.
Last but not least, our DJ was Betty DJ, who practically stole my thunder, she was so awesome. Highly recommend.
We invited over 100 guests, and ended up with about 40. The venue holds up to 80 people, and though I know it's a favorite pastime of knotties to tell people not to B-list, over-invite because you "know not everyone will come," we did it. And when we didn't get the RSVPs right away, I started freaking out about the fact that we could be in a nightmare scenario, and I hated that feeling in the pit of my stomach, but it all worked out. If we hadn't done it this way, the cuts on the guest list would have made it so the people who actually did come, wouldn't have even been invited. And I'm so glad they were there.
If you are considering Castello del Trebbio, you might want to stay on the property. We didn't, and that was because we love Florence so much, and wanted everyone to enjoy a week in the city with us. Transportation was a huge headache, but it can be done. We had a bus on the way there, and multiple vans at night. The vans, sadly, ended up taking money from me and my mother, and we ended up paying nearly double the rate we had agreed on. But seriously - that's the ONLY thing that went wrong while we were there. Everything else was fantastic, and if you are thinking about it - do it! Best week of our lives, and our friends and family had an amazing time.