Valentina & Michele

This tropical themed Italian destination wedding comes with an insanely beautiful wedding alert, so make sure you are sitting comfortably so you can appreciate every epic detail planned and styled by Come Le Ciliegie wedding planners. The fresh green and bold fuschia pink colour palette is the epitome of tropical and the use of foliage and flowers further adds to the theme, as does the chicken wire table plan, gold spray painted pineapples and immense stationery. And finally sparkling amongst all this pretty is bride Valentina's intricate Jenny Packham Dolly gown. The beading and cut are heavenly and suit Valentina down to the ground. This is the first time we've featured the photography work of Effeanfotografie, but I certainly hope it won't be the last, they've really told the story of this beautiful summer wedding outside Rome, as a result I'm now dreading of warmer days and romantic evenings.

Our Story

Valentina the Bride: Our love started more than twelve years ago. I’m from Ferrara, a small town in the north of Italy, he’s from Rome. But we shared a special place located amidst the beautiful Marche’s hills, where our grandparents lived a long time ago. So every summer we met there since we were kids, under the starry sky of Cabernardi, a small hamlet of about two hundred inhabitants. Our love grew strong, and soon I decided to move to Rome. Long story short, in our wedding we wanted to revive the familiar and cozy feeling that we experience every time we step into our village, surrounded by our friends and folks.To achieve this goal, the help from Barbara and Carolina, alias Come Le Ciliegie, our wedding planners, was invaluable! After meeting them the first time we were sure that they would have realized exactly what was just in our minds. And it went exactly this way!

Bridal Fashion

I had no idea of which design could suit me and I hadn't any particular design in mind either. For sure, anything too wide or traditional. I did a two days full immersion in boutiques trying all kinds of dresses but my choice focused on the last one tried: Dolly by Jenny Packham. What made me fall in love with my dress was the complicate pattern of pearls and beads that made it precious but fresh at the same time, with its vintage inspired allure. On the contrary I knew exactly which pair of shoes I wanted and they were the perfect match for the dress: Butterfly by Anniel. Since the dress was quite rich I choose not to wear any jewellery except for earrings. I wore two pairs of them: a drop one from ASOS, and diamond studs from Stroili, a gift from my mother-in-law-to-be. I didn't want a veil but I choose a hair comb from Enze Bridal shop on Etsy, which recall the dress decorations.

Grooms Attire

Michele the Groom: My suit was custom made from Four Stroke. After visiting several shops I decided to go with a hand made dress for two reasons. First, it was not easy to find exactly what I was looking for as I wanted a classic suit, dark blue, but with a fancy vest. Second, it’s even more difficult to find a dress that suits perfectly someone that is almost 2 meters tall and quite thin, like me. After chatting a little bit with Francesco, the tailor at Four Stroke, I was totally sure that he would have been able to make the perfect suit for me. And indeed he succeeded! The tie was a beautiful Church’s that totally matched the dress. The twins from Corneliani were a present from my parents, when they knew about my wedding with Valentina.

Venue

We chose Castellina de Miremont, in the countryside of Rome,an historical house of the XIV century surrounded by a charming garden. The interiors were just perfect: it felt like being in a place where you belong, intimate, hearty, exactly what we were looking for.The garden as well was ideal for our plans, as we decided for an outdoor ceremony and a live music set. The hills surrounding Castellina remind us of our village where our love burst.

Colour Scheme and Flowers

I had in mind a palette of colours that I really liked, mainly burgundy, fuchsia, powder pink, shades of green, but I was not sure how to bring these colours to my wedding. Thanks to our wedding planners Barbara and Carolina we developed a tropical style that perfectly matched my colour scheme. Sartoria Floreale provided us marvelous flowers, such as dahlias, orchids, amaranthus, monstera and kenthias. Their work really was really incredible, the Castellina garden really turned on a tropical jungle, everybody was so enthusiastic about it. The table decorations and the details were amazing too: painted pineapples were all over the place, copper tanks full of flowers decorated the table, place cards were aspidistra leaves with names written on them! So cool!

Ceremony

Valentina the Bride: Since we had an outdoor civil ceremony within Castellina beautiful garden, we add some personal touches just to make it more romantic and special. We selected two personal songs for our entrances. The groom one was All I Want is You by Barry Louis Polisar played by Francesco and Mattia, two of our closest friends. For my entrance we decided for Can’t Help Falling in Love, the Perfume Genius version. The groomsman Marco, the bridesmaid Silvia and a close friend of us, Sofia, recounted some very moving fragments of our life together. We end the ceremony with a shower of rice and soap bubbles. The rings were handmaded by Peppino Capuano Jewellery, an historical jewellery in the heart of the Eternal City.

Entertainment

We definitely wanted to get people dancing and partying! So we planned to have a double live music set matched with very good quality drinking managed by FBS Bar Catering. They even suggested to have a signature cocktail for the wedding. We choose vodka and passion fruit as basic ingredients and named it Passion 2.9 (our wedding was on 2 September). As to the music, Alfio Antico, Michele’s uncle and a well known musician, together with his son Mattia played an amazing full set with a tailored playlist chosen by Michele. Then, we had a set by Welcome to Hill Valley, a very talented band playing classic ’50 and ’60 rock’n’roll music. They surely know how to shake the dance floor! After that, even if it was very late in the night, we decided to play a couple more songs, so Mattia took the guitar again and we end our party singing altogether some of our classic tunes.What a night!

Food

Yes,we are foodies. So it is no surprise that the selection of food and beverages did really matter for us. We wanted something traditional from Rome and something that reminds us the mood and flavors that we are used to when we feast with our friends in our little village, Cabernardi. Ambrosini helped us in realizing this plan. We had amazing appetizers and,since Castellina has a fully functional ancient oven, we had also a very talented man serving fresh made pizza. For the wedding dinner we started with a classic Roman first course, ravioli with guanciale, fresh tomato sauce and pecorino cheese, a traditional amatriciana but with a touch of refinement. Then, the BBQ! Michele is a “natural born griller” so he couldn’t give up on the idea to have a proper grill with all sort of meat roasting and sizzling on it. Guests could approach the grill and pick out their favourite ones among skewers, sausages and steaks. As to the beverages, Michele directly contacted three of his favourites wine cellars. Two of them where from Marche, Collestefano, with an amazing Verdicchio, and Terracruda, with a Sangiovese matched perfectly with the BBQ. Last but not least, a wine from Piedmont by Palladino, a powerful and fresh Barbera.

Photographer

The first time I came across the Instagram profile of Francesca, aka Effeanfotografie, I was totally in love with her style. I thought she would have been perfect and indeed she totally delivered. When we received the pictures we were so excited, all the marvelous moments that we lived just a couple of weeks before were there, imprinted in those amazing shots.

Videographer

Barbara and Carolina suggested us Headshot Weddings as videographers. Their video on Vimeo totally blew our mind. They were exactly how we imagined a video of our wedding: not too long (5 to 7 minutes), good music, friends and parents partying together, moments of intimacy of the bride and the groom. Moreover, during the wedding day they were so funny and relaxed, so we were not embarrassed at all in front of the camera.

Honeymoon

Last but not least, our honeymoon! Laura from 3L World helped us to plan a wonderful trip in South Africa. She was able to suggest fantastic locations all over the country, that we reached during our more than 2000 km road trip. Safari, hiking, wine yards, sea sides… we will never forget these incredible moments. Thanks again Laura!