You’ve decided to get married in Italy.

The first big decision is made.

Now comes a much harder one:

Where in Italy?

If you start searching on your own, you’ll probably come across the same names very quickly: Tuscany, Lake Como, the Amalfi Coast, Puglia, Sicily.

There’s nothing surprising about that. They are beautiful places, they have an enormous online presence, and there are thousands of photographs that can make you want to book a flight before you’ve even finished looking at them.

But they represent only part of what Italy has to offer.

Google tends to show you what people search for most. Instagram shows you what gets photographed and shared most.

But the place you see most often isn’t necessarily the place that feels most like you.

And that’s exactly where I would start.

Before Choosing a Destination, Tell Me What You’re Looking For

When I first meet a couple, I don’t need them to already know which region of Italy they want to get married in.

In fact, sometimes I prefer that they don’t know at all.

I want to understand what they imagine.

Do you see water?

Mountains?

Vineyards and rolling hills?

An elegant villa, a castle, a small historic village?

Do you want to spend three days together with everyone in one place, or would you rather give your guests more independence?

Do you imagine an intimate dinner overlooking the sea or a big celebration in the countryside?

How important is it for your wedding destination to be easy for your guests to reach?

Those answers tell me much more than simply saying:

“We want to get married in Tuscany.”

Sometimes a couple knows exactly where they want to go.

Sometimes they think they do.

And sometimes, once we start talking about the wedding they actually want to experience, we discover that there is another place that suits them much better.

Maybe even a place they didn’t know existed.

Dreaming of Water?

Then we have a wonderful problem: Italy has plenty of it.

Your first thought might be Lake Como or the Amalfi Coast. But dreaming of water doesn’t necessarily mean choosing one of those two destinations.

Italy has more than 8,300 kilometers of coastline.

Along those thousands of kilometers, the landscape, architecture, vegetation, food and atmosphere can change completely. There are dramatic cliffs, beaches, small bays, fishing villages, wild stretches of coastline, elegant seaside towns and beautiful places that are unlikely to appear in your first twenty searches.

So before deciding where, I would want to understand something else:

What do you want the water to feel like?

The sea in front of you while you have dinner on a terrace?

A ceremony overlooking a cliff?

A small seaside town where your guests can walk around?

Or simply that feeling of looking up and seeing water in front of you?

These are different dreams.

And they can take us to completely different parts of Italy.

Or Are You Dreaming of an Italian Lake Wedding?

You probably know Lake Como.

You’ve almost certainly heard of Lake Garda too.

But how many Italian lakes do you actually know?

There are smaller lakes that are far less visible on the international destination wedding scene. Some can offer a quieter, more intimate atmosphere than the destinations that have become famous around the world.

That doesn’t automatically make them better.

It simply means that they exist, even if your algorithm hasn’t shown them to you yet.

And perhaps that is exactly where we’ll find a villa, a small hotel, a garden by the water or a view that looks exactly like the one you had imagined.

Dreaming of a Mountain Wedding in Italy?

Here too, Italy is much bigger than what we usually see on social media.

The Alps stretch across northern Italy, while the Apennines run for approximately 1,350 kilometers along the Italian peninsula to the Strait of Messina, continuing into the mountains of Sicily.

So an Italian mountain wedding doesn’t have to mean only the spectacular images of the Dolomites that you’ve probably already saved on Pinterest.

It can mean valleys, Alpine lakes, castles, small villages, forests, elegant resorts and places where you truly feel as though you’ve taken everyone away from the rest of the world for a few days.

But this is where another part of my job immediately comes in.

A spectacular mountain location is wonderful.

A spectacular mountain location that 80 guests can actually reach without turning your wedding into an expedition is even better.

That’s why landscape and logistics can never really be separated.

Dreaming of an Island Wedding in Italy?

Sicily and Sardinia immediately come to mind.

And both are extraordinary.

But an island is… an island.

First, you have to get there.

And then you have to move around once you arrive.

That means thinking about flights, connections, distances, transfers, where your guests are traveling from and how all the events throughout your wedding weekend will work.

A destination can be spectacular and still require more complicated logistics. And when a destination becomes highly sought after, availability and costs need to be considered very carefully for the dates you have in mind.

And then, in Sicily, there is also Mount Etna, occasionally reminding us of something important:

When planning a destination wedding, not everything is under our control.

I’m not saying I wouldn’t choose an island.

Quite the opposite.

I’m saying that I would choose it knowing exactly what choosing it involves.

A wedding planner’s job isn’t to take the romance out of a place.

It’s to make sure the romance survives reality.

Countryside? Vineyards? The Italian Dream?

This is probably where Tuscany enters the picture.

And understandably so.

Rolling hills, cypress trees, villas, historic villages, vineyards and long outdoor tables: the image of Tuscany has become almost synonymous with an Italian wedding.

But if what you truly love is that feeling, then we can ask a different question.

Are you in love with Tuscany?

Or are you in love with the idea of gathering the people you love in the countryside, dining outdoors, drinking excellent local wine and spending a few days together surrounded by a beautiful landscape?

Because that second experience exists in many parts of Italy.

There are extraordinary wine regions beyond Chianti.

There are hills, castles, historic residences, country estates and small villages that are much less familiar to the international wedding market.

And sometimes looking beyond the most sought-after destination can also reveal places that offer different possibilities for the same investment.

Not because they are worth less.

Simply because they aren’t yet the places appearing on your feed every day.

What About an Italian City Wedding?

Rome, Florence and Venice are magnificent.

But once again, it’s easy to confuse Italy’s best-known cities with the only Italian cities worth considering.

Italy is filled with historic cities and towns of very different sizes.

For a destination wedding, a smaller city can offer enormous advantages: nearby hotels, restaurants, beautiful streets to explore, historic squares and monuments, and the opportunity for your guests to experience a few days in Italy without depending on a bus every time they want to go somewhere.

Sometimes being able to leave your hotel and walk to an aperitivo is worth far more than having Italy’s most famous postcode.

Then We Have to Make It All Work

So far, we’ve been dreaming.

Now comes one of my favorite parts of the job:

asking questions.

Where will your guests be traveling from?

What is the nearest airport?

How long does the transfer really take?

Where will everyone stay?

How many guests are coming?

Will there be children or elderly guests?

Are you planning just the wedding day, or do you also want a welcome dinner, the wedding itself and perhaps a brunch the following day?

Will your guests need transportation every day?

What wedding venues actually exist in the area?

Can they comfortably accommodate your guest count?

Do they have a Plan B that is every bit as beautiful as Plan A?

And finally, what will it cost to turn all of this into the wedding you imagined?

Because your destination isn’t the backdrop to your wedding.

It’s part of the plan.

Maybe You Haven’t Found Your Italy Yet

There is absolutely nothing wrong with dreaming of a wedding on Lake Como, in Tuscany, on the Amalfi Coast, in Puglia or in Sicily.

If, after considering your wishes, your guests, logistics, venues and budget, we discover that one of those destinations is perfect for you, I’ll be the first to say:

Let’s go.

But I would never want you to choose a place simply because the internet made you believe that destination weddings in Italy begin and end with those places.

My job isn’t to take you where everyone else is going.

It’s to understand what you are really looking for and to know this country well enough to search in places where you, understandably, might never have thought to look.

Sometimes we’ll arrive exactly where you imagined from the beginning.

Other times, I’ll be able to say:

“Wait. There’s a place I think you should see.”

And that is one of the parts of my job I love most.

Because you don’t need to know every corner of Italy before you start planning your destination wedding.

You just need to find the one that eventually makes you think: yes, this is our Italy.

And if you don’t know where to look for it yet, we can start right there.

Tell me how you imagine your wedding, who you’ll be bringing with you and what kind of experience you want to have in Italy. From that first conversation, we can start looking not simply for a beautiful destination, but for the one that is right for you.

Prefer email? Write to me and tell me what you have in mind.

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