Lavinia & Sav

Destination weddings don't come much more perfect than this one - Lavinia and Sav had THE dream Italian wedding and it's most definitely one of those weddings that we wish we could have attended... The attention to detail with the decor and styling is just impeccable - think nude and peachy tones combined with metallic accents, a stunning mix of peonies and roses, elegant candelabras, the most gorgeous lace gown, and just wait until you see the escort cards - Lavinia wrote every guests name on a label, attached them to vintage keys and then used peach and lace ribbon to hang them all from a tree in the courtyard of the castle. It just looks so lovely! We love a happy ending too, and we're pleased to report that this gorgeous couple have added a baby and a dog to their family. Lavinia blogs at Dream Big, Little Girl if you fancy a snoop at her family and also a look at the Hindi part of their wedding :)

A Destination Wedding

Lavinia The Bride: Where to begin? Sav and I have been together for 11 years so having a big party for our family was a must. Love has no religion, we are a testament to that as he is Hindu and I am Catholic. So we got married in July (twice!) and now live happily ever after (most of the time) with our little girl and a puppy! I recently joined the blogging world, my blog is called dreambiglittlegirl.com so I was thrilled to be picked to feature on one of my favourite blogs!

The Destination

Planning an interfaith affair was quite the task and one we couldn't have done without our family and friends! We had a Catholic wedding abroad in Italy for our nearest and dearest and a big Hindu wedding and reception in the UK. Why Italy? I didn’t really have a good enough answer to that through all my planning when asked by family except, why not?! Both me and my husband have always loved a good Italian and after visiting Italy several times, quickly got swept away by the idea of getting married in Tuscany.We came upon the venue after a quick internet search and fell in love with it.

The Style

We wanted a rustic, vintage yet romantic feel and Castello di Vincigliata was exactly all of those things. With its gorgeous courtyard and stunning panoramic view of Florence, it easily set the tone for all the details. We picked blush pink with gold accents for our colour scheme so my dress, the flowers, the bridal party outfits and table plan were all inspired by this. With the incredible backdrop the castle provided, we wanted to keep the décor simple and chic. Our wedding planner, Raffaella Alflatt of WedInItaly helped make all our ideas come to life especially my biggest wish of having chandeliers hanging from the open-air courtyard. She found us a beautiful rare Baroque style church within a monastery atop a hill for our ceremony and arranged everything for us here. She also introduced us to Simona Giordano of Floralia who did an incredible job with the flowers. I am a little obsessed with peonies, roses and gypsophila so these were dotted around everywhere from my bouquet to the church aisle and the table centerpieces. For centerpieces, we chose to have flowers, differing heights of candle stands, mercury vases and candlelight.

The Entertainment

We picked a Jazz trio to play during canapes, a wedding band after dinner and DJ for the evening entertainment through Alberto, of Alma Project who kept the party going till the early hours of the morning! Being huge foodies, we were very pleased with our caterers Il Fattore Party. They arranged for us to have a traditional Italian wedding cake and a fabulous array of canapés, desserts and amazing wedding menu.

The Photography

One of the first decisions we made and vendors we booked was our incredible wedding photographer, Anushe Low. We knew we wouldn’t be disappointed but didn’t expect how over and above she would go. She worked so well with our fantastic videography team, X-Quisite! But most importantly, she told our story so perfectly through her lens and vision. I feel like I’m reliving the day every time I look at our pictures. She captured all of our DIY details which meant so much after the hours spent driving my family crazy over them.

The DIY

I'd like to think I am quite a creative person so vintage inspired DIY weddings have always appealed to me! After many hours of happily trawling through my favourite wedding blogs and Pinterest, it was clear that this was the style I wanted! So I got to work to create our own little accents to have at our wedding. It was definitely a labour of love as we had so many projects going which I'm excited to share here. I couldn’t have done any of this without the help of my very patient mother, sister and husband! We used wix.com to help create a wedding website (www.laviniaandsav.com) which was a fun way to keep our guests updated on the events and share our story! To go with the rustic vintage feel, we designed and printed our own invitations at home and although a long process, we were pleased with the results! My favourite DIY was a cork board table plan. I purchased lots of wine corks and glue gunned them to a cardboard backing. Put it inside a vintage looking frame and then pinned the different table names and details to it that I hand wrote! I have a thing for vintage keys so for escort cards, I wrote every guests name on a label, attached a vintage key and used peach and lace ribbon to hang them on the tree in the courtyard of the castle. This was a fun way for people to find where they were sitting! Finally my husband is a big foodie and Italian cuisine is a favourite of ours so this had to feature in our wedding favours. We bought little bottles and spent hours filling them in our little Italian hotel room with the best locally bought Balsamic vinegar and olive oil we have ever tasted! Completed these with a sprig of rosemary and a little note to say many thanks or 'Grazie Mille'